USING PARTY FIELDS IN LEGALSUITE

 



INTRODUCTION

 

The LegalSuite program has the ability to extract data from almost any Table and insert it into a Merged Document. Traditionally, this is accomplished by creating a merge Field, giving it a name, and specifying which variable (i.e. table column) it uses.

 

For example, you could create a Field called FILE_REF which contained the Variable MAT:FileRef. When it was merged into an assembled Document, it would display the File Reference of the current Matter.

 

[[FILE_REF]] à ABC1/0001

 

This system is adequate for most applications but it has drawbacks when you need to extract data for a specific Party. A Matter may have numerous Parties linked to it. If you create a Field called NAME containing the Variable PL:Name, you cannot be certain which Party’s name will be inserted at this point in the Document – the program will insert the Party it has last accessed and this may vary according to prior actions of the User or prior iterations of other merge Fields in the Document.

 

There are ways to get around this using the existing Fields in LegalSuite, but a better (and simpler) system needed to be created – especially since more and more Users are starting to customise and/or create their own Documents and Fields.

 

The existing Fields needed to be left as they were because they are used in over 2000 existing precedents that ship with the program so we had to develop a system that would work in conjunction with the existing Fields.

 

PARTY FIELDS

 

In version 4.133 (Aug 2006), we introduced additional merge Fields (called Party Fields) which are to be used solely for extracting information about the Parties.

 

A Party Field has the following format:

 

[[role.whichone.type.description]]

 

 

role

the role of the Party in the current Matter (e.g. Defendant).

whichone

a nominal indicator (e.g. 1,2,3 . . . All ) to identify which Party.

type

an indicator of the field type (possible values: field, variable, pronoun, telephone)

description

a description to identify the type

format

This is used when the whichone parameter is set to ‘All’ and the type parameter is set to ‘Field’. It tells the program how to separate multiple occurrences of the Field (if there is more than one Party with that role).

Valid options are

Space

Spaces  (default)

Comma

Commas

List

Commas with and

LF

Linefeed

LFLF

Double Linefeed

TAB

Tabs

 

 

Examples:

 

Defendant.1.Field.IdentityNumber

First defendant's Identity Number

Seller.All.Field.Name

All the Sellers’ names separated with spaces

Opposing.All.Field.Name.Comma

All the opposing attorneys’ names separated by commas.

Buyer.All.pronoun.we are

The Buyers’ pronoun We are/ I am

Buyer.1.pronoun.we are

The first Buyer’s pronoun We are/ I am

Advocate.1.telephone.email

The first Advocate’s email address

Client.1.Field.Name

The Client’s name

Current.Party.Field.Postal address

For letters from the Party screen - the current parties postal Address

 

 

Notes:

 

1.    The role parameter refers to a Party Role

2.    When the type parameter is set to Field, a Party Field must exist with that name

3.    When the type parameter is set to Pronoun, a Pronoun must exist with that description

4.    When the type parameter is set to Telephone, a Telephone Type must exist with that description

5.    Party Fields cannot be used as conditions in IF fields

6.    The parameters are not case sensitive, e.g. [[defendant.all.field.name]] is the same as [[Defendant.ALL.FIELD.name]]

 

 

 

CREATING A PARTY FIELD

 

Below are the steps necessary to create a Party Field.

 

From the Main Menu in the LegalSuite Desktop, click on Browse | Fields. Choose the ‘Party Fields’ option.

 

 

This will display any Party Fields you have created. At the moment we have none so the list is blank.

 

Hint: You will notice a new button in the bottom left hand corner “Party Field”. When you are displaying the Merge Fields, you can use this button to copy a Merge Field and create a Party Field from it. This can be an easy way of quickly creating Party Fields.

 

Press INSERT to create a new Party Field

 

 

This screen is a similar to the Merge Field screen but has fewer options and is a lot simpler (much of the logic is now contained in the role.whichone.type.description.format parameters which are now located in the Document, not in the program).

 

Field

Explanation

Name

The name of the Field, i.e. the description that you would put in if the type is set to ‘Field’

Description

A description to easily identify it in the list of Fields

Variables

A Field can be composed of more than one Variable. You specify them here. A Field must always have at least one Variable. You can either press the Insert button or the Lookup button – they both achieve the same end result.

 

In this example we are going to create a Party Field which will insert the First Name (if it exists) and the Surname of the Party.

 

Let’s give it the name ‘FULL NAME’ and a description ‘First Name and Surname’

 

 

 

Press the Lookup button and SELECT the PL:FirstName Variable

 

 

It will be added to the list of Variables for this Field

 

 

Press Lookup again and SELECT the PL:Name Variable

 

You now have two Variables linked to this Field

 

 

 

Some Parties, however, do not have a First Name (e.g. companies) and so we want the program to only insert the Name. You accomplish this by specifying a True Condition on the PL:FirstName Variable.

 

Highlight the PL:FirstName Variable and press CHANGE.

 

 

Type the following condition in the True field

 

PL:FirstName <> ''

 

This instructs the program to only insert the PL:FirstName Variable if it is not blank.

 

Click on OK and then OK again and then CLOSE the list of Fields. You have successfully created a Party Field.

 

USING A PARTY FIELD IN A DOCUMENT

 

You can create a dummy document to test the various ways this new Party Field can be used.

 

Put the following fields in your test document

 

 

1. [[Client.1.Field.Full name]]

2. [[Defendant.2.Field.Full name]]

3. [[Defendant.All.Field.Full name.List]]

4. [[Trustee.1.Field.Full name]]

5. [[Trustee.All.Field.Full name.LF]]

 

 

 

If you assemble the document with a Matter which has the following Parties . . .

 

 

. . . . the merged document should look like this:

 

 

1. Joe Bloggs

2. Gavin Andrews

3. Charles Abrahams, Gavin Andrews and Auto & General

4. Charles Arendse

5. Charles Arendse

Rob Davis

 

 

 

The main advantage of these Party Fields is that you do not have to create a separate field for each Party Type and each format. Using the existing Merge Fields, you would need 5 fields to accomplish the same result as above:

 

CLIENT_NAME

DEF_NAME

DEF_NAMES_LINE

TRUSTEE_NAME

TRUSTEE_NAMES_BLOCK

 

The power and flexibility of these Party Fields should now be apparent.

 

USING VARIABLES

 

Variables allow you to insert data directly from the SQL database without having to create a Party Field beforehand.

 

For example:

 

[[Defendant.1.Variable.PAR:Name]]

 

will insert the name of the first defendant.

 

[[Defendant.All.Variable.PAR:Name.List]]

 

will insert the names of the defendants in LIST format.

 

These fields are very similar to "free format" fields that can be used to extract information for non-party fields such as [[(MAT:FileRef)]].

 

The data returned is the "raw" data.

 

For example:

 

[[Client.1.Variable.PL:BirthDate]]

 

will return 74349 (which is the way dates are stored in a SQL database).

 

You will therefore sometimes need to FORMAT the data to make it readable, like this

 

[[Client.1.Variable.FORMAT(PL:BirthDate,@D17)]]

 

which will then format the date as 13/08/1965

 

See A Guide to Document Fields and Formatting Dates for more information

 

 

 

USING THE PRONOUNS

 

The pronouns are now located under the Browse menu of the program.

 

 

There are a number of built-in pronouns which come with the program but you can always create your own if needed.

 

 

When using the Party Fields to insert a Pronoun, you must set the type to ‘Pronoun’ and then insert the Description of the Pronoun in the description parameter.

 

For example [[Defendant.1.pronoun.I Am/We are]] Field will insert the “I am/We Are” pronoun applicable to the first Defendant. Similarly, the [[Defendant.All.pronoun.I Am/We are]]  will insert the “I am/We Are” pronoun applicable to all the Defendants

 

 

USING THE TELEPHONE NUMBERS

 

In a similar fashion to the Pronouns, you can extract a specific telephone number of a specific Party by setting the type parameter to ‘Telephone’ and then insert the Description of the Telephone Type in the description parameter.

 

The valid Telephone Type descriptions are found under Setup | Types & Roles | Telephone Types

 

 

 

For example [[Employer.1.Telephone.Fax]] will insert the fax number of the Employer.