Unit 8: Abacus Law and Smart Draw

Specialty Software Abacus Law is a legal specialty software that can be used for case management, calendaring, contact management, document management, time entry, billing, and client payments as well as other functions. SmartDraw is a specialty software that can be used to create graphics such as timelines, evidence charts, legal flowcharts, patent drawings, and crime scene diagrams.

Abacus Law

Abacus Law: Calendar Day, Week, Month, and Staff Views: * Why might you want to see “staff view?”

Abacus Law: Contacts, Events, Matters These are used to organize or find specific information in various ways:

Abacus Law: Conflicts Check How fantastic is this!!! What do you think of this program to conduct a conflicts check?

Abacus Law: Call Manager You can also use this program to track phone calls and messages, with a record kept:

Abacus Law: Date Calculator This is one of the best features – why is the date calculator so important?

Abacus Bat This is an system that allows you to synchronize with other technology:

Abacus Law: The Help Button and Vista You may encounter a problem trying to use the Help button in Abacus Law It appears that there is a missing link between the help function in Abacus Law and Vista The Help area will give you a link to Microsoft’s website so that you can download what you will need so that the help feature will function properly:

Abacus Law: The Help Button and Vista

Abacus Law: The Help Button

CompanionLink CompanionLink often comes bundled under special license with Personal Information Managers (PIMs), Web Based Calendars and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Specially Licensed versions are generally equivalent to the Express version of CompanionLink. You can synchronize information you input on hand held equipment to personal computers.

CompanionLink A quick and easy synchronization system from any one Contact Manager database to any one handheld. CompanionLink Professional lets you combine data from multiple Contact Manager files, and from multiple Contact applications into a single handheld organizer.

Abacus Accounting This fantastic program allows you to do all of the following: Browse by files Enter time tickets to record time Record costs, payments, trust deposits, Track pre-bills and actual bills Write checks, maintain a payroll Monitor activity on accounts

Abacus Accounting: Client Payments

Abacus Accounting: Time Tickets What would you use this for?

SmartDraw You can create professional looking charts:

SmartDraw And decision trees – what might you use this for?

Smart Draw: Business Cards (for the independent paralegal)

SmartDraw: Web Designs You can even create your own web design!

How About You? What features did you like best about Abacus Law? How about with SmartDraw? Let’s look at some of your timelines!

Sample Timeline

SmartDraw Timeline

This Week’s Assignment Once you have installed the SmartDraw software, take a look at the left side of the screen. You will see “New Document” at the upper left, with a long list of options below. Click on a few to see the types of graphics you can create with this software. At the very bottom of the list is “Timelines.” Choose a timeline template that appeals to you, and then select it. Play around with the template, using the tools at the top of the screen to change the text and appearance.

This Week’s Assignment cont’d Next, visit which sets out landmark U. S. Supreme Court cases. Choose a case and/or topic of interest to you, such as the First Amendment. Then, research in the Kaplan Library or locate relevant sources on the Internet and locate the history behind this landmark case. Create a timeline in SmartDraw of the major events in the development of this case as it worked its way to the U. S. Supreme Court. Your timeline should have approximately 8-10 events.

This Week’s Assignment cont’d Once you have completed your timeline, look at the upper left corner of the SmartDraw screen. There you will see four small icons: a PDF icon, a Word icon, a PowerPoint icon, and an Excel icon. Each of these icons represents the ways in which you can export your finished product. In other words, you can create a PDF of your timeline, or you can create a Word document, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel spreadsheet with your timeline in it. Play around with these options and try exporting your timeline into each format.

This Week’s Assignment cont’d Select one format to use (Word, PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint) and export your timeline. To do so, go to the SmartDraw icon in the upper left-hand corner. Go to "Export" on the dropdown menu and choose the appropriate format. Your timeline will then be exported to Word, PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint and you should save your document in that format. To avoid your timeline changing size in the new format, BEFORE exporting your timeline, go to the magnifying glass icon and set your timeline to 100% or higher.