LegalEdge Corporate Suite

LegalEdge Corporate Suite

If you're in the market for corporate legal project management software you want an application that can do a few things very well. Some of the obvious include:

The ability to enter case information easily and quickly, including table lookup and fill-in assistance.
The ability to retrieve case information easily and quickly, using any of a variety of criteria (case name, number, type, etc.).
The ability to retrieve several different kinds of summary data (a list of all cases by outside firm, by type, by in-house attorney and so forth).
The ability to generate a variety of reports, including ones you can make up on your own (what the industry refers to as ad hoc report generation capability).

Corporate Edge scores highly in all of these areas. All of this requires some kind of graphical user interface (GUI), or the use of pictures on buttons to guide users through an application's various processes. GUI interfaces range from the obvious and explicit to the strange and incomprehensible. Corporate Edge's GUI adds to the program's ease of use.

If I was a teacher grading Corporate Edge for Windows on all of the preceding, this would be one of my better pupils. While I don't think the student would graduate Magna Cum Laude, I do think he or she would graduate near the top of the class.

From the outset, Corporate Edge for Windows distinguishes itself with a very explicit graphical interface. The button bars are plentiful and explicit, and if the symbols on each button aren't enough to give you a sense of its purpose, the word or phrase associated with the button explains it.

When you first call up the Corporate Suite, it defaults to a screen containing only the Personal Choices menu. Since the Corporate Suite comes with the security of a username and passwords system, it will actually give you access to your information. Here you can pull up all of the various types of matters (litigation, transactional, trademark, contracts or projects), as well as perform calendaring functions, check to-do lists or see messages.

A horizontal row of icon buttons directly above the Personal Choices menu constitutes the Corporate Suite's Main Toolbar. You can actually customize your screens by using the Window pull-down menu (third from the left at the top of the screen).

If, for example, you want to have access to other parts of the Corporate Suite, you can click on the Window pull-down menu, and select Main Toolbar from the Toolbar List. If you want to have detailed access to, say, the Calendaring or Financial parts of the LegalEdge Corporate Suite, you could select to display the toolbars for each section.

In most instances, of course, you'll only be interested in your own matters. Selecting these from your Personal Choices menu is easy. If you want to view the information on a particular litigation matter, you would click on the Matter List/My Litigation Matters button. The subsequent Litigation Matters for Logged On Person screen displays a very useful table containing data items on all of your litigation matters: matter number, caption (title of matter), date the matter was opened, matter type, subject type and alternative ID. You can sort your list by any of the data categories in it, making this table one of the most useful features in the Suite.

Once you've identified the case whose information you wish to view, you can double-click on it and be taken to a matter detail display. Here you not only have the ability to view just about everything associated with this particular litigation matter, but you can also revise or add to the information. A row of file folder tabs at the bottom of the display will take you to whatever part of the information they describe.

If you wanted to view financial information on this matter you would click on the "$$$" label. If you wanted to see existing notes on the matter (or add notes to ther matter) you would click on the Notes label.

At any time you can access Corporate Suite information in a wide variety of ways. By adding the main toolbar to the main screen, you can look for, display, add or revise Corporate Suite information. Click on any of the items and you'll be taken to a subsequent set of function specific icons.

A cursory glance at the main toolbar icons gives you a good overview of the kinds of tasks this application performs.

The LegalEdge Corporate Suite also gets high marks on the amount of customization available with the product. The Corporate Suite is available in a few different versions, and all of the versions let you perform some customization, with the more sophisticated versions allowing proportionally more customization.

With the version of the Corporate Suite we reviewed, simple customization of field names, toolbars or toolbar names was possible by using the File | System Setup, Window | Field Setup and Toolbar | Menu Setup options. Once executed, these pull-down menus take you to a screen that is easy to navigate, making customization of the case management software simple.

If you want significant customization for your law firm, LegalEdge provides in-depth training for this application, and how it can be modified. You can contact the company for more information on the customization aspects of the program.

LegalEdge Software
610-975-5888

By Cary Griffith

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