How to Hand Over a Case When Someone Leaves

When someone leaves, the risk is not the matters everyone knows about. It is the promise made on a phone call, the document waiting in a personal inbox, the deadline tracked in someone's head. A good handover gets that knowledge out of the person and onto the record before their last day, and assigns every open matter to a named new owner.

Start with a full list

Two to three weeks before the leaving date, produce a list of every matter the person owns or works on. Do not rely on them to write it from memory; pull it from wherever matters are tracked, then ask them to add anything missing. Anything that is not on the list will not be handed over.

A handover note for each matter

For each open matter, the leaver writes a short note on the matter itself, not in a separate document that will get lost. Use the same structure every time:

1. Where it stands, in two or three sentences.
2. Next action and its date.
3. Hard deadlines coming up, with dates.
4. People: who the key contacts are, what they expect, anything sensitive about the relationship.
5. Promises made: anything agreed verbally that is not yet written down.
6. Where things are: documents, emails or physical items not already filed with the matter.
7. Risks: what they were worried about.

The fifth and sixth points are where handovers usually fail. Ask directly: "Is there anything you've told the client you'll do that isn't written down?" and "Is there anything for this matter in your inbox, your desktop or your desk drawer?"

Get the email out of the inbox

If correspondence lives in personal mailboxes, the leaver's inbox holds the only record of many conversations. Before they go, the relevant threads must be filed with each matter. After they go, their mailbox may be closed or become hard to access. This is one of the strongest arguments against using email as the filing system, as covered in the hidden cost of using email as a filing system.

Walk through the risky ones

Not every matter needs a meeting. Sort the list: routine matters are handed over by note; complex, urgent or sensitive ones get a short conversation between the leaver and the new owner, with the note open. Where possible, the new owner should join one call with the client before the leaver goes.

Tell the people outside

Clients, tenants, other parties and suppliers need to know who their new contact is. Send a brief message introducing the new owner, and record on each matter that you did. Set an automatic reply on the leaver's mailbox pointing to a monitored address.

Access, the day they leave

Remove the leaver's access on their last day, not the following week. Before you do, make sure nothing is only accessible to them: documents they uploaded privately, shares they created, passwords they alone knew. Ownership of anything they held should move to the new owner or a team role.

Check a month later

Four weeks after the handover, review each reassigned matter in your normal weekly case review. Is it moving? Did anything surprise the new owner? Surprises tell you what to add to the handover note structure next time.