Firms
Firm portal help
Setup + day-to-day reference for recruiting teams. If something isn’t covered, email firms@biglawbear.com.
Setting up your firm portal
First-day onboarding for a new firm-side admin: profile, team, branding, candidate notice templates.
What's the day-1 setup checklist?
- Confirm your firm profile is current at Account, including firm name, offices, practice areas, vault rank, recruiting contact.
- Invite your team at Settings → Team. Members get a passwordless email invite. Assign at least one Backup Admin so the recruiting line never goes dark.
- Connect your video provider, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, or Zoom, at Settings → Calendar. We mint meeting links per booking automatically once connected.
- Build your email + offer letter templates with the live designer at Templates.
- Update the candidate notice templates (NYC AEDT and Illinois AI consent) with your firm-specific copy if your roles touch those scopes.
How do I add or remove team members?
From Settings → Team, click Invite, enter their email + role (Member or Backup Admin). They receive a passwordless invite link. To remove someone, click their row and choose Remove, their access is revoked immediately, and your audit log records the change.
Can I transfer the Primary Admin role?
Yes, only the current Primary Admin can transfer. From Settings → Team, click an existing teammate and choose “Transfer Primary Admin.” The recipient confirms via email. The previous Primary keeps Member access unless removed.
Email + offer-letter templates
Designing templates with the live editor, brand kits, merge fields, the per-stage auto-queue.
How do I design a template?
From Templates, pick the template you want to edit (we ship sensible defaults for screener invitation, callback invitation, offer letter, rejection, accepted-offer confirmation). The designer is the two-pane live editor: edit on the left, candidate-facing preview on the right with sample merge data so you can see exactly what they’ll receive.
Drop in your brand color, pick a font (Editorial, Modern, Quiet), drag in a logo URL, and add a signer block. Save once and the kit applies to every send of that template.
What merge fields can I use?
- {{first_name}} / {{last_name}} / {{student_name}}
- {{firm_name}} / {{office}} / {{practice_group}}
- {{scheduling_link}} (auto-generated per round)
- {{interview_date}} / {{interview_time}} / {{interview_location}}
- {{offer_deadline}} / {{salary}} / {{signing_bonus}} / {{start_date}}
- {{partner_name}} / {{partner_title}}
- {{offer_review_link}} / {{offer_letter_link}}
What is auto-queue?
Templates power the Invite Queue. Your team can select a cohort, review the exact candidate-facing email, edit any individual message, then release it now or pace the release. Quiet hours + per-user opt-outs still apply so recruiting teams do not accidentally send at 3am.
Calendars + video meetings
Connecting Google, Microsoft 365, or Zoom; auto-meeting links; conflict detection.
Which calendar / video providers does Big Law Bear support?
- Google Calendar, free/busy, write-back, auto-Meet links per booking
- Microsoft 365, Outlook free/busy, write-back, auto-Teams links
- Zoom, auto-mints a meeting per booking with the host start URL secured for your interviewer
What does conflict detection do?
When a candidate goes to book a slot, we check the interviewer’s real free/busy state in their calendar and silently filter out slots that would conflict. The candidate never sees a conflicting time, so you don’t have to chase reschedules.
Where does the meeting link go?
Three places: (1) the candidate’s booking confirmation email, (2) the .ics calendar invite attached to that email, and (3) the calendar event we write back to your interviewer’s system. Zoom hosts also get a separate host start URL that’s never shared with the candidate.
Sending offer letters
End-to-end offer flow: pick template, fill merge fields, sign, send, track signature.
What's the offer-send workflow?
- From Offers, click New offer.
- Pick the candidate from the list of eligible applications (anyone in callback or earlier stages with an extended offer).
- Pick a template, fill in the merge fields (salary, signing bonus, start date, deadline). The live preview shows you exactly what the candidate will receive.
- Type your name to sign. Click Send.
- The candidate gets a one-time signing link. Once they sign, you get a Teams ping (if a webhook is connected), an email, and the application moves to “Offer Signed.”
Can the candidate decline gracefully?
Yes. The signing page has both Sign and Decline buttons. Decline asks for a brief reason (optional). You receive the decline note in your inbox and the application transitions to “Offer Declined” automatically.
What happens to other firms when a candidate accepts?
We auto-withdraw the candidate’s open applications at other firms and send each firm a polite “candidate accepted elsewhere” note. We never disclose which firm received the accepted offer, privacy. Atomic at the database level: a single transaction guarantees the withdrawal + notification happen together or not at all.
Analytics & reporting
Funnel, school breakdown, time-to-offer, yield projections, exporting.
What metrics does the analytics page show?
- Top-of-funnel volume by school
- Conversion at every pipeline stage
- Time-to-offer (median + 90th percentile)
- Yield projections + signed-offer counts
- Decline reasons (when candidates leave one)
- Source attribution (where each candidate came from)
- Per-recruiter activity for ops oversight
Can I export the data?
Yes, every dashboard has a CSV + PDF export button. Exports respect your team’s data-access scope (Members see their assigned candidates; Admins see everything).
Compliance & audit
NYC LL144, IL AI Video Interview Act, EEOC, audit logs, GDPR/CCPA exports.
How do you handle NYC AEDT (LL144) requirements?
We auto-detect NYC-scope roles, send the candidate notice ≥10 business days before any AEDT runs, log the notice + opt-out, and only run AEDT for candidates who haven’t opted out. The bias audit summary lives at /legal/nyc-aedt-notice and we publish it quarterly.
What's logged in the audit trail?
- Every application status change (who, when, prev/next)
- Every email sent (to, subject, surface, send time)
- Every offer envelope event (created, sent, viewed, signed, declined, voided)
- Every team-membership change
- Every settings change
How does a candidate request their data?
Candidates email privacy@biglawbear.com. Big Law Bear fulfills the request within 30 days. Your firm receives a notice that a candidate exercised their data-access right; you don’t need to take action unless the request includes a deletion that intersects an active offer.
Need a hand?
Email firms@biglawbear.com. We respond within one business day, usually faster.
For incidents (something is broken), email incidents@biglawbear.com , those are routed to PagerDuty and acknowledged within 15 minutes during business hours.