Inside District Court I’ve had this challenge with other programs—typically
You don’t know what you’re missing.
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and new contacts can be simultaneously entered. However, the program only allows the first and last name (or business name) at this point. From there, the contact has be clicked on, and more substantive information added. Ideally, clicking on the new matter contact would allow a user to input all information related to the contact immediately. Finally, Clio defaults the home country for all new
contacts as Afghanistan. Perhaps this review is too America- centric, but I suspect that there aren’t many Clio contacts that hail from Afghanistan. For firms using Google, Clio will sync contacts back and
forth automatically. However, it is all-or-nothing—there is no feature allowing users to select which contacts to import or export.
Notes/Communications Tere are separate tabs for Notes and Communications.
Te Notes tab is designed for general information about the case, including legal research, descriptions of insurance limits, general accident or injury description, treatment notes and so on. Te Communications tab is used to describe phone calls and e-mails (but not letters or faxes, which belong in Documents).
52 Trial Reporter / Summer 2012
I would ignore the phone tabs and put all phone calls and general notes in Notes, because many phone calls end up having substantive case information, anyway.
It’s not as
easy in Clio, though, because the Notes section and the Communications section have different functionality.
probably best to use them for their intended purposes. Notes
Clio does a decent job with the Notes section—
information is easy to put in, and a list of notes is easily viewable in one list. Also, there is a Google-like search bar that allows a user to find keywords in all of a case’s Notes. If your case requires billing or keeping track of time, it is one extra click to add that to a Note. Te Notes are missing a few important features, however.
Tey cannot be categorized or labeled. For example, in a personal injury case, it would be useful if users could classify specific notes as dealing with legal research, medical bills, medical treatment, or any number of other categories. Te work-around would be to insert these category keywords into each Note, and then do a search of all Notes for the keyword. Te interface for Notes is restrictive. Clio wastes a lot of
space, and only gives users about 2 inches width for typing/ viewing Notes. And, there is no formatting (font, bold, underline, italics, etc…) in Notes. Finally, Notes cannot be easily copied or moved. Tis
is particularly important where a Note is accidently entered in the wrong case or for the wrong client; or where a Note is important for multiple clients (say, an accident where you represent multiple passengers).
Communications (Phone Calls and E-mails) Putting phone calls and e-mails together is a smart move
on Clio’s part—it allows users to see all communications (with the exception of letters and faxes) in chronological order. Unlike Notes, the typing area in Communications can be expanded. Like Notes,
It’s
categories cannot be assigned to
Communications. Tat would be useful to batch together specific communications—for example, communications with a defense attorney, or an adjuster. Te major problem with phone calls is that there is no quick way to add a contact while typing a new call. Te Communication can be saved without filling in the To or From fields, but it takes two more steps to add the contact and enter it into the Communication note. E-mails are also considered Communications. Clio has
some very nice e-mail features. Tough there is no way to sync e-mails to Clio directly within Microsoft Outlook or Gmail (hopefully that will be a future feature), Clio figured out the
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