For the Marketing Department

Email Consent Management

Compliance with Anti-Spam Laws

Email Consent by Contact with Optional Automatic Expiration

Anti-spam laws for Canada (CASL), the European Union (GDPR), and the State of California (CCPA), require law firms to show consent from contacts to receive email as well as other website requirements. IntelliPad requires every contact to have an Email Consent value of Unknown, Implied, Express, or Withdrawn. ‘Express’ means consent received, ‘Implied’ means consent will expire after a specified duration related to the last invoice date for any of the contact’s client relationships (Canada CASL), ‘Withdrawn’ means no communication is allowed. ‘Unknown’ can be used for all new contacts, and left that way if the firm need not show consent received.
IntelliPad provides control of mail type based on Email Consent, or just to comply with contacts’ preferences. For example, ‘Unknown’ Consent may only allow mailing of printed materials, to avoid accidental emailing. Even with ‘Express’ Consent, some contacts may wish to receive emails while others would prefer printed materials only. The Email Consent information is optionally visible and editable, and Accounting Client Relationships can be added, in Outlook on the Marketing Information page as shown below. All changes are audited.
IntelliPad provides an optional “Automatic Expiration” feature for Implied Consent, if used. For Canadian law, consent expires 24 months after the date of last invoice for the contact’s primary company/organization or any of the contact’s accounting client relationships. (Other laws may differ.) Each firm can create an email message to be sent to contacts a designated number of days prior to the expiration date, optionally including a clickable link to a landing page on the firm’s website where they can opt-in to continue receiving emails for selected alerts/publications, or opt-out of all. These responses are automatically downloaded and imported to the CRM database.

FAQ for this page

Will a CRM enforce compliance with anti-spam laws?

Yes. The IntelliPad CRM requires all contacts added in Outlook to have a default Email Consent status of “Unknown” and a default Mail Type which can be “No Mail” for firms that must comply. Contacts cannot be included in email mail tasks unless and until their Email Consent has been expressly given, with a source and date, and their Mail Type has been changed to allow email only or both email and hardcopy mail. This feature enables compliance with the CASL (Canada), GDPR (European Union), and CCPA (State of California). IntelliPad includes an administrative utility that searches, and optionally corrects, any contacts currently out of compliance.

If an implied consent status is allowed, i.e. emails may be sent, while active invoices exist for a client: Consent must be withdrawn 2 years after the last invoice date (per the CASL). IntelliPad can do this automatically by keeping track of the invoices and payments, exported from the billing application, for each contact— for all their related clients. A report informs attorneys of upcoming consent withdrawal dates for their contacts. The firm can create an email to be sent automatically to every contact, any number of days before their consent will expire, optionally including a clickable link to a firm web page where they can either unsubscribe from all communications, or request continued subscription to selected firm publications.

Can the CRM automatically withdraw implied email consent for contacts?

Yes. IntelliPad enables Outlook contacts to be linked to one or more clients from the accounting and billing database. In this way, the program can keep track of the most recent invoice date for each contact (from all their linked clients). The Canadian law (CASL) requires implied consent withdrawn 2 years after the last invoice date. Each firm can create an email notification of upcoming withdrawal, for contacts, and can specify the number of days prior to expiration for the email to be sent. As explained in the answer to the question above, this email can contain a clickable link to a firm web page where contacts can request continued subscription to selected firm publications, or unsubscribe from all. If unsubscribed, or no answer received: On the expiration date the program automatically changes the contact’s Email Consent to Withdrawn and Mail Type to No Mail, logging the date and time with an appropriate comment. The contact will no longer be eligible for inclusion in any type of mail task.

The changed Email Consent, Mail Type, expiration date and time, and program note are visible to attorneys in Outlook and in the browser view, and to Marketing staff for each contact record’s history and in the Data Changes log.