ARE YOUR LEGAL CASE FLOWS PROACTIVE ?

ARE YOU TRACKING AND AUTOMATICALLY CHASING ITEMS EFFICIENTLY ?

ARE YOU ABLE TO FILE DOCUMENTS ACCURATELY ?

AWAITING ITEMS AS A BACKBONE TO CASE FLOWS

Commonly legal case flows lend themselves to the concept of one or more Awaiting Items, for example Awaiting Deeds from <entity name> or Awaiting Proof of ID from <entity name>.

A well designed Generic method of handling Awaiting Items can be the driver for your case flows, and the backbone of flow logic.

GAIL Awaiting items are linked to partner Entities, so at any time you can see what you are waiting for and from whom, with the ability to automatically chase the items as you require.

Any number of Awaiting Items can be applied as precedents to a step, for example defining a number Awaiting Items as 'must be received before the step Exchange Contracts'.

GAIL BENEFITS

GAIL allows you to easily integrate entity linked "Awaiting Items" into legal case flows, saving a great deal of P4W maintenance and considerably improving the effectiveness of a P4W caseflow.

From a Lean perspective, GAIL targets these areas of efficiency and cost saving:

For the business:

• Progressing case files to maximum extent :-
• driving the progress of case files by receiving documents into the office in a minimum of time
• relieving case workers of the task of chasing documents
• Clear Matter summary view - displaying which Items we have received, and which Items we are still awaiting, with Request/Chase/Received dates
• Allow fully automated chase or request of multiple items per Entity
• Multiple Precedent Items :  Prevent certain steps from being taken until specific Items have been received : Each Item can be assigned as a precedent to any step (such as a domestic conveyancing Exchange Contracts step) 
• Awaiting Items are seamlessly assigned to Matter contacts of a particular Entity Type
• Record Issues with multiple Items, such as Unsigned documents, or unsatisfactory copy quality, and automatically re-request the items
• Mark items as Not Required, selecting from standard or custom reasons
• Chase by Letter, HTML Email, SMS Text or by Phone
• Integrated with a Filer facility to accuratley link files to awaiting items 

For the I.T department:

• Efficient, and consistent flow design
• Eliminates the requirement to construct Awaiting steps for each and every possible Item
• Data driven - Awaiting Items templates are defined by rows in one straightforward Partner Practice Level View
• Awaiting items can be inserted into the flow by SQL code without having to create an Awaiting Item step.
• Optionally assign an Awaiting Item template to existing case flow step  
• Prevent a step from being taken if any precedent Awaiting items have not yet been received (step question code supplied)  
• Assign any number of Items as being precedent to any Partner step  
• Create a Daily Server process to generate chase letters/emails or SMS texts
• Preformed (modifiable) letters/ emails and SMS texts for request and chase
• Optionally mark items as 'Received ' typically tied into document scanning software
• Mark Items as Received without having to immediately process the item  
• Allow an Awaiting Item to be In House - for example if awaiting from an internal department  
• 'Filer' allows easier identification of files for automatic publishing

HOW IT WORKS 

Creating Awaiting Items Templates

For a particular case type (for example Domestic Conveyancing Sale) the first thing to do is to identify all of the items that we request from all of the entities involved.

Some examples on file opening for a Sale case : 

The main Awaiting Item Templates (Practice Level) view is used to create Awaiting Item Templates  :

[Click to enlarge]


The template controls the behavior of events such as Receive, Process and Chase.

In the example above, when the item is taken the step 'PRO Further Enquirers' will be inserted into the workflow.

Inserting Awaiting Items into the Workflow 

There are two ways of inserting Awaiting Items, either using the generic awaiting step, or making use of an existing Awaiting step you may have allready built.

Inserting Creating Generic Awaiting Items 

GAIL includes a very easy way to insert an item, simply by calling a stored procedure from a Partner step.

In this example we insert four generic waiting item steps, for a Client Care Letter, Money on Account, Proof of ID, Proof of Address, SDLT Questionnaire.

After creating the templates, as described above, it is simply a case of calling a stored procedure, specifying the template code, and which entity the item is expected from:

[SQL:EXEC upLean_InsertAwaitingItem @EntityRef='[m.entityref]', @MatterNo=[m.number],@TemplateItemCode='P_SignedClientCare', @AwaitFromEntityRef='[m.entityref]']

[SQL:EXEC upLean_InsertAwaitingItem @EntityRef='[m.entityref]', @MatterNo=[m.number],@TemplateItemCode='P_MoneyOnAccount', @AwaitFromEntityRef='[m.entityref]']

[SQL:EXEC upLean_InsertAwaitingItem @EntityRef='[m.entityref]', @MatterNo=[m.number],@TemplateItemCode='P_ProofOfID', @AwaitFromEntityRef='[m.entityref]']

[SQL:EXEC upLean_InsertAwaitingItem @EntityRef='[m.entityref]', @MatterNo=[m.number],@TemplateItemCode='P_ProofOfAddress', @AwaitFromEntityRef='[m.entityref]']

[SQL:EXEC upLean_InsertAwaitingItem @EntityRef='[m.entityref]', @MatterNo=[m.number],@TemplateItemCode='P_SDLTQuestionnaire', @AwaitFromEntityRef='[m.entityref]']

In this example the CASE Open step contains the code shown above, the Item Templates have their 'Agenda Name' set to 'ENGAGEMENT ->' 

 

As you can see the step name included the Item Description and the relevant Entity name.

 

COMMON OPTIONS

Taking any of any these generic awaiting item steps provides a list of common options, including mark as received, receive and process.

GAIL also includes functionality to chase all items for an entity, by letter, email or SMS text.

 

STATUS VIEWS

Managing Partner views are provided to show the current state of all Awaiting Items:

 

Creating Awaiting Items for Existing Partner Steps

If you wish to connect an Awaiting Item to existing step, rather than using the Generic step, simply specify a 'Physical Step Name':

 

 

 

AUTOMATIC (UNATENDED) CHASING OF AWAITING ITEMS BY BATCH

This is where GAIL brings a great deal of benefit to you by progressing case flows and getting documents into your practice in the minimum of time.

We would create a server script to do this for you - an daily module would need to be modified for your needs and may include chase by Letter, Email or SMS text.

The solution here would depend on your existing software.

 

FILER

Linking files received to Awaiting Items and Filing other unknown documents:

GAIL INSTALLATION & INTEGRATION

The lean GAIL software pack consists of suite of SQL stored procedures and pre-built Partner steps, allowing you to quickly get up and running with a more streamlined and efficient case flow.

The stored procedures themselves are generic and you may find to be very useful in other parts of your case flows.

 

Would you like an online demonstration of GAIL? contact us,  we can help you with integrating GAIL with your existing or new P4W case flows.             Lean provide software and Documentation download, and optionally : install, training,  on-site or remote assistance and further development as required.

GAIL Release History

Date	Version	Release notes
13/10/2014	1.0	Initial public release
11/12/2014	2.0	Designed to be easily applied to existing case flows
15/01/2018	3.0	Software improved in many areas. Primary changes include: Supporting Requested status, Chased status, Received status, Processed status. Improved support for scanning software - integration invloves simply updating the received date.
03/04/2018	3.1	Linking Awaiting items to documents received - (PDF/Image) Filing.