Guided Setup

The Advocate Guided Setup walks you step by step through the process of preparing Advocate for use in your law office. The Guided Setup Wizard also lets you skip directly to a setup topic or follow thirteen easy steps to customize the software for your area of practice, billing and desktop preferences. This help page will highlight each step of the setup wizard.

Starting The Guided Setup Wizard:

The Guided Setup Wizard may be started from the Advocate Introduction screen shown when the software is first installed or it may be selected from bottom of the Setup Menu.

Step 1: Firm Setup

The Advocate software registration key provided with the licensed version of Advocate contains the name of the law firm and the attorney the software is licensed to be used by. In this step, the address for the firm is set up.

Step 2: Advocate - Options Menu Setup

Program preferences for Law partner are contained in the Options section of the program Setup Menu. Detailed help for options setup is available here.

Options- General Tab

File Size Optimizations: The choices here for file optimization are checked by default causing Advocate to reclaim wasted database space after each use by using Microsoft Jet database compression.

Advocate Password: A password may be setup to prevent unauthorized access to the Advocate Program. A password prompt at startup will require the correct entry of the password in order for Advocate to open.

Options- Cases Tab

The Cases tab lets you set defaults for Master Attorney, your most often used area of practice, preferences about the work timer and case to-do list.

Default Settings for Cases: Select the Area of Practice most used as your default Area of Practice. Next, press the Setup Button for Master Counsel and enter the attorney who will be master counsel on your cases. This individual's contact record will be added to each new case automatically when created.

Options- Outlook Tab

Outlook interface behaviors are set here to your personal preferences.

Always Display New Tasks and Appointments: This enables you to view and edit all new Outlook entries prior to saving them.

Display Outlook Calendar: This shows the Outlook Appointment Desktop Calendar on your Advocate 2002 Desktop. You can adjust various color properties of the calendar here.

Display Outlook Appointment Ticker: This shows your Outlook Appointments in a Ticker at the bottom of the Advocate Screen. You may adjust the ticker colors, speed and the number of days you want displayed on the ticker.

Options- Desktop Tab

You may customize the look and feel of Advocate with settings found under the Desktop tab.

Preferences: You can decide which toolbars you want displayed on Advocate Desktop.

Wallpaper: You can use a BMP, GIF or JPG file as a background wallpaper in the Advocate Program. The image is tiled to fill in the entire desktop area that is exposed.

Advocate Today: This option starts Advocate Today and your associated calendar and tasks each time Advocate is started.

Options- Invoices Tab

The look of your printed invoices and statements may be set here under the Invoices tab, with settings for the fonts and banner for your billings.

Step 3: Area of Practice Setup

The various Areas of Practice your firm practices should be available when developing cases in Advocate. In this step, the list is reviewed and choices added as needed to the list. In addition, Advocate 2002 allows you to set up up to twenty user defined text fields for use in case details management for each area of practice.

Step 4: Cause of Action List

This list contains the various cause of actions your cases may be based on. Of course new "cause" listings may be added later as needed when developing new cases.

Step 5: Court Address Book (Jurisdictions Setup)

This list contains court names, addresses, county of venue, and juris titles for the jurisdictions where your cases will be tried.

Step 6: Case Status Names

As you progress through a case's preparation, trial and closure, the status names may be used within the case to describe the current status of a particular case. This is chosen from a drop down list in the Case Details window. The choices available are added and deleted here:

Step 7: Discovery Item Types

This list keeps descriptions of discovery item types used to describe discovery documents and exhibits.

Step 8: Document Types List

The Advocate DocuMinder keeps track of all of your case documents. In order to use the powerful filtering capabilities of the Documinder, this list provides you with the means to categorize types of documents for filtering.

Step 9: Referrers List

This is the list of potential sources of referrals you have received. The only purpose of this list and the marking of referrals is so that you can keep a watchful eye on where your clients are coming from.

Step 10: Other Party Types

This is a very important list to maintain because it helps you filter a certain type of contact from within the Other Party Database. In Advocate terminology, Other Party refers to all parties except clients. This includes all of the following and more: You, your firm's attorneys, opposing attorneys, opposing parties, judges, clerks, stenographers, secretaries, doctors, insurance adjustors, errand boys, etc. Keeping this list specific means you can find a person you need by limiting your search to a specific type.

Step 11: Basis of Fee List

This list contains possible billing choices you provide for paying for legal services.

Step 12: Billing Expenses List

This is your billing expense type and price list for the peripheral costs involved in the cases.

Step 13: Work Descriptions

These are the short descriptions used to describe services performed on billing documents.

Finishing the Guided Setup Wizard:

Once completed, these setup options may be found on the Setup Menu or by running the Guided Setup Wizard again. Remember, you may quickly jump to a setup screen by clicking the topic on the right hand menu.