Working with Your Cases

The Cases page is the one place that lists every case in the firm at once, not just yours. It is where you go to find a case to work, to scan the whole docket for what needs attention, and to see at a glance how much money each case is carrying, work you have not billed yet, money a client still owes, and what is sitting in trust. Each row is one case; clicking it opens the full case, which is described in detail in The Case Page. Everything below is about working the list itself.

Open, Closed, or All

At the top of the page is a set of three buttons that decides which cases you are looking at, and it is the first thing to check whenever the list seems too short or too long.

• Open is the default, and it shows only your active cases, the work in front of you. Most of the time this is exactly what you want, and Outlaw remembers the choice between visits.
• Closed shows cases you have finished or withdrawn from, which is where you go to look something up after the matter is over.
• All drops the distinction entirely and shows every case regardless of status, useful when you are hunting for a particular case and cannot remember whether it was ever closed.

If you follow a link straight to a specific case, Outlaw makes sure that case is visible even when it would fall outside your current filter, so a closed case you opened from somewhere else still appears.

Finding a Case

The search box is the fastest way into a long list, and it reaches well beyond the case name. Type a few words and Outlaw matches the case itself, its clients, the people assigned to it, and the answers captured on its intake forms. Turn on the deeper search options and it will also look through the attorneys and paralegals on the case and the text inside attached documents, so a search for a client’s name surfaces every case that touches that client in one shot. The way search behaves, and the case-sensitive, whole-word, and fuzzy options that go with it, work the same everywhere in Outlaw; see Data Tables.

Reading the Columns

Each case shows its key facts across the row so you can judge it without opening it. Two small icons lead each row: one shows how the case is billed (hourly, flat fee, or contingency) and one is a colored folder showing its status. From there the row carries the case name, its clients, the code, the case type, and the stage the case has reached. On wider screens you also get the team working it (each person’s initials, marked as attorney or paralegal), whether the case came from a lead, its risk, and who the payer is.

The three money columns are the ones firms watch most closely:

• Unbilled is the work you have done but not yet put on an invoice. It shows in red when there is something there, a standing reminder to bill it.
• Due is what the client still owes on finalized invoices, also red when there is a balance.
• Trust is what you are holding for the client in trust.

You can sort by any of these columns, including the money ones, by clicking the column. Sorting Unbilled highest-first, for instance, puts the cases with the most uninvoiced work at the top of your billing list.

Opening a Case

Click any row to open the case in its full editor, the page covered in The Case Page. To start a brand-new case, use the add control on the toolbar. A case needs a name, a code, at least one client, a case type, and a disposition before it will save; Outlaw marks those fields and tells you what is missing, so you cannot accidentally create a case that is half-built. Deleting a case is restricted to administrators, since a case carries the firm’s billing and trust history.

You can also send the list to a spreadsheet with the export control whenever you need the cases outside Outlaw, for a partner meeting or your own records.