Adhering with the Law Society’s Software Solutions guide 2005 recommendations, the PMS system records all clients associated with a matter on individual client records. This reduces the time in setting up a client, who may come back to the firm on another matter and also allows individual clients to be recorded for anti-money laundering purposes. The New Matter Wizard requires minimal information to be entered initially (three key fields) to obtain a full case reference. The system also allows an image to be assigned to a client, contact, fee earner or a user for Anti-Money Laundering purposes.

The full matter recording system is extremely comprehensive and includes co-defendant, witnesses and other parties. It automatically performs conflict of interest checks when “other side” or “witness” details are entered and automatically generates a 6 months’ review date which in turn generates an entry into the fee-earner diary. The creation of a matter automatically updates the relevant Case Management Module. There are also notes and instructions fields as well as extensive matter search functionality.

It also has automatic links to client database and automatic direct links to key dates within the diary. A full matter review history screen is available with diary links. Diary bookings can be created from the matter screen.

A Unique File Number is entered automatically by the system for Criminal matters and may be utilised by the Block Contracting module to automatically complete and generate the CDS6, CDS7 and CDS11 forms.

When a matter is opened and identified as Legal Aid, details are attached in the appropriate screens to build a fuller picture of the matter to enable integration with the accounts system and the Criminal Billing module.

Direct access to the accounts system is also provided, enabling non-accounts staff to access relevant financial information at ledger card level.

A new feature of the system is the Fee Earner Console. This new view displays a variety of key information such as New Matters, Live Matters, Appointments and Tasks giving the Fee Earner access to important information at a glance.