Chief Legal Officer 2.1

Chief Legal Officer 2.1

Chief Legal Officer was introduced just a few years ago as a relatively low-end, inexpensive, DOS-based application. Today's Chief Legal Officer has kept pace with developments in both technology and the evolving wants and needs of corporate law offices. Today, the application comes in a couple of flavors, with a third intranet version in production. And while over the last few years its price has risen, so have the application's capabilities.

Since CLO is designed to run on client/server networks, the different versions of the application require client/server database engines to operate. The Workgroup Edition, featured in this article, runs on Sybase SQL Anywhere. The Workgroup Edition is for law offices with 1-35 users. Corprasoft also produces an Enterprise Edition for medium-to-large law departments. The Enterprise Edition requires MS SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase database platforms.

Before getting to the introductory screen, CLO requires a username and password. Managing the user names and passwords is a very easy, menu-driven process for the System Administrator. And once usernames and passwords have been set up, they provide the application adequate security.

The main menu is very clearly laid out and well-designed. Buttons not only have easy-to-follow graphics (e.g., if you want to open Matters, you can click on a picture of an opening file folder), but are clearly identified and described.

The same graphical user interface is maintained throughout the application. CLO's integrated design keeps all its various parts only a point-and-click away, regardless of which module you're in.

CLO should cover just about all of your matter information management needs. The four main areas of tracking are Matters, People, Invoices and Organizations. You can track a huge variety of information using these four buttons . On a more practical level, you can use these buttons to track a piece of litigation (Matters), the outside attorneys litigating the matter (People), how much you've paid them (Invoices) and the law firm for which they work (Organizations).

The introductory screen actually contains 10 buttons. Other buttons let you track calendaring and docketing information (Events), work with group information (Groups), generate reports (Reports) and perform other useful matter information management functions.

Moving around CLO is as easy as moving your mouse and clicking on the appropriate button. If you wanted to review a particular matter, you would click on the Matter button. The subsequent Matter screen, like others in CLO, is blank, with the alphabet and 12 graphical buttons displayed across the bottom of the screen.

If you know the name of your matter, e.g., Foxworth, you can click on the F button and view a list of matters beginning with F. If you don't know your Matter name you can click on an All button and view the entire list of Matters, displayed in alphabetical order. If you still have problems locating your matter, but you know one of the parties' names, you can click on a Search button and you'll be prompted with a familiar (for Access 2.0 users) search dialog template.

While the application is well-designed for anyone looking for a particular matter, it doesn't have full-featured search capabilities. Corprasoft has designed the application so that the different types of information can be sorted and selected in a variety of ways. Once sorted into a list, the information can be searched in pretty much the same way as the list of Matters can be searched.

Other project management applications we've reviewed have designed useful search templates that prompt you to enter certain pieces of information (e.g., part or all of a matter name). CLO doesn't have a comparable search template. However, information can be sorted and filtered in a variety of ways.

One of the ways CLO gets away without providing a more full-featured search template is by providing a number of filters that can be used to filter your view of cases. If you only want to view Active cases, you can click on the pull-down box in the top right corner of the Matter List dialog box and select Active. The items on the displayed list would only include Active matters.

Adding, editing and deleting information is easy. If you have a new matter to add, click on an Add button on the lower left corner of CLO's Matter List template. Similarly, information in the Matter screen can be edited by moving your cursor to the appropriate place and entering your information. After selecting an item from the Matter List dialog box, you can see its details by clicking on the View button, or double-clicking on an item with your mouse.

CLO is very well integrated. If, while viewing the matter detail for a particular case, you want to view the firms, attorneys, invoices or other kinds of information associated with the particular matter, you could simply click on the appropriate button at the bottom of the Matter Detail screen.

If you want to see hard copy printouts of your information, you have approximately 20 pre-created reports to choose from. From the main menu, the list of reports and descriptions can be accessed via the Reports button. These reports begin with Cost Summary by Matter, and include a variety of other reports--Invoicing by Firm, Phase Budget and so forth.

CLO lets you customize your own fields and information. If, for example, there was some particular matter item a law department wanted to track, they could add the field to the matter information screen. Similarly, fields and information can be added to people, organizations and invoice information.

Corprasoft
214-691-9400

By Cary Griffith

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