More Case Management Software Reviews
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AMICUS ATTORNEY, IV (By Richard C. Belthoff, Jr. This article originally appeared in February/March 2000 Law Office Computing.)
Amicus Attorney IV is the latest ver- sion of Gavel & Gown Software’s venerable case-management program. There are now three versions of Amicus Attorney: Organizer Edition, Advanced Edition and Client/Server Edition. Orga- nizer is for single users and includes the essential Amicus Attorney case manage- ment tools. The Advanced Edition is network ready for a maximum of 29 us- ers. It includes the improved DO button, synchronization with Palm organizers and other useful features. The Client/Server edition is geared toward firms with up to 200 networked users. It includes support for WANs and remote update via modem or the Internet. Gone are the old Assistant Office and
Lawyer Office. Today’s users enjoy both programs’ full capabilities, although not all users can be installed as “timekeepers.” There’s no longer a separate team prod- uct. All copies of the Advanced and the Client/Server editions are network capable straight out of the box. One major new addition to Amicus
Attorney is its Call Center. Instead of us- ing pink phone message slips, your receptionist can simply send you a phone message through Amicus. If a call is ur- gent and the caller is holding, he or she can send you an Urgent message. A Stickie note will pop-up on your screen and your computer speaker will ring. You can then decide whether to take the call. Otherwise, your receptionist can send
you a regular message through the program’s Call Center. All unreturned messages will be listed on one screen. You can check them off as you return the calls (just like a To-Do). You can also forward them to another user to handle. What’s more, “Today’s Calls and Messages” are organized together on one screen for easy user access. There are now two views available for each Amicus module: small or large. If you’re using a larger monitor, Amicus At- torney can be difficult to see at times. You
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can now switch to a “large” view, which increases the size of each module as well as the information displayed.
The DO button has also been im-
proved. Although a powerful feature, it was somewhat limited in previous ver- sions. Now you can use the DO button to send e-mail, link to Web sites or check a file’s status. For those lawyers working in teams, Amicus Attorney now supports customizable groups. There’s also a spe- cial Workgroup which you can define under Setup for the group of people with whom you work most often.
Right-clicking in each module and on individual items now displays more op- tions. For example, printing is now an option when you click a To-Do item. You can now insert a date/time stamp into
Notes by pressing Ctrl-T. Thus, you can date/time stamps notes, Stickies, or other entries in Amicus. The date/time stamp also inserts your initials to identify the date/time stamp.
A major enhancement is the ability to
sort entries in the Files Brad in reverse chronological order. Previously, all entries were sorted chronologically. This meant users had to scroll to the end of the list to view the last entry. Now they can reverse the order and view the newer entries at the top of the list. Amicus Attorney now includes many
more custom fields (up to 50), all with customizable layouts. You can have mul- tiple custom pages per file. This allows you to record all kinds of information about a
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