Chapter:
Overview
Legal Notes is an integrated suite of notes databases designed to operate and manage a legal practice. It offers the following features:
- Electronic filing and storage of all documents; ie incoming and internally generated documents.
- Workflow management and control
- Precedent management
- Litigation support
- Administrative support
Structure and Databases
Legal Notes can work on any number of servers to accomodate the requirements of the largest law office. It also provides for and manages branch offices. With a branch it assumed that there will be only one server. For every firm there will be a Head Office and one Administration Server.
The core of Legal Notes is comprised in two databases:
- The System* database (Lookup.nsf).
- The Matters* database (Matter.nsf)
There are two optional databases known as the:
- Precedent
- Litigation* (Litigate.nsf).
- Legal (Legaldb.nsf)
* Denotes system names that cannot be changed.
How the databases will be organised depends on the requirements of the individual firm; from one database to manage all files, to multiple Matter databases on different servers, divided for example by type of work; viz Litigation, Securities, Corporations etc. The structure that enables this kind of flexibility is found in the System database; in particular the matter details form and the User Profile. The System db is the engine. The Matter db is the vehicle.
System database
There is only one System db per office. It is the "hub" of Legal Notes. It must be stored on the Administration Server (ie any server designated as such in the User Profile), and has a similar function to names.nsf in Notes itself. It contains:
- The system variables in a single User Profile document;
- All clients and matter files (or documents);
- Keywords used in the various forms;
- Additional details on each user;
- Administrative procedures for:
- creating new, and editing existing, clients and matters;
- closing, archiving and re-opening of matters;
- Views to assist in the management of matters.
Matter database
This is the main operational database of Legal Notes, in which the documents for a matter are stored.
In the "Main" view, documents are organised in the same way as any file. Under the matter number there are the details of the matter (the Matter details document), followed by sub headings for each type of file; eg Correspondence, Court Documents, Evidence etc. The standard File Types are in the Keyword folder of the System db. Additional file headings can be designated for a given matter by including them in the "sub file" section of the Matter details document.
Workflow
Workflow is primarily controlled by reference to two criteria; a document's status and the individual "in control" of a document or task.
The life of a Matter follows a fairly predictable path as reflected in the available options for its status, namely:
- Current
- To be closed
- Closed
- Administration (reserved for matters that are really internal files to deal with office administration).
The status of a matter is more relevant to the management of a legal practice than it is to workflow.
Other documents move through status levels that are also reasonably well explained by their names. For example:
- In Progress
- Under Review
- Reviewed
- Finalised
The individual is classified and documents ordered or viewed by reference to the relevant function. For example, author, reviewer, assignor or assignee of a task, a responsible solicitor, secretary.
The In Progress view in the Matter db categories documents by the people that are working on them.
Tasks
Tasks are a species of workflow but are distinquished here to explain their function. Tasks can be broken down into the following categories as they appear in Legal Notes:
- Task Something to be done or a matter to be recalled. Agents automatically send mail to the person responsible for the Task when the deadline or recall date for the tasks is reached. The messages continue until the taks is finalised or the deadline or recall date is changed.
- Appointments A species of a Task. Notes calendar is fully integrated with Legal Notes so that, upon allocating a matter number to a calendar appointment or invitation, it will, in addition to being stored in your calendar, will be filed as a Task in the appropriate Matter db.
- Jobslips This form covers all forms of work not directly related to a professional task. EG - filing of court documents, searches, service etc
The Tasks view in the Matter db categorie Tasks by the people that are working on thm and the date for performance. .
Mail
Mail forms an integral part of workflow, simply because it facilitates communication and resolution of ideas, problems and facts. Any email, whether internal, or to or from a third party can be quickly filed against a matter. All workflow forms have a message button. You use this button as a quick way of sending a message relating to the document. With this button, the mail automatically refers to the document by its description and matter details, and provides a "link" button so that the user can go to it with one click.
Clients and Matters
Every document in Legal Notes must have a Matter (and therefore a client). You cannot create a document until you have created "the Matter". That is, a document based on the Matter details form containing a unique number and other details relating to the new instruction. You cannot have a matter until you have a client document. Whilst everything created in a Notes database is a "document", Legal Notes makes a conceptual distinction between Matters and Clients on the one hand, and documents created as part of the process of conducting a legal practice, on the other.
Clients and Matters are created in the System db. Legal Notes can centralise the creation of clients and matters. However it allows any staff member to complete the necessary forms, and submit them as "Requests" to the person authorised to create matters and clients, as specified in the User Profile. Distributed work flow is a feature of Legal Notes.
When you create a matter, it is automatically copied to the matter database, on the server, specified in the "Administation" section of the matter details form. With some simple programming, it should also be transferred to your accounting system. All the logic to effect this transfer is in place. It is simply a question of interfacing the data files generated by Legal Notes with your accounting package. If that package supports OLE 2, the process can be simplified even further.
Filing of documents
In the Main view, a documents is filed by reference to its matter number. Every matter has two unique numbers; one that identifies the matter and another that identifies the client. Every matter has one or more files or file types. The number of files depend on the demands of the individual matter.
Creating documents and Workflow
The types of documents in Legal Notes are best desbribed by the forms available to create them. The available forms are:
- Incoming (for all documents received by the firm)
- Outgoing (for all documents produced by the firm for publication - eg letters,
court documents etc)
Once the matter details document or file has been created, you create a document by reference to its matter number, using a form appropriate to the task at hand.
Document Status
The flow of documents is in all cases governed by its status. The levels of document's "status" depend on the type of document. There are two levels that are common to all documents, namel In Progress and Finalised. The general rule is, until a document has been finalised, it is in progress.
The other status levels you will encounter are:
Incoming documents
All incoming documents are scanned into documents based on the "Incoming" form. If the matter is not know, it is allocated to the suspense file that you create for each solicitor responsible for matters. This is created in the same way as a matter, but is classified or given the status of an Administration File.
Outgoing documents
Possibly the most important document from a workflow perspective, as it is used to produce all (or the vast bulk) of legal documents. By default Legal Notes embeds a Microsoft Word object into the document. The object is in fact copied from the System db (found in the Keywords folder). This is done to avoid an anoying feature of Notes that cannot be otherwise avoided. Notes will always launch an OLE 2 or higher object "in place".
Views
The Main view of all documents categorises documents by their matter number, then by the File (eg Correspondence, Court Documents, Evidence etc). Within each file documents are listed in date order.
The In Progress view categories in progress documents by the author, or if the document has been sent for review, by the name of the person to whom it was sent.
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