Kemp’s Case Works (KCW) has been providing technological support to legal services and pro bono programs since 1988. John Paul Kemp, the founder and CEO, is an attorney licensed in five states and has practiced law for fourteen years in legal services programs in Washington State, West Virginia, Kentucky and California. He not only managed staff attorney programs, but a portion of his responsibilities encompassed pro bono and reduced fee panels of private attorneys. He served as a VISTA Attorney, Staff Attorney, Managing Attorney, and Project Director.

A Version of Clients for Everyone

The primary product of KCW is the comprehensive Clients Case Management System (Clients). This system has been in use in legal services offices since 1986. Clients provides software and technical assistance to Legal Services and Legal Aid Programs, Law School Clinics, Domestic Violence Shelters, Senior Law Projects, HIV Projects, Fair Housing Programs, and pro bono offices that represent low-income people throughout the United States and several other countries.

Functions of Clients

Case Management - Track cases from initial client contact to closing. This includes conflict and eligibility checks, client intake, case notes, PBI referrals, expenses collected and incurred, and time spent. Produce and print an almost unlimited number of reports, forms and letters. Generate your own custom reports. Schedule appointments and tickles, checking them off as completed.

Document Tracking - Allows you to associate scanned documents with a case. You can keep track of who entered the document, what subject category it falls under, what sub-category it falls under, and what is the priority for the document. You can also enter a brief note describing the document.

Document Assembly - Allows you to assemble documents using the data from the case management system (such as a case or lawyer information) or just adding information in yourself.

Project Management - Allows you to allocate three resources to a goal; staff, time and money. The Project Management assists in controlling and tracking these resources in case related and non-case related activities. It captures the lessons learned by the people running the Project, thus acting as a knowledge management device and means users can learn from past successes and failures.

Private Bar Referral - Refer clients to volunteer or compensated members of your private attorney panel. Track your volunteer attorneys and the law firms to which they belong. Easily find out who took cases, when they took the cases, date after which the Lawyer would be willing to take cases,etc. Generate opening, tickle and closing letters to these lawyers and the referred clients.

Agency/Hotline Referrals - Maintain a database of outside agencies that stores alternative sources of help for client and hotline referrals. A click of the mouse generates a list of agencies that handle a particular problem in a specific county. The Hotline button on the client’s intake form can refer clients to three different agencies and send them up to six pieces of literature.

Fund Raising - Track and produce reports on current, past and potential contributors and their organizations. See how often and how much a donor has given, and note specific information such as funding cycles, contact persons or target issues.

Grants Tracking Package (Optional) - Allows you to track the information about grants received. The Grants Tracking Package helps with both the application process and the requirements after the office receives the grant. It helps you track requirements, goals, sub-grantees and the budget.

Intake/Interview System - Develop lists of questions to ask clients, dependent on the problem they face, to insure that the essential facts are gathered. The improved interview system allows you to conduct efficient and thorough interviews, create and edit questions, add programmed responses to questions, create and edit advice, associate questions and advice records with appropriate NatIndx and Problem Codes, create a custom question list, and view previous interviews of the subject.

Views Package (Optional) - Views limit the cases that a user can see. They are useful if it is important that only certain people see certain cases, and no others. They only exist in the SQL Platform of the system. Once a View is set, the person’s connection to the full table is disconnected and they only see the view with the reduced list of cases.

Platforms to Clients

There are three major Platforms to Clients. Because they share the same interface, you can upgrade your software without retraining your staff. The Standard Platform was first released in 1994 and many improvements have been made since then. It uses Microsoft Access and is ideal for offices with up to thirty employees, operating on a local area network (LAN). The SQL Platform or Clients/Server Platform uses Microsoft 7.0 and later versions and was put into the field in 2000. This Platform is for those offices that have more than thirty users or are using a wide area network (WAN). The Web-based ASP/SQL Platform was released in 2001. It allows any number of users to connect to the case management system, from virtually any computer at any location, using an Internet browser.

Widespread Use of Clients

Clients is in widespread use in more than 250 programs in over forty states and several other countries. Many states have standardized on Clients. These states include Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Micronesia, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Having the software in such widespread use has definite advantages:

- It has been extensively tested in the real world.
- Other offices are available to share their experiences.
- Contains solutions to most typical legal services office needs.
- It will continue to evolve and add features.
- Trainings are available on a local, regional and national level.
- There is extensive documentation.
- The Legal Services Corporation can advise offices on how to use Clients to satisfy regulations. They can afford to do this because they know most of their grantees use the software.

Perhaps the greatest advantage is that technological improvements and lessons learned stay within our legal services community to benefit other legal services programs.

Flexibility of Clients

Clients has the ultimate flexibility because you can customize the system to work for your office. It has more than just user-defined fields. If your office has special needs or you have an idea that would make helping clients much easier with the software, Clients gives you the ability to go into the program and make changes, such as adding fields, changing menus, and even adding brand-new code.

Support

The support available for Clients goes far beyond the usual. There are:

- Extensive On-line Help Screens with both a narrative and a searchable knowledge base. You can even customize the help screens.
- Trainings that are held on a local, regional, state, and national level.
- Program and User Manuals
- Web Site & Email provides shared reports, queries and questions, a tips and trouble shooting section, announcements of changes, training announcements, developments, and a knowledge base.
- Standard Books like Microsoft Access books are available at any bookstore. These can help you understand, use, and customize Clients.
- User groups exist to help you with questions and implementation.
- Local Trainings by local colleges or training centers can help you understand, use and customize the software.
- Telephone support
- Implementation and Policy Checklists can help you get started and continue to get more out of the software.

Conversion of Old Data

Assistance is available in converting your old data into the new program. We have converted innumerable case management packages into our system, so you do not lose your old data.

Pricing

Please contact us for current pricing.

Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved Kemp's Case Works, Inc.