Bookings Use Case: Law Office

Use WooCommerce Bookings to offer appointments with a choice of lawyer, weekday office hours, holiday closures, and confirmation before payment.

Scenario

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Jane Martinez and Daniel Brooks offer one-hour appointments from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Monday to Friday. Each lawyer can meet with one client at a time. The office closes on December 25 and January 1.

Clients choose a lawyer and submit an appointment request. The office confirms the request before the client pays. Clients can cancel until seven days before the appointment starts. That cancellation deadline is separate from a buffer between appointments.

Setup and configuration

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Before you begin, install and activate WooCommerce and WooCommerce Bookings, and confirm the store timezone under Settings > General. Use a test site to check availability and confirmation before accepting customer requests. The example uses America/Los Angeles and a base appointment cost of 200 US dollars, excluding tax.

Configure the resources

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A resource represents the lawyer assigned to an appointment. Give each lawyer a quantity of one so that two clients cannot reserve the same lawyer for overlapping appointments.

1. Go to Bookings > Resources and select Add Resource.
2. Enter Attorney Jane Martinez in Bookable Resource Name, set Available Quantity to 1, and select Publish.
3. Repeat for Attorney Daniel Brooks, also with a quantity of 1.

Configure storewide holiday closures

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Store availability applies to every bookable product. Use it for days when the whole office is closed. If a closure applies to only one service or lawyer, add it to that product or resource instead.

1. Go to Bookings > Settings > Store Availability.
2. Select Add Range twice. Choose Specific Dates (All day) for each rule and enter the closure date in both ends of the range.
3. Set Bookable to No and Priority to 9 for both rules. Add descriptive titles, then select Save Changes.

Closure	Date (From and To)
Christmas	2026-12-25
New Year	2027-01-01

Use the dates and years that apply to your office. These rules cover specific dates and do not repeat every year. Priority 9 overrides the priority 10 opening rules added below.

Create the appointment product

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1. Go to Products > Add new product and name it Law Office Appointment.
2. Choose Bookable product in Product data. Enable Virtual and Has resources.
3. On General, set Booking duration to Fixed blocks of 1 Hour(s) and Calendar display mode to Calendar always visible.
4. Enable Requires confirmation? and Can be cancelled?. Set Booking can be cancelled until to 7 Day(s) before the start. Cancelling a booking does not automatically issue a refund.
5. On Resources, enter Lawyer as the label and choose Customer selected under Resources are…. Link both existing lawyer resources with Add/link Resource. Leave their additional costs at zero.
6. Leave Share max bookings per block? unchecked so each lawyer keeps an independent appointment allowance.
7. On Availability, set All dates are… to not-available by default and Check rules against… to All blocks being booked. Set First block starts at… to 10:00 am and the buffer period to 0.
8. Set Minimum block bookable to 1 Week(s) into the future and the maximum to 6 Month(s). This example requires a week of notice for new appointments; the cancellation deadline is configured separately on General.
9. Select Add Range three times and configure the rules below.
10. On Costs, set Base cost to 200 and Block cost to 0. Configure taxes for your business, then select Publish.

Range	Rule
Every day (Set time): 10:00 am to 1:00 pm	Bookable: Yes Priority: 10
Every day (Set time): 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm	Bookable: Yes Priority: 10
Specific Days (All day): Saturday to Sunday	Bookable: No Priority: 9

The two time rules open the morning and afternoon periods. The higher-precedence weekend rule closes Saturday and Sunday. With one-hour blocks, the last appointment starts at noon before lunch and at 5:00 pm before closing.

Customer experience

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1. Open the appointment product and choose a lawyer, a future weekday, and a start time.
2. Select Check Availability and continue to checkout. Select Request Confirmation to submit the request. Payment is collected after the office confirms the booking.
3. After confirmation, use the payment link in the confirmation email to pay for the appointment.

Confirmation-required bookings use a separate checkout flow from products that can be purchased immediately. Test this flow with your store’s cart and checkout before launch.

Store admin experience

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1. Go to Bookings > All Bookings and open the request with Pending Confirmation status.
2. Check the selected lawyer, date, and times. To approve the request, set Booking status to Confirmed and select Save Booking.
3. The confirmation email asks the client to pay when payment is due. After successful payment, check that the booking has Paid status.

Verify the setup

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On a regular weekday, check both lawyers. Each should offer starts at 10:00 am, 11:00 am, noon, 3:00 pm, 4:00 pm, and 5:00 pm. Confirm that lunchtime, weekends, and both holiday dates cannot be booked. Check that dates inside the one-week notice period are unavailable.

Submit a test confirmation request. Confirm that no payment is collected before approval, that the request appears as Pending Confirmation, and that the selected lawyer’s time cannot be booked again while the other lawyer remains available. Confirm the request and check the customer email and payment link. Also check customer cancellation before and after the seven-day deadline.

If the result does not match

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If unexpected times appear, check the default availability, full-block rule checking, first block time, booking window, and all store, product, and resource rules. Lower priority numbers take precedence. If the two lawyers cannot accept appointments at the same time, check each resource’s quantity and leave the shared product allowance unchecked.

If confirmation or payment does not work as expected, check that Requires confirmation? is enabled, the request is linked to an order, and the booking status is correct. Check WooCommerce email settings and email delivery if the customer does not receive the confirmation. A missing cancellation action can mean that cancellations are disabled or the deadline has passed.