Legal Files 6.0 Offers Expanded Integration, Increased Data Portability

30 May 2005

The latest desktop, web and client extranet management tools have gone into the making of Legal Files 6.0, the leading case and matter management software offered by Legal Files Software, Inc. The company is rolling out Legal Files 6.0 to existing customers and announced its general release today.

Legal Files 6.0 delivers the unified desktop legal professionals desire, managing data, documents and all activity, plus the management tools to better manage matters and staff within legal departments or law firms, according to Greg O"Connor, Legal Files chief executive officer.

"By combining all the key tools—case/matter management, document assembly and management, relationship management, calendars, time and expenses, e-mail and workflow—Legal Files 6.0 puts everything in its place and, more importantly, puts everything in one place," he said.

O"Connor said the development team at Legal Files Software, Inc. was especially proud of the addition of multi-district litigation (MDL) and class action functionality, PDF form filler and the integration with U.S. Court Forms. Legal Files 6.0 also boasts integrations with HotDocs, IPRO, LiveNote, Omega, and PD Partner. In addition, Legal Files also now supports Bates numbering and offers enhanced budgeting functionality.

Users of Legal Files 6.0 have the option of a web client version of the software. MyLegalFiles 3.0 was released concurrently with Legal Files 6.0.

Corporate legal department users will be particularly interested in the greater invoice and expense functionality offered in Legal Files 6.0. Legal Files users can extensively manage invoices/expenses and leverage the reporting and tracking capabilities to manage outside counsel activities. This includes web access, matter level budgeting, and expense tracking with electronic invoice acceptance in the Legal Electronic Data Exchange (LEDESTM) format. Legal Files also offers a budgeting feature that will allow users to track, at any given time, expenses to-date on a matter versus the budgeted amount.

Using the Legal Files LEDES Importer, you can automatically import invoice information, including external time and expense records, into the Legal Files system. Legal Files can track in detail all expenses regarding a matter and categorize the expenses by date amount, type, outside counsel and business group or internal department.

Corporate legal department users will find that using Legal Files" External Expense Quick Add to log an invoice into Legal Files allows for the creation of individual expense and time entries in Legal Files. The entering, categorizing and allocating of expenses in Legal Files can be accomplished quickly through the Quick Add feature, plus the Quick Add feature also enables you to allocate costs to multiple business areas or multiple matters.

Legal Files users who work or volunteer in legal services organizations will benefit from the improvements made to the eligibility functions within Legal Files. Specifically, "Adjusted Annual Income" and "Adjusted Poverty Percent" were added to the Eligibility Wizard Factors, Assets, Benefits, Funding Source and Demographics Tab and the Copy Eligibility function was enhanced. Since establishing eligibility is an essential task for legal services, legal clinics and pro bono organizations, Legal Files offers these enhancements to the Eligibility Wizard in 6.0 to make performing eligibility screenings faster and easier.

For all users, Legal Files 6.0 offers improvements in document text searching, security, time capturing and user reassignment functionality. Additionally, users now have the ability to more easily manage arbitrated and mediated cases within Legal Files.

Although providing enhanced functionality and extensive new features are important priorities for the company, O"Connor said, what is most important is the service Legal Files Software, Inc. provides. "Legal Files Software, Inc. is not a subsidiary of another organization with other, unrelated lines of business and interest," O"Connor said. "Consequently, the company is able to provide a true partnership with its clients that results in a level of customer service that is truly unique in the legal software industry.

"Since Legal Files case management software is our only product, we"re able to devote 100 percent of our energy and resources to the application," O"Connor continued. "Our customers can see concrete evidence of that commitment in every release; it is especially true with Version 6.0." The new release is available at no additional charge to Legal Files customers who are current with their maintenance and support agreements.

About Legal Files Software Inc.
Founded in 1990, Legal Files Software Inc., with corporate headquarters in Springfield, Ill., develops case and matter management software products for practice management, litigation support, document assembly and integrated groupware. Thousands of users in leading law firms, corporate legal departments, legal services clinics, insurance companies and universities around the world use Legal Files software to store case information and track office workflow. For more information, visit the company"s web site at www.LegalFiles.com.