---
title: Associate an existing Outside Counsel to a legal matter
description: Add existing outside counsels to a legal matter and enable the patent fulfiller to communicate with the outside counsel for reviewing and processing the Legal Invention Disclosure requests.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/employee-service-management/legal-invention-disclosure/add-outside-counsel-to-existing-matter.html
release: australia
product: Legal Invention Disclosure
classification: legal-invention-disclosure
topic_type: task
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 2
breadcrumb: [Use, Legal Invention Disclosure, Legal Service Delivery Practice Applications, Legal Service Delivery, Legal and Contract Operations, Employee Service Management]
---

# Associate an existing Outside Counsel to a legal matter

Add existing outside counsels to a legal matter and enable the patent fulfiller to communicate with the outside counsel for reviewing and processing the Legal Invention Disclosure requests.

## Before you begin

The following items must have been created:

-   An Outside Firm record. For more information, see [Set up Outside Firms for Legal Invention Disclosure](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/employee-service-management/legal-invention-disclosure/setup-outside-firms.md).
-   An Outside Counsel record. For more information, see [Set up Outside Counsels for Legal Invention Disclosure](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/employee-service-management/legal-invention-disclosure/setup-outside-counsels.md).
-   A related legal matter. For more information, see [Create a matter or add a Legal Invention Disclosure request to an existing matter](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/employee-service-management/legal-invention-disclosure/create-matter.md).

You must have the invention disclosure request ID and the matter ID.

Role required: admin, sn\_lg\_ops.request\_fulfiller

## Procedure

1.  Navigate to **All** > **Legal Counsel Center**.

2.  Select the List icon \(\[Omitted image "lsd-lcc-list-icon.png"\] Alt text: List icon\) from the primary navigation and in the Legal Requests section of the **Lists** menu, select **All**.

3.  Select and open the request.

4.  Select the **Legal Matters** tab and open the matter.

5.  Select **Assign to me**.

6.  Select the **Outside Counsel** tab.

7.  Select **Add Outside Counsel**.

8.  On the form, fill in the fields.

    | | |
    |---|---|
    |Outside firm|Name of the parent firm for the outside counsel from the lookup which were already added.|
    |Outside counsel|Name of the outside counsel from the lookup which were already added for the specific outside firm.|
    |State|This field is automatically set to Offline and cannot be modified.|
    |Outside Counsel Email|This field is auto-populated with the email address of the outside counsel.|

9.  Select **Save**.

10. Verify that the outside counsel was added by refreshing the Outside Counsel tab.


**Parent Topic:**[Using the Legal Invention Disclosure](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/employee-service-management/legal-invention-disclosure/use-legal-invention-disclosure.md)