Legal Technology
Oliver, Pardy & Associates, P.C.

Oliver, Pardy & Associates, P.C. is highly automated.  Central to the system is a  Windows NT network linking all office computers to a Compaq Proliant 800 server.  Also connected to the central server is a dedicated CD Rom drive server, housing four CD ROM's.

Legal Research on CD ROM's:  The office utilizes West Premise software to research West’s Montana CD which contains the full Montana Reports and  the Montana Code Annotated  and to research West’s US Code Annotated.   State Reporter Publishing provides a CD of the Administrative Rules of Montana which  is situated in the CD Rom Drive tower and searchable with software provided on the CD.

Office Computers:  Each employee has a stand alone Pentium level computer system with 64 MB which can run independent of the network.  Each computer has its own  CD Rom drive, hard disk, Hewlett Packard printer and a Paperport scanner.

Compaq Server:  The central server  stores all client files, billing and accounting software.  All files are backed up each evening using a Hewlett Packard SureStore DAT8  8 GB DDS-2 tape backup system.  The previous day's tape is stored off premise.

Amicus Attorney:  Case management software.  It organizes client files, schedules appointments, and manages to-do lists, records billable time and a variety of other tasks.  Superior in deadline management.  Client information is available at your fingertips, including  lists of past and future events by file, time spent by case, addresses and phone numbers associated with a case.  Amicus Team allows all members of any given team within an office access to all information simultaneously.  Amicus integrates with many other programs and systems including Timeslips, Worldox, Paperport, Palm Pilot, and Eudora, our e-mail system.

Timeslips:  All billing entered into Amicus is transferred to Timeslips by a posting program within Amicus.  Timeslips generates the monthly bills.  

Worldox:  This database software allows our gradual movement toward a paper less office.  Each morning all new clients are transferred to the Worldox client database file by an export program in Amicus.  Worldox allows the filing of documents in a central client data base by client and by case within client.  Each case file has a correspondence file, court file, discovery file, bill file and a miscellaneous file.   When a document is saved in Word, the Worldox software pops up a table asking in which client, case, and file type the document should be stored.  It also allows the entry of the type of document (letter, memo, e-mail, motion etc), the author and a description of the document.  Any document is retrieved quickly by entering  the same type of information and scanning the description of the documents in the particular case file.

Paperport:  Paperport provides a scanner and supporting software.  This scanning system allows us to scan documents and photographs to file in our database via Worldox or to transmit them to others via the Winfax program.  Each work station has a scanner.

 Phoneslips:  Message management software.  Rather than use elusive paper messages all messages are entered into phone slips.  A log of messages is automatically maintained which allows us to search for messages by name, phone number, date or recipient.

Palm Pilot:A pocket computer that integrates with Amicus allowing the user to carry around his schedule, client addresses and phone numbers, and to-do lists.  The palm computer beeps whenever a time slot has an appointment or hearing.  The unit allows entry of new appointments, phone numbers and other information when away from your main computer, which information can be transferred to Amicus upon return to the office.