Case Management

Daylite Questionnaire for Lawyers

January 30, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Daylite template design team posted a list of questions on the MacLaw listserv today. Marketcircle graciously gave me permission to post them here as well. Any attorney who’s thinking about moving from Windows to Macs or who has already made the move and is struggling to use Daylite as their practice management program needs to answers these questions! We need a Mac alternative to Timematters/Amicus Attorney and Daylite may be in the best position to become a full-fledged practice management solution that really meets the needs of most Mac attorneys.

It’s very encouraging that Marketcircle is giving thought to this, even if the questions relate mostly to template design. Daylite really needs to provide a way to get all the data we put into the program out of the program and into merge documents in Word or Pages; maybe this will be a stepping stone in our quest for the Holy Grail.

Send your responses to: schhatralia at marketcircle.com

2/4/08 UPDATE: I’ve included my responses to these questions in italics.

Here is Marketcircle’s post in full:

As part of the Daylite template design team, we would love to ask a few questions to gather information for designing the law template.

1. What areas of law do you practice?

Social Security disability, worker’s compensation, long term disability

2. What are the major steps of your workflow in your business?
( For example:
- client contacts you
- initial consultation
- agree on pricing structure
- prepare documents…
- etc.)

When a prospective client calls, we create a contact record. We assign a category to that contact identifying them as a prospective. We make a note of the phone conference and any subsequent contact with the prospective client. We may schedule an appointment then or wait for the client to take several actions before scheduling. At an appointment, if we take the case, we prepare all documents while the client waits. This includes various Social security or worker’s compensation forms, a fee agreement and medical releases. Takes less than 10 minutes to generate all docs. We can do this because we merge data we enter into our database (Timematters) with our word processor (Wordperfect 12). We can create 10-15 documents in the space of 5-10 minutes with all client info (name/address/social sec. number/date of birth) in the proper place on these documents. We want to move these cases along and having the ability to create documents quickly is critical.

Whenever we do anything on a case, a note is made in the file. All documents related to the case are created using Timematters and Wordperfect. TM creates a document record with information about the doc. Categories can be assigned to different docs. Just those docs sent to health care providers can be filtered for display in TM and and information like addressee, date sent, date records received, date records submitted to social security, date of anticipated hearing for each medical record request can all be tracked on a single screen.

3. What is a typical workflow for gaining and managing new prospects?

See 2 above. Business comes from word of mouth, former clients, attorneys, court personnel, advertising.

4. How would you like to classify and divide your information?
(For example, if you were to group the cases you are working with based on the kind of case, how would you do it.)

TM has a case/matter record like Daylite’s project. (By default it is called a Matter but can be customized to say Case.) When we create a new case record, we assign it a case category (i.e. SS, WC, LTD) and can then sort cases by category. Seems like Daylite does this with its category screen and checkboxes to make categories available to contacts, organizations, projects, etc. I think we’d just make the SS, WC and LTD categories available only to projects. (As mentioned above, I’d like to be able to rename the project object as well.)

For purposes of reporting, we further subdivide cases by stages. We use a field in the case record form that provides a list of fixed options (which we have customized). We then can generate a case report that divides cases into major categories, and then subdivide them according to where they are in the administrative pipeline. For example, with Social Security cases we subdivide by SS–recon filed, SS–request for hearing, SS–post hearing, etc. Works very well.

5. What are the different kinds of work or job functions people perform in your industry?

Too numerous to mention. Broad categories are office practice and litigation practice.

6. What kind of connections exist between people or businesses in your industry?

Depends on the area of law practiced. See 5 above.

7. During the initial contact, what kinds of questions do you ask a client for obtaining information?
Where else would you extract information from people and what type of questions do you ask?

Depends on the kind of case but general information in every case: name, address, phone numbers, SSN, birthdate, marital status, children, education, work history, military history, criminal history, drug history, etc.

Right now, that data can only be gathered using a custom form in Daylite. I’ve found that the way that the custom form is displayed makes it difficult to add new data (you have to scroll down a long list to find the right field.) Also, custom form data is locked in the program. It can’t be used in merges, for example. We need to be able to get it out of the program and into reports and merge documents. See answer to question 8 below.

8. Do you send letters for correspondence? If so, do you use a template or any customized format?

We send lots of letters in all cases. For example, we make multiple medical records requests per case so we need to be able to merge data from a contact linked to a case/project with case/project info to produce this letter. That’s because the letter includes the address of the contact, the name, date of birth and SSN of the client and some data that will vary from letter-to-letter, requiring user input during the merge. We also write letters to defense counsel, adjusters, judges, rehab professionals, and others. And we draft briefs which are based on merge templates which include case/project fields to speed production of the documents. So merging data from the case management system into many different customized merge templates is essential to our practice.

9. In your workflow, do you feel that you complete certain activities in the same order, repeatedly, and they either start or end on a specific date?
(For example, court proceedings.)
Do you have a list of those activities and what steps are involved in each activity ( task,
appointment).

We don’t use these kinds of lists in our practice management software. We always generate documents the day we sign up a case. We send out standard letters for medical records requests. We calendar deadlines but do not use an “activity set” although one is available in Timematters. I know other attorneys really need these features.

10. As a law consulting firm, what kind of business analysis do you do?
(For example,
a. analysis of no of cases handled, no of cases won, and lost.
b. analysis of revenue generation, understanding peak and off seasons.
c. Study of where most of your new business is coming from.)

We have a basic case review report which we look at monthly. We track referral sources and cases by referral source. We can track all cases involved Doctor X or adjuster Y. Don’t do much beyond that.

11. What are the reasons for winning and losing a court case?

Many, and they are specific to the practice area. The reasons for winning/losing a SS case are different from those in a worker’s comp case. No generic set of reasons would really work.

A final point. Daylite needs a document management system. Right now, the opportunities object can be used to do some of that, but it requires double entry. In other words, even using the built-in editor, the only information about that document is an entry in the activity tab in the details pane. You can make a separate entry in Opportunities and, using the extra fields in opportunities, create custom data fields to give more info about the document. But that’s a cumbersome, multiple step process which makes data entry error almost certain. Better to have the ability to record data about the document at the time it’s generated.

Thanks for the feedback! This will definitely help us out in building the template!

Marketcircle team
www.marketcircle.com