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 middle office functions around your firm's growth, focusing on Matters and Documents. Here is what you can expect from this course:
- Advanced Matter Management
- Time, Fees & Expenses
- Document Management
- Document Automation
- Workflow Automation
Matter Management
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 a New Matter (or converting Leads to Clients)
- Taking Notes
-
Communications
- Emails
- Phone Call Notes
- Text Messaging
- Documents/Document Dashboard
- Time & Expense (Soft Costs) entry
In this course, you will learn more about entering some of the more advanced aspects of Matter management, Time, Fees & Expenses, Document Management & Automation, and Workflows.
Matters in CARET Legal can be found and accessed in multiple ways.
1. Global Search/ Conflict Check (Magnifying Glass top right corner).
2. Navigation Pane Icon.
3. Related Records
a. Open a contact> Click to Related Matters tab> Select Matter
b. Email Status Icon> Hover over briefcase>Select related Matter
c. Address Line in Matter> On the top left, click the Matter name to navigate to another Matter.
4. Other Hyperlinks- There are links back to a Matter throughout CARET Legal. Additional links can be found in places like the Documents Dashboard and Accounting Modules.
Advanced Matter Management
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 the Matter section.
In this course, we are going to go into Advanced Matter management and review the Matter Options Tab. The Matter Options tab is broken down into several small sections. Here, we are going to focus on non-Billing Matter Options. These options include:
- Matter Description- A larger paragraph style field that allows you to include a longer matter name or other identifier.
- Client Goal- A paragraph style field that allows you to note the client's goal(s) relative to the legal services your firm is providing.
- Statute of Limitations- A Date type field that allows the firm to track/update the Statute of Limitations Deadline.
- Referral Source- A lookup field that allows you to search and select a person or company contact. This feeds into our Referral Source Report, where you can see the monetization of specific referral relationships.
- Office Location- Assign the matter to a specific office location for Accounting and Productivity reporting.
- Retainer Agreement- Upload a copy of the full executed retainer agreement. Alternatively, you can upload this document to the Documents tab of the matter for wider visibility.
- Matter Level Permissions- should a conflict of interest or other needs arise after the matter was opened, the 'Set Permissions For Matter' button will prompt you to select specific users or groups of users who will have access to the matter and its details. Anyone outside of the Permissions will not have any access to the Matter.
Time, Fees & 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. Here is a helpful Knowledge Base article on how to enter time. 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. There are multiple ways to enter Hard Costs and Soft Costs.
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.
Document Management
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
Document Automation
Here is a helpful video to better see our native Document Automation function. If you do the same document multiple times across multiple matters, let our Document Templates help streamline this task so it can take seconds or minutes instead of hours.
Workflows
Workflows are a great automation tool that helps you and your team with the creation and assignment of Tasks and Calendar Events. The workflows will be organized by practice area, but can be used on any matter. To create a Workflow, you will need Administrator permissions. The video below will demonstrate how to use a workflow on a matter in your day-to-day.
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 you 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.