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CMP Program Overview

Cloud/SaaS or Installed

Feature Summaries

Volume, Complexity & Accountability

Practice Applications

• Real Practices
• Corporate Client Relationships
• Tax Certiorari
• Multi-District Litigation - Defendants and Counsel
• Managing Multiple Practice Areas

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Real Practices

CaseManagerPro has been applied to a broad variety of practices, even non-legal businesses, because it offers a number of benefits over traditional case management systems. Since it was successfully designed to handle the most extreme legal environments it provides a very stable, functionally sophisticated and well-tested platform that meets the requirements of most any legal practice.

Different practices use the tools and capabilities of CMPv3 in different ways to achieve their respective objectives. Know the objective and there is likely more than one way to accomplish it efficiently.

NOTE: Following are just a few examples of our clients’ many diverse practices intended to highlight certain CMPv3 capabilities and versatility. The practice summaries are based on our clients’ actual practices and “out-of-the-box” capabilities of CMPv3 unless otherwise noted.

Each practice is unique in some if not many regards as are goals and priorities. Contact us to discuss the specific objectives of your practice.

See Feature Summaries for additional feature descriptions.

See Managing Volume & Complexity for an overview of applying CMPv3 capabilities to challenging practices.

Corporate Client Relationships

A number of major firms use CaseManagerPro for some of their largest client relationships, demonstrating a commitment to a client-centric practice that provides exceptional value. General Counsel polling consistently shows that in addition to legal skills and business savvy, they seek client focus, exceptional value and meeting technical requirements.

Objectives

Firms serving corporate clients typically want to instill loyalty, expand services and attract new clients by delivering what the clients most want – great value – however they define it. Case management software should enhance the firm’s value by helping it achieve and demonstrate success per the clients’ priorities.

• Create Mutual Value. Enhance the value of the firm to the client while reducing the cost of providing the services, thus increasing marginal profit without, necessarily, increasing fees.
• Adapt to Client-Centric Perspective. Have the ability to track, manage, advise and report per client priorities at case and relationship levels (case–centric and client–centric).
• Communicate Effectively with Client. Provide scheduled and ad hoc topical reports with immediate relevance and insight with required and supporting data.
• Enhance Responsiveness. Improve access to data and reports to quickly and accurately respond to client queries and new requirements.

Practice Management

• Data Priorities. Clients and in-house counsel have information that they want to watch and manage, as do the outside counsel. Standard in-house reporting, the type, scope and scale of the cases, budget, visibility and other concerns drive client priorities, while outside counsel have their perspective as well.
  
  CMPv3 Custom Sections can be easily configured to capture data relevant to the client, cases and matters. They can also be configured to coincide with the clients’ reporting standards so that it’s easily integrated to their internal reporting. Settlement details are managed directly in CMPv3 and other financial data and invoices can be mapped to it, viewed and reported as well. Reports are easily created using broad strokes or granular criteria from virtually any point of view. (See Reporting below)
• Client-Centric Management. While Case/Matter-Centric management is critical for many purposes, the ability to shift to a Client-Centric view is extremely valuable. Among the challenges to managing a variety of matters is getting client requirements and internal practice groups coordinated so the overall relationship is coherently managed and presented holistically.
  
  One of our clients is the coordinating litigation firm for a major industrial corporation. They established internal Best Practices with the client so that, regardless of the type of case, they all share certain common data fields, overarching milestones, procedures, escalation triggers and other information that are meaningful to the client.
  
  The admin cost savings for reporting alone quickly multiplies as practices are coordinated. Standard practices, reduced risk, metrics for accountability and analysis, instant access to real-time information, accurate legal data for business purposes, and other benefits are quickly evident. The value of the firm grows as it helps the client determine exposure, identify areas of growing liability, moderate reserves… and become confident that their cases are being expertly managed.
• Access to Information. Data become useful information when it’s timely, relevant and in proper context. Whether dealing with a minor claim or expansive litigation the ability of the law firm to deliver useful information – often on demand – is certainly of significant, if not paramount, importance.
  
  Novice users of CMPv3 have multiple tools to search, filter and drill-down to specific records and data including Global Data Search and Full Text Search of documents. Reports are easily created and saved as favorites for quick access that contain key data with variable criteria that let attorneys find information in short order. Moderately skilled users can search, sort, stratify and spreadsheet any managed data.
  
  Providing closely managed access to data areas, reports and documents is provided by some CMPv3 firms to their clients. Security settings control which data areas may be viewed and restricts access to specific classes of records. Functionality to be released in late 2010 will provide a separate collaboration record that CMPv3 users can setup for client interactions such as reporting, document postings and topical forums.

Tax Certiorari

Practice

Cronin, Cronin & Harris is leading firm in tax certiorari (ad valorem property valuation appeal) for commercial properties in New York and a great example of leveraging the capabilities of CaseManagerPro and the Lucid IQ team. They have thousands of property owner clients with various ownership structures for whom they prepare and file tens-of-thousands of cases with various authorities.

“When we saw CaseManagerPro after looking at countless other systems,” said partner Brad Cronin, “we felt it was the only one that could adapt to our needs. When the Lucid IQ team came to our office to setup the system, time and again they exceeded high expectations by resolving big issues so readily.”

Objectives

• Assure Accuracy (Reduce Risk). Get the complex data into proper form to deliver on time to various taxing authorities.
• Increase Capacity. Manage more clients, properties and cases without increasing staff.
• Reduce Cost. Adapt to new requirements easily and quickly while decreasing resource requirements.

Practice Management

• Data Complexity. Commercial properties may consist of multiple tracts with differing valuation criteria, legal descriptions, ownership entities and related parties, title interests and other factors. A filing for one ‘client’ may involve multiple ownership entities and scores of properties.
  
  The versatility of records management capabilities, the stability of the relational design and the Lucid IQ team’s knowledge provided a clearly defined structure with supporting management functions. CC&H relies on adapting CMPv3 records and Custom Data Sections to manage content and form while retaining data integrity and improving data intake and utilization accuracy and speed.
• Best Practices for Compliance and Effectiveness. Each potential appeal is subject to the rules and deadlines of the respective tax authorities as well as internal practice standards. The CC&H staff and attorneys have strict Best Practices policies for new client and property intake, documentation, valuation, timely filing and so on.
  
  The powerful Workflow features are increasingly being used to alert staff that precursor tasks are complete and new ones due. They can anticipate and check their work using List Query reports, and backup other team members using group Custom Calendars. Supervisors and managers use List Query reports to monitor the status of key activities and data using List Queries to report specific data fields as well as pending and completed activity across the case portfolio.
• Document Generation. Standard documents abound beginning with the legal services agreement for the client through disposition of the case. Just drafting a cover letter to file an appeal may contain so much data that it is time consuming and susceptible to error.
  
  List Query reports are used to create lists of records that meet criteria. The CMPv3 Document Template Builder completes letters and forms in large batches using the selected records. Document Profiles are automatically created, linking the documents with the appropriate cases. Similarly, very complex documents can be created using custom reports written using third-party reporting software or direct coding and queries from the database. Every time they are used these processes save hours – even days – of work and minimize the risk of errors.
• Updates en Masse. Since so much work can be accomplished at one time and the redundancy from case-to-case and year-to-year is so high updating information is a major concern.
  
  CMPv3 Case Batch Update is used to specify fields and select the conditions under which to modify them. Records can be filtered to limit the range of records that are updated before its run. Multiple changes can be executed at one time. Other conditional modifications are clearly defined and updated each night automatically with custom scripts. New cases are created each year from existing cases using custom coding as well, eliminating the need to manually update and modify case data. Again, the time savings is massive and the risk of error is greatly reduced.

Contact Lucid IQ for additional information about these and other benefits that CMPv3 can bring to your practice.

Multi-District Litigation – Defendants and Counsel

Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”) is among the most complex of legal practices because there are so many pieces of inter-related information that have to be effectively managed for each case – potentially thousands of them. Multiple plaintiffs and defendants, data that applies cases, scores of defense counsel to coordinate… the list keeps going.

Objectives

CaseManagerPro is used by major corporations, law firms and insurance companies involved in MDL to achieve several major goals including:

1. Better Access to Information. Access real-time, accurate information on a scheduled or ad hoc basis from a broad range of managed data that meets highly specific criteria from a potential variety of sources.
2. Mitigate Financial Exposure. Mitigate immediate and mid-to-long term financial costs such as excessive liability reserves and verdict and settlement amounts by using data practically and strategically.
3. Enhance Value of Outside Counsel. Increase effectiveness and reduce cost of outside counsel by facilitating efficiency and improving the quality, access and use of information.
4. Manage Risk. Reduce risk of liability from typical legal errors and manage MDL-specific risks such as inconsistent and potentially conflicting tactics and strategies.
5. Reduce Administrative Costs. Cut overhead costs such as reporting, oversight, settlement processing, information dissemination, inter-departmental communication, project management, and documentation.

Practice Management

MDL defense uses the majority of CaseManagerPro functions and features to achieve their goals. The following examples show some of the benefits to the well managed MDL practice.

Best Practices should not only provide prescribed practices but also actively facilitate them, document them and provide a basis to monitor and substantiate their use as these examples demonstrate.

These examples are provided generally in the order of workflow of a new case beginning with the initial complaint service through final disposition.

Contact us for additional MDL management information. Please include a brief summary of the type of litigation and objectives.

CaseManagerPro Setup

The examples below are based on a single installation of CMPv3 (regardless of hosting arrangements) that is accessible by the affected defense entities (subject to security settings) including the defendant’s legal department, insurers, agent for service, and outside counsel. Outside Counsel includes National Coordinating (NCC) and Local (LC).

Security Settings

Security settings limit viewing and editing information as prescribed by your defined Best Practices.

• Security Classes. Circumscribe the range of cases and related information to which people within the class have access. For instance, Local Counsel in California would have access only to cases with a LC-CA Security Class while National Coordinating Counsel has access to all Classes.
• User Role. Administrative settings for individuals “Deny” access or provide “Read Only” or “Edit” rights to the various records and data areas. This control keeps sensitive information under wraps and minimizes the risk of inadvertent or improper data editing.

Complaint Intake and Case Assignment

• Route Complaint to NCC. A complaint received by the service agent or other entity is uploaded to a CMPv3 Document Profile as a “New Complaint”. As soon as it is saved the NCC Intake Manager will receive automated notification and a link. A one-click acknowledgement may be used to confirm receipt. CMP List Query Reports verify both receipt and that the new case has been added. §  Create New Plaintiff Record. The NCC Intake Manager will review the complaint online and add the plaintiff to a new Contact record. CMPv3 will automatically do a duplicate check and a conflict check may also be executed. Plaintiff Counsel will be selected (or added, if new) as their representative.
• Create New Case. From the Plaintiff’s Contact Record, the NCC Intake Manager will select the function “Create New Case”. CMPv3 will create a new Case Record, adding the Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s Counsel automatically. When the Case Type is selected CMPv3 will also add the predefined data sections and Workflow Processes and Key Dates. The Intake Manager will attach the complaint Document Profile, add a staffing group that includes LC and NCC attorneys and staff as well as Defendant-related parties, and add the Security Class of the LC to permit record access.
• Assign, Track and Manage. When the NCC Intake Manager checks the first Workflow Task, i.e.: “NCC Initial Intake Complete” a notification is delivered to the designated Primary and Secondary LC representatives. One or both confirm receipt with the one-click Acknowledgement to receive the case. NCC reviews the “New Case Intake” report to review and confirm information is correct and assignment accepted. Weekly reports are also prompted by the system to deliver to the Defendant, Insurer and other designees.

Local Counsel New Case Acceptance and Answer

• New Case Intake for LC. CMPv3 notifies LC of new cases that have been assigned (above). The next task is “Confirm Acceptability for LC” (e.g.: conflicts check) followed by best-practices steps to capture initial data, note issues and deficiencies and prepare the answer. Data required for global reporting and management are standardized (e.g.: historic job, exposure, incident, medical data, events chron, legal issue categories, etc) as are workflow milestones and pleadings language. Local data (e.g.: docket, scheduling order, prescribed formats, etc) may be defined.

Managing Multiple Practice Areas

Law firms with multiple practice areas and corporate legal departments with their spectrum of responsibilities have many options with regard to how they setup and deploy CMPv3. Each practice area has to meet their own requirements as well as the organizations.

First-Tier Business Requirements

First-tier requirements may be prescribed for the entire organization generally falling into three categories:

• Reporting Requirements for senior management, marketing or other first-tier uses.
• Practice Standards that apply to all practice areas for a variety of purposes.
• Centralized or Standard Technology tied to the case management system.

A whitepaper regarding First Tier Business Requirements is scheduled for publication in October 2010. (email to request a copy)

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