What is Clients Case Management System?

Clients Case Management System (Clients) is a database that tracks cases for legal services, law school clinics, and pro bono offices that represent low-income people. Its main functions include:

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.

The Standard Platform of Clients

Cost and ease of use are of great concern to many legal services programs. The Standard Platform combines both in the entry-level case management system of Kemp’s Case Works. This Platform uses Microsoft Access (Access) files on both the Workstations and the Server. It shares the identical interface, information gathering and report writing features of the more powerful SQL and ASP/SQL Platforms. It is perfect for offices with a single office and less than thirty users.

If your office’s needs grow with time, moving up to a more powerful Platform of Clients is easy. Since they share the same interface, your staff will not even know a change has taken place, eliminating the need for retraining.

How Does it Work?

Each workstation has a copy of CFWPrime.MDB. The workstation also has the full or free/runtime Version of Access. The shared information is found on the server in a file called ClientsTPrime.MDB. By having each workstation link to the centrally located files over the local area network (LAN), everyone in the office shares the same information.

The Advantages

Clients is extremely stable, secure and well supported. It uses Access 2000 and later Versions, which holds about a 70% share of the Windows database market. Access is part of the complete office suites sold by Microsoft.

Access also has what many computer publications have recognized as the best custom desktop report and query writer on the market. If we do not give you exactly the report you need, you can use Access to modify one of ours or write your own.

The Standard Platform is:

Easy to Use
Powerful
Flexible
Save
Economical

What You Need to Run It

You should have at least one copy of the full Version of Access in each office. In addition, the faster your workstations, the faster the case management program. Almost any new computer out there today will provide you with more than enough processing power to run Clients.

Because Access is a desktop database system, it is not suitable for real-time use on a WAN. This is because it sends all the contents of a table to the workstation to be evaluated rather than only sending the records requested. Use our SQL or ASP/SQL Platforms if you have a WAN.

However, using it on a WAN is possible if the database replication feature is used. This feature synchronizes the separate databases in your branch offices at night so that, in the morning, cases have been moved or copied to their appropriate location. This can be done using a WAN, a LAN (laptop computers) or even the Internet. Furthermore, the Standard Platform supports the transfer of cases by disk or email.

When You Wouldn't Need It

The Standard Platform of Clients would be inappropriate if you have a staff of more than thirty users or if you want your staff to have real-time access to case management information throughout the program. It is also inappropriate if you prefer eliminating the transfer of cases and prefer having a single, centrally located database of client information. Use our SQL or ASP/SQL Platforms for that.

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