Objective: Provide product knowledge to empower front office staff members, such as receptionists, paralegals, and other legal support staff, to complete everyday actions.
At CARET Legal, we believe in making space for what matters. To help you make space, we have put together a short course to help empower you in your daily activities. This course will focus on front office functions around your firm's growth, client engagement, and communications.
Here is what you can expect from this course:
- Logging In
- Dashboard Navigation
-
Searching
- Universal search
- Documents Dashboard
- Matters List/ Matterscapes
-
Growing the firm- CRM (Client Relationship Manager)
- Creating and managing leads
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Working the Matter
- Creating a New Matter
- Managing Contacts
- Notes
- Communications
- Emails
- Phone Call Notes
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Text Messaging
- Documents
- Time and Expenses
Logging In
Pro Tip: Create a shortcut to the login page through your browser shortcut settings. In Google Chrome, simply click on the three vertical dots in the top right-hand corner of your browser, select "More Tools" --> "Create Shortcut..." Voila!
Now you have an icon on your desktop that will take you right to Caret Legal!
Dashboard Navigation- Toolbars:
Email & Calendar:
CARET Legal does a great job of helping you sync and manage your email inbox and calendar events to have everything in one place.
If you have not already done so, here are some helpful videos to assist you as you establish your sync. Should you encounter any error messages or need additional assistance with your sync setup, please contact support@getcaret.com. Please note that the first email sync can take several hours as it is taking a complete sync of your entire email account.
Tasks:
To learn how to supercharge your Tasks with Workflows, check out this great video or our Tasks course.
Searching:
Searching for anything is quick and easy. Conflicts, Matter, and Document searching are among the few search types that CARET Legal has focused on.
Conflict Searching
- Perform a keyword search throughout the database using the magnifying glass icon on the top right toolbar.
* When searching for a person's name, use " " to find their full name in the system. ex: instead of Michael Hamilton, search "Michael Hamilton"
Matter Searching
- Use advanced search options on the Matter List to filter for specific details.
*To search and filter within Custom Matter fields, use a Custom Matterscape
Document Searching
- Documents will yield as results in a global search (Magnifying Glass icon)
- Use advanced search tools in the Documents Dashboard (Documents icon in Navigation Pane)
General searches
- All our list views have advanced search filters that can be accessed by clicking on the filter icon to the right of the search bar within that section.
Growing the Firm
Growing your firm has never been easier with CARET Legal's CRM (Client Relationship Management) feature. This allows the firm to build up pertinent information from prospective clients for assessment and retention. Anything that is added to a Lead, such as emails, calendar events, documents, and intake forms, will all be maintained if and when you convert the Lead to a Client & Matter.
Watch this helpful video for a demonstration to see our CRM in action.
Working the Matter
As a Paralegal/Legal Secretary/or other Front Office staff, you will be the firm's first line of defense both internally and externally. CARET Legal is an all-in-one solution to help with growing the firm with new business in our CRM, as well as maintaining and advance existing business relationships and matters.
CARET Legal is a matter-centric database. Working the Matter within CARET Legal will help you stay on task while keeping pertinent information readily accessible. Some of those actions may include:
- Managing Contacts
- Creating New Matters (or converting Leads to Clients)
- Taking Notes
- Communications
- Emails
- Phone Call Notes
- Text Messaging
- Documents/Document Dashboard
- Time & Expense (Soft Costs) entry
The next several slides will include videos, instructions, and details to help you complete these actions.
Managing Contacts
Contacts are a crucial record in CARET Legal. Contacts can be a Person, Company, or Vendor. Person or Company contacts can be found with the dedicated icon on the navigation pane
Below are videos demonstrating how to create a Person or Company contact card, as well as exporting contacts for marketing and other actions.
Creating a New Matter
Matters are the heart of every law firm and every client engagement. Matters can be created in one of two ways: 1) Converting a lead to a Client/Matter or 2) New Matter [from scratch]. The second option can be found in your Quick Add Menu or in the Matter section.
Or,
- Click on the Matters icon in the navigation bar to display your list of Matters, then click + on the right side of the tab bar.
2. The New Matter modal displays. Complete all of the required fields marked with a purple bar, and as many optional fields as you wish.
- Ensure that you scroll down to see all the fields.
- Slide the toggle bars to the right to enable Billing features.
- Select the appropriate checkboxes.
- Select either the Everyone or Custom radio button under Permissions.
3. Click Create Matter to return to your Matters list, where you will see the newly created Matter.
You can now set up new events, upload relevant documents (and share these with your client), create associated tasks, and generate invoices for the case.
Taking Notes
Notes are a great way to capture information that would otherwise not be documented. Each matter will contain a notes section where a matter note can be created, edited, or updated, and printed.
A few of the critical features of the notes area include:
- Folder structure navigation and organization- a simple right click will offer you the ability to create and rename subfolders.
- Search- Both title and content are used when searching notes.
- Formatting- Notes include many of the same formatting options as a document, including quotations, pictures, and tables.
- Dictation- If you prefer dictating information or using Talk-To-Text on your cell phone, you can dictate a note with your microphone capabilities. Be sure to check your system preferences to learn about setting a shortcut keystroke to activate your microphone and start dictating today.
- Mobile App- Notes can be created or reviewed from the CARET Legal Mobile application. Tip: If you have not done so already, there are shortcuts to download the mobile application on the Log In page.
Bonus Tip: The fastest way to create a Matter Note is through the Quick Add menu.
It is important to note that this record type does not track time for billing. If you wish to record any time spent on Matter notes, you will need to create a Timer or a manual time entry.
Communications
Within CARET Legal, communications include Emails, Phone Call Notes, and Text Messages. As Email was discussed in previous slides, we will focus on Phone Call Notes and Text Messages.
Phone Call Notes
The phone call feature will allow you to record notes about your phone call and store them in your matter communications. You can do this one of two ways.
- From the Quick Add menu
- Click on the "+" from the Quick Add menu
- Select "New Phone Call Note"
- From the Matter section
- Click the "+" within the Communications tab of a matter
- Select "Enter Notes for a Phone Call" to bring up the same Phone Call window.
- When entering a new phone call note, you must select your matter first.
- The 'From' field is designed for you to enter who, internally, is participating in this call, i.e. users in your firm.
- 'Spoke with' is the dedicated section for matter-related contacts, such as the primary client or other contacts on the case.
- 'Tags' allow you to easily organize your Phone Call Notes. You can create your own customized tag list simply by entering any keyword and hitting Return/Enter, i.e. Phone Consultation. It will then be available in a drop-down list for later use by you and other users in the firm.
- Your timer will start playing once a matter is selected. It can be paused or canceled at any time. You can also choose whether or not you would like the time entry window to appear once you save the Phone Call Note.
Text Messaging
CARET Legal offers multiple ways to communicate with your clients and colleagues. In addition to other forms of communication, we can send text messages directly from a Matter or our Texting Dashboard. Client Texting allows firms to quickly connect with clients, leads, and matter-related contacts via in-app 2-way SMS messaging. MMS (images, videos, emojis) will not be included in received messages. New text messages sent to the firm's phone number will not be received unless they are in response to an existing conversation. Before you can begin sending SMS messages from Zola Suite, you must first enable Client Texting. An Admin must enable this feature via Firm Settings > Firm Options > Client Text
Note: Text Messaging Tab / Dashboard won’t display if Texting is not EnabledAfter enabling client texting on the firm level, you are now set to begin sending and receiving text messages. Conversations will begin in CARET Legal and can be started within the Matter/Lead Dashboard.
Once the conversation has begun, you will see the conversations listed on the left of the dashboard. If you are not a party to the conversation and wish not to receive alerts when responses come in, you can click on the notification bell to mute the alerts for that conversation only. You will see a garbage can icon to delete the conversation in the exact location. It is important to note that deletion will delete the entire conversation from the database for all users and is not recoverable.
If you would like to learn more about billing communications with features such as Bulk Billing (via Email) or sharing invoices through the Client Portal, please check out CARET Legal- Back Office Training or other billing-related courses.
Documents/ Document Dashboard
As part of all matters, there will be a Documents tab for adding, organizing, and editing documents.
Once you get a little more comfortable with using Documents in CARET Legal, take your document skills to the next level with our Document Automation features. A helpful in-depth webinar can be viewed here anytime. The webinar discusses topics such as:
- Document Migration
- Viewing Documents
- Creating a Document within CARET Legal
- Uploading External Documents using:
- Drag and Drop
- Bulk Upload
- Saving Email Attachments as Documents
- Editing Documents with:
- zDrive Plug-in
- Word Plug-in
- zEditor
- More Actions for:
- A Single Document
- Multiple Documents
Time & Expenses
Time tracking will look different for each user and each firm. Some users will be putting in their own time for billing others might be entering time on an attorney's behalf. In either scenario entering or tracking time can be done in several different ways. The hardest part will be finding the method that works best for you.
Within CARET Legal, there are 2 types of expenses: hard and soft costs. They will both be created and used differently. If you choose to make these expenses billable, you can invoice them.
Where Can I See My Expenses? You can find your expenses in 2 places: inside the Matter, and from the main Time section. Inside the Matter:
- Go to the Matter
- Select the Time/Expenses tab
- Select Expenses
This will give you a full list of Matter-related expenses for this particular Matter.
Time Section:
- Go to the Time section on the left bar
Select the Expenses tab
This will give you a complete list of all expenses entered by any user.
What is Next...
As you begin working within CARET Legal, additional questions or concerns will likely arise, and we want to help.
- Onboarding Project Manager- You should have received a personalized welcome email and can contact them directly.
- Learning Library- This training is a curated course to help you get started. As you are ready to learn more, use the Learning Library to explore other courses and topics.