Abacus Law for Windows

Abacus Law for Windows

In last year's Shopper's Guide to Case Management, there were still three programs designed for the DOS environment. This time around, the publishers did not provide a single DOS version. Even Abacus Law, which last time was only available for DOS, sent a Windows version. The bottom line is that while you may still be able to find DOS versions, do not expect the publishers to continue upgrading those products.

Perhaps because it was only recently ported over to the Windows environment, Abacus Law was one of the more basic programs reviewed here. But its simple nature might make it the program of choice for those looking for something that is easy to implement and use.

Abacus Law has the look and feel of PIMs such as Day-Timer or Lotus Organizer, but is customized for a law practice. The calendar view presents you with four sections: appointments, things to do, reminders and calls to make. Inputting any item has been greatly streamlined through the frequent use of drop-down menus. To enter an appointment, for example, you can enter who, what, when and where without ever touching the keyboard, assuming all of these items are in the database.

The contacts view has tabs for notes, linked matters and linked events. Through the use of links you can group and organize related items. I was disappointed by the paucity of fields in the contacts view. Aside from listing the information free-form in the notes section, there is no place to enter such seemingly obvious items such as a second address, e-mail address and Web page.

A unique and useful feature is the "history" button. Think of this as the forward and backward buttons you find on a Web browser. You can simply page forward and backward through all of the records you have reviewed, rather than performing another search to retrieve the same information a second time.

Abacus's document creation features are very basic. The program will launch your word processor, and via the Windows clipboard will insert contact information into a letter. There are also some basic merge functions. Other features include a link to Timeslips, the ability to permanently attach a query to a report so that it is run automatically, and conflict of interest checking.

Abacus Data Systems
(800-726-3339

By Aaron P. Morris

From the Shopper's Guide to Case Management Software - Dec/Jan '98