Documents

Documents play a major role In the practice of law. Amicus Attorney lets you associate your documents and research with your Amicus data, regardless of format, directly from all Microsoft Office applications (including Word, Excel, and Outlook), and from WordPerfect.

Alternatively, you can attach them from your Amicus Files, Contacts, E-mail, Events, Notes, and Library Pages. You can even attach computer folders, Web addresses, and descriptions of paper documents for tracking purposes. And finding your documents is easy with Amicus.

User-Managed versus Amicus-Managed documents

Two levels of document management are available to meet your needs. Depending upon the configuration chosen by your Amicus Administrator, documents referenced in Amicus records will be handled in one of two ways:

User-Managed — This mode gives Firm Members the flexibility to individually manage their computer file documents. Documents attached to Amicus records can be saved to any location you prefer (a network or a local drive). On Files, you might choose to simply create a Document record identifying a network folder location and then work within the exposed Windows Explorer view rather than saving documents individually. User-Managed mode does not guarantee accessibility by other Firm Members. However, some control can be attained if your firm or department utilizes a designated network location for sharing documents. Specify that location relative to your workstation—for details, see Document Management preferences.
Amicus-Managed — This mode is ideal for firms that desire greater control of computer file document location and accessibility, or document versioning. If your Amicus Administrator has designated Amicus to be in charge of managing Amicus documents, then they will be automatically uploaded to the firm's designated Document Repository location. Editing is controlled by enforced Check In/Out functions that track who is working on a document. Whenever a document associated with a File is edited and checked in, it becomes the new current version, and the original one remains accessible as a prior version. This mode provides an always-accessible solution.

Microsoft Office integration

The Amicus Tasks Toolbar is available in your Microsoft Office applications, including Word and Excel. You may use these buttons to add a computer file document to Amicus, attaching it to a File, Contact, or Library Page. In a document already attached to Amicus, you may directly open the related Amicus record and, in an Amicus-Managed environment, perform Check In/Out functions. You can also access the Amicus Search function. For more information, see Performing Amicus tasks from other applications.

Managing E-mail attachments

Managing e-mails and their attachments is core to everyone's day. In addition to the Amicus Tasks Toolbar, Amicus offers e-mail integration with Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and provides many options for auto-saving e-mails and attachments to save you time and keep you organized. For more information, see Outlook/Exchange - E-mail Link setup and Sending and receiving E-mails.

Library Resources

Documents relating to research may be attached as Resources via Library Pages. Library Pages are listed in the Library module. They can also be associated with a File for ease of reference directly from the Research view of File Details. For more information, see Associating a Resource with the Library Page.

Document Searches

The Documents module supports searches for Document Detail fields as well as full-text searches of the items referenced by Amicus Documents. See Working with the Document list from the Documents module.

The Amicus Search function also includes the ability to search Document Detail fields. Choose Tools > Search from the main menu. See Search.