This article originally appeared in California Lawyer magazine, and is reprinted with their permission. Reprints are available from CompuLaw upon request.

CALIFORNIA LAWYER

Docket Science
Computerized calendaring systems reduce malpractice insurance rates.

by Susan E. Davis

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal had a pretty common problem. Its 58-attorney Los Angeles office, along with its San Francisco office and five other non-California-based Sonnenschein Nath offices, used the firm's proprietary docketing system, which required manually calculating and entering dates for cases. But manually calculating dates based on the myriad levels of state and local rules in California is "extremely complex," says Stephen Curran, a litigator in the L.A. office. "It's hard to understand and then catch all the pretrial rules." Karen Zydron, the docketing manager for the entire firm, puts it less mildly. "The California system is a nightmare," she says. "I've been doing docketing for 20 years, and I still find California's rules overwhelming."

To lighten the load on docketing clerks--and help the attorneys sleep at night--Sonnenschein Nath's L.A. office installed CompuLaw's Vision Docket for Windows, a court-rules-based automatic docketing program. Now the attorney or clerk simply enters the trial date, and the program calculates all of the relevant dates based on rules derived from the relevant courts. "The program is invaluable for litigation in this state," Curran says, "especially for attorneys who go through a high volume of cases."

According to a 1993 survey by the Association of Legal Administrators, CompuLaw's venerable DOS calendaring products, NetDoc and Advanced Docket, Jr., are the most popular calendaring and docket managers available. This is in part because these programs are so complete. Both offer more Court Rule Sets than any other program--and the sets are so good that CompuLaw licenses them to other legal software vendors. In addition, the programs provide so much flexibility in terms of planning, calculating, and printing reports that virtually any law office can use them.

If It's Tuesday,
This Must Be ...

If your firm has been using a manual docketing system for many years, you may not see much reason to switch. Your paralegals or docketing managers are probably doing a pretty good job--if not, they, or your firm, would be out of work. But an automatic docketing system confers far more benefits than just figuring out dates for attorneys.

One of the greatest benefits is the probable reduction in malpractice insurance. At least 50 percent of all malpractice claims lodged against lawyers arise from calendaring mistakes, according to Polk Communications and Research, which does marketing for CompuLaw. In a 1991 survey the company found that about two-thirds of the surveyed insurance companies offered premium reductions for firms with automatic calendaring programs. The reductions ranged from about 2 percent to 10 percent. Three companies said they wouldn't insure a law firm without docketing software.

Electronic calendars such as Lotus Organizer or WordPerfect Office don't count as docketing software, because with those programs you still manually enter dates--it's just that it's on a screen. Instead, you must have a program set up specifically to automatically calculate dates, based on court rules.

Both Vision Docket for Windows and NetDoc allow users to choose relevant court rule databases, which reside on a server in the office. The programs offer nearly 100 rule sets, including the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and of Bankruptcy Procedure, Superior, Appellate, and federal Court rules, and 45 of California's Fast Track rules. CompuLaw now offers sets for 14 other states, including Texas, New York, and Florida, all of which are fairly litigious, as well as Washington, D.C., Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. The company promises to have all 50 states by the end of this year. (It had originally set this goal for early 1997.) CompuLaw also hopes to offer sets for Canadian courts and U.S. government agencies by next year.

[Note: CompuLaw now has Civil Litigation rule sets for all 50 states and Washington DC. Additional sets include specialties, such as Patent and Trademark, Bankruptcy, etc. Click Court Rules Listing for a complete listing.]

Sonnenschein Nath's proprietary docketing database served a number of functions, including calendaring, conflict checking, and providing a detailed diary of complete case histories. But because it wasn't rules-based it couldn't "spring," or automatically fill in, the relevant dates the way CompuLaw's docketing products do. Now the firm is hoping to use CompuLaw as a backup in the non-California offices, so that clerks can double-check their work against an automatic system. "We made a firm-wide decision to unify the system," Zydron says. "But we still have to be able to customize the program for each office's needs.

CompuLaw's programs allow for that. If senior attorneys need status reports from junior attorneys on a set schedule, for instance, that can be included on the calendar. If the firm has a "100 days to trial" program, with set dates for key accomplishments such as initiating discovery or scheduling regular strategy meetings, that too can be entered. Vision Docket has a rather tenacious system of giving five warnings for upcoming dates, but even the warnings can be customized. Curran, for instance, often asks clerks to put "tickler" memos in his calendar to remind him of impending depositions or court dates.

If there are recurrent events, such as a staff meeting every Tuesday or a client meeting the second Thursday of every January, the program can fill those in for unlimited years. If contracts need to be reviewed 20 years down the line, the programs can also do that. "I've got dates entered in NetDoc for 2020," notes Vesna Lerotic, a legal assistant at Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer, a 40-attorney firm in San Francisco. "I think I could enter dates for any time beyond that, too. I may not be alive, but at least the system will be keeping track." In fact the program will hold dates until 2995, at which time the company will offer a free upgrade.

A Minute Saved

The other major benefit of good docketing software comes from time savings. Having a program that calculates all relevant dates can save hours for Paralegals and attorneys, especially in complicated cases. Modifying a case schedule can also be done in a wink. If you have a continuance, for instance, you can choose to have all the other dates automatically adjusted--which takes mere seconds. Or, if not all the dates need to be adjusted, you can work on the deadlines manually.

Mistakes can occur, of course, but it's almost always because of human error--someone forgot to enter a date or to ask the system to revise a schedule based on a continuance. But such mistakes are rare. And none of our interviewees could recall CompuLaw docketing systems making an error. (The programs give users the option of printing out the relevant rule for each calendar date calculated.) Should a malpractice suit arise, both programs maintain precise audit trails of every addition, change, and deletion on every case. Notes Curran, "No system can be a substitute for an attorney's discretion and knowledge of the rules. But this system helps enormously."

Susan E. Davis is a journalist based in San Francisco.
Edited by Sandra Rosenzweig.