n8n Workflow: Clio Retention Reviews to Google Sheets

Clio retention reviews in Google Sheets—fully automated with email reminders and attorney decisions

This n8n workflow monitors your firm’s Clio matters, schedules client-matter retention reviews in a Google Sheets “Retention” ledger, and sends escalating reminder emails with one-click attorney actions (Confirm/Extend/Hold) recorded back to the sheet via webhook.

What this workflow does

• Runs daily to pull your firm directory and Closed matters from the Clio API using a configured Clio OAuth2 credential.
• Calculates retention deadlines per matter based on practice area, deduplicates already-scheduled matters, and appends new rows to the Google Sheets “Retention” ledger.
• Continuously manages schedule state by reading the ledger daily and keeping only entries still marked as scheduled.
• Builds color-coded reminder tiers at 90/30/7 days before, plus overdue—then generates an email with one-click links for:
  • Confirm deletion authorization
  • Extend (writes a new deadline)
  • Legal hold
• Logs compliance activity to a separate compliance-audit workflow and sends reminders via SMTP Email Send to the responsible attorney (or a fallback firm email).
• Processes webhook decisions: clicking an email link calls a webhook, validates the request, updates the matching ledger row with the attorney decision, and returns an HTML confirmation (or error) page.

Use cases

• Automate retention review scheduling for all Clio closed matters without manual tracking.
• Ensure attorneys respond to deadlines with escalating reminders and immediate auditability.
• Maintain a single source of truth in Google Sheets for retention status, deadlines, and decisions.

Technical details

• Integrations: Clio API (OAuth2), Google Sheets (OAuth2).
• n8n nodes / logic: if, code, filter, webhook, split out, email send.
• Required setup variables: CLIO_BASE_URL, RETENTION_LEDGER_SHEET_ID.
• Ledger: Create a “Retention” sheet with the required column headers (including status and last action columns as defined in the setup).