Purpose and best uses
The sidebar's navigation controls help you move around Law Mind and manage the space occupied by the menu. They include the Law Mind brand link, the control for hiding the menu, and the related controls for showing navigation again. The menu also uses group labels such as Research, Professional, and Account and Settings. Use these elements to orient yourself and give more room to the active page. They organize access to the tools; they do not perform research, save a document, or change a legal result.
Home is the workspace's starting page, while the Law Mind brand link points to the public website's root page. Those destinations should not be confused. Clicking the brand can take you out to the public-facing site rather than simply reopen the signed-in Home panel. The Research and Professional labels divide the menu into useful groups, with items alphabetized within those groups. Account and Settings contains administrative and personal controls. The group headings are organizing labels, not additional research tools that need to be run.
How to use it well
Use the hide or collapse control when a source, draft, or comparison needs more horizontal space. The desktop interface stores its collapsed-menu preference in the browser, and a corresponding Show navigation control lets you restore it. On smaller screens, the menu opens as a drawer through the menu button and closes after navigation. These are different presentations of the same navigation system. A hidden menu is therefore not evidence that the features have disappeared or that your subscription has changed.
When moving among tools, save or preserve any work that requires an explicit action before leaving its screen. Navigation changes the active page, but it is not a universal save command. Some tools maintain records automatically, some have save controls, and some inputs can be temporary. If you are unsure where a result belongs, use the feature's own saved status and the distinctions in this guide: conversations in History, supported standalone research in My Research, saved reference entries in My List, and organized case work in Matters.
Example and practical limits
You might begin at Home, open Search, locate an opinion, and hide the sidebar while reading the source. When you are ready to continue, show navigation and move to Ask or Conversation. On a smaller display, use the menu button to select the next tool rather than expect the entire sidebar to remain visible beside the document. If you accidentally open the public website through the brand link, return to the application through the site's appropriate account or workspace route rather than assuming your research was deleted.
The available menu items depend on the current account's subscription. Professional tools require a Professional subscription. First distinguish a collapsed menu from a genuinely unavailable item, then check the account if necessary. These controls are best used for comfortable navigation and clear orientation. They should not be confused with the Word add-in's ribbon button, browser bookmarks, or an export control. Once you understand the menu groups and the difference between hiding navigation and leaving a tool, the sidebar becomes a dependable map of the application instead of another source of uncertainty about where your work has gone.
When helping another person find a tool, give the group and the label rather than only its screen position. Alphabetical ordering, access differences, and small-screen layouts can change where an item appears. “Research, then My Research” is a more reliable instruction than “the fifth button down.”