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| Trial Lawyer's Assistant | Case Management Document Assembly Practice Specific |
 If you subscribe to the philosophy, "a place for
everything and everything in its place," then Trial Lawyer's Assistant is the program
for you. Just as Amicus uses a case folder metaphor, this program uses an expanding file
containing levels of tabbed folders.For example, the View Case Screen contains all the tabs/folders that a trial lawyer would likely use during a case. These 17 tabs include the broader categories, such as "pleadings," "discovery," "motions," "investigation," and "depositions." Clicking on the depositions tab then reveals no fewer than eight tabs under which you might want to organize deposition information further, such as the dates, locations and sessions for the depositions. Under the date tab, there are places to indicate whether the deposition of was ever continued, and if so, for what reason. There is even a tab for objections. But aside from just being mere repositories for information, behind some of the tabs you will find action buttons. For example, within the depositions folder there is a tab for exhibits. From within this tab there are buttons for scanning, viewing and saving scanned documents. This arrangement is much more efficient than having to go to a separate menu item outside the folder to accomplish these tasks. Similarly, you can view the transcript of a deposition from within this tab. The scanning functions are well implemented, affording you the ability to annotate the documents or have them translated to a text with the program's OCR feature. In keeping with this all-inclusive approach, it is not surprising that Trial Lawyer's Assistant also incorporates time and billing. The billing functions are not as complete as dedicated billing programs such as Timeslips, but neither are they merely the basics. Time entries can be created via time slips, in real time by way of a timer function or from calendar entries. You can set billing rates based on a person, activity, case or specific activity. You can add interest for unpaid invoices based on whatever rules you create. If you want to check the productivity of one of your associates or partners, with a few clicks you can check the total time billed for any given day. You can view invoices and make any corrections before they are printed. Other features include document assembly, integration with word processors (although not WordPerfect 8.0 yet), calendaring from rules and conflicts checking. |
Oakley Associates By Aaron P. Morris From the Shopper's Guide to Case Management Software - Dec/Jan '98 |
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