PBI Web Portal PBI Attorney Case Management
New Case
To accept a new, waiting case, the attorney should click on “Waiting Cases” in the menu. This opens the waiting case search screen, shown in Figure 14. There is a “Help” button after the first line of text on the page. This pop-up page gives the attorney more information about the process of reviewing waiting cases.
When the Waiting Cases page first opens, it uses the counties and subjects in the attorney’s profile to display only cases that match those criteria. The red text shown at the bottom of the Waiting Cases page, shown in Figure 14, notifies the attorney that a special filter has been applied. The attorney can click on the “More Information on Filter” button to get a list of the counties and subjects entered for him. That text also tells the attorney that they can change the filtering by changing the options in the search boxes. The search boxes work together. For example, the selection of “Consumer” in the “Type of Issue” box and a selection of a particular county in the “County of Problem” dropdown results in the display of only consumer cases in that county. If no cases appear on the list after either the automatic or manual filter is entered, the “Sorry no cases found” message appears as in Figure 14. Otherwise the cases that satisfy the criteria appear, as shown in Figure 15. If this search results in a large number of cases, the attorney can page through the results using the numbers at the bottom of the case list.
If an attorney wants to review a particular case, they click the “Select” button next to the entry. This starts a three-stage acceptance process. In Stage 1, the attorney reviews a short note about the case that was previously entered by staff, as shown in Figure 16.
After reviewing the note, the lawyer can refuse the case and click on the “Cancel and return to potential cases” button. Otherwise they continue to Phase 2 by clicking the “I want to continue with this case” button. In Phase 2, the attorney is given the names of the client and opposing parties. This allows the attorney to check for conflicts in their own caseload. As with Phase 2, there is a “Cancel” and a “Continue” button, as shown in Figure 17.
In Phase 3, specific information about the client, including the client’s contact information is displayed. This is the final phase of the review. The only two options at this point are to accept the case or cancel and refuse it, as shown in Figure 18.
If the attorney clicks the “Take this case” button, the screen shows “Case Taken”. The attorney can then click the “Case taken. Click here to return to main menu.” button to return to the main screen.
View Open Cases
An attorney’s open cases are displayed by clicking on “My Cases” in the main menu, as shown in Figure 19.
To interact with a particular case (to add time, for example), click the select button next to the case. When selected, the case web page is displayed, as shown in Figure 20.
Case Information
To review general case information, including the client name, address, other contact information, and adverse parties related to the case, an attorney clicks the “Case Information” button in the case web page. A panel pops up displaying this information, as shown in Figure 21.
To close the Client Information Panel, click the “Close Client Information Panel” button.
Case Documents
To view case documents, click the “View Documents” button in the case web page. The Document Panel pops up over the client web page, as displayed in Figure 22.
If there are more documents available than can be shown in the panel, you can scroll up and down within the panel to see the rest of the document list. To open a particular document, click on the “Select” button next to the document. To close the Document Panel, click on the “Close Document Panel” button. To add a document to the case, click on the “Add Documents” button in the case web page. The Add a Document web page appears, as shown in Figure 23.
Using this form, you can upload one or more documents to the system. Depending on the type of operating system and web browser you are using, you may be able to drag documents from your computer (e.g., the desktop, Windows Explorer, Apple Finder, etc.) and drop them on the “Drop files here” portion of the screen, shown in Figure 24. This is dependent on the browser and operating system you are using. Otherwise, click the “Select File” button to choose one or more files for uploading.
As you drag and drop or select files, the files to be uploaded should display below the selection area, as shown in Figure 25. The files should be shown as “pending”, meaning they have not yet been uploaded to the Portal.
After the attorney makes all the file selections desired, clicking on the “Upload” button processes each file. For large files a status indicator appears on the bottom of the screen showing the percentage of the file uploaded. Once completed, the status behind that file will change from “pending” to “Uploaded”. The “View Documents” option on a case shows the files that have been successfully uploaded. [In initial testing, files over 50 megabytes were uploaded to the system without problem.] Click the “Return” button on the page to return to the case web page.
Time
Depending on the type of time the organization wants used, an attorney may only have “Compensated” time or “PBI” time buttons available on the case web page. The View buttons (for each) will result in a panel popping up over the case web page displaying that type of time data. The panels for Compensated and PBI time show in Figure 26 and Figure 27, respectively. Note that with Compensated entries, there are also columns showing payment information, including date and amount.
The time Add buttons (for each) show panels that allow an attorney to enter information relating to his services in that case. The Compensated and PBI time input pages are shown in Figure 28 and Figure 29, respectively.
For compensated time entries, the total bill amount is entered first. The amount of expenses is entered in the second box. The third box shows the amount of the bill for the attorney’s time. For example, if the total bill being presented is $550, the number 550 is placed in the first box. If $50 of that is for expenses (for example, deposition copy costs), 50 is placed in the second box. The third box is the total bill (box 1) minus the expenses (box 2). That equals the amount the attorney is paid for his time. If the attorney donated time, the value of that donated time is put in the fourth box. The fifth box is for the number of hours the attorney spent during this bill. Finally, the attorney may enter any notes or comments about the bill in the last box.
The PBI time form allows the attorney to track time in the case by entering the date, how many hours spent on the case, what activity was performed, whether it was in court, and the normal hourly rate. As with Compensated time entries, the attorney may enter a note for this time entry.
Case Notes
The add and view notes buttons on the case web page allow the attorney to interact with case notes. To add a case note, click “Add Notes”. The add page, shown in Figure 30, allows the attorney to select from some common notes. He simply uses the dropdown and selects an entry. The resulting text is put into the case note entry box. The attorney may then modify that text. Alternatively, the attorney can also just enter a case note manually in the case note entry.
When finished with the note, pressing the “Enter Case Note/Return” button will add that case note to the case and then return to the case web page. If the attorney decides not to enter a case note, pressing the “Cancel” button returns to the case web page. The View Notes page, shown in Figure 31, displays the case notes created in the Portal, or that have been specially added by staff for the Portal.
Close A Case
When an attorney is finished with the case and it should be closed. Pushing the “Close This Case” button on the case web page displays the warning shown in Figure 32.
As noted in the warning, once an attorney closes a case, it is no longer accessible and will no longer show on the open case list. This is very important, since no other additional documents, time, or notes can be added through the portal. The Case Closing web page is shown in Figure 33. The attorney first selects how to close the case using the dropdown. This displays the standard list of Legal Services Corporation closure reasons. Next, indicate whether the case was contested.
Using the dropdown list, choose whether the issue was won, lost, doesn’t apply, etc. Enter the number of hours spent, together with the normal, hourly billable rate. If the attorney paid for any costs, that amount should be entered. Last, a final note about the case may be entered. Clicking the “Close This Case/Return” button closes the case and return to the main menu. Clicking the “Cancel” button cancels closing the case and returns to the case web page.