Tip #65 - How to create a Referred-Out Firm Report using Case Browse

If your firm is like most, it is possible that you refer cases out to other attorneys or other law firms all the time. The problem with most referral arrangements, however, is that it is sometimes quite challenging to keep a handle on those referrals. Most firms keep the list of referred out cases in a separate document, such as a spreadsheet, which is rarely kept current or updated. Also, most firms have no convenient way of measuring how the referred-out firms did, i.e., how well do they perform vis-à-vis those referrals. But, since your firm uses SmartAdvocate, you have all your referral information at your fingertip. You can use Case Browse to generate a list of all your cases referred out and the settlement amount for each case.[1] Here’s how.

Go to Case Browse. Click the ‘Referral Status’ button and check the box(es) for ‘Only Referred Out’ and ‘Only Partial Out’ as appropriate. ‘Only Partial Out’ is used for those firms that track multiple plaintiffs in the same case file and may have referred out one or more plaintiff(s) in a case. Those firms will want to check both boxes to capture all referred-out cases in the report. Select any other filters and then select ‘Columns To Show’. E.g., you may want to select the date range for the case ‘Opened From’ and ‘To’, whether the matter is ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’, ‘Settled’, ‘Not Settled’, etc. The default number of columns generally shown in your Case Browse results may be more than is necessary for this type of report, so you may want to use the ‘Select Columns To Show’ option to limit the displayed columns. In this example we will select the following columns only: Case Name, Opened Date, Referred-Out Law Firm, Referred Out Attorney, [Case] Type, Settled/Not Settled, Settlement Date and Settlement Amount. After you have selected your columns and filters, click the ‘Search Cases’ button in the top right corner of your screen to generate your Case Browse results.

[Tip – Click the column heading for ‘Referred Out Law Firm’ to sort by that column. The cases for a specific firm will be grouped together].

Note – If your results have cases with both ‘Referred Out Law Firm’ and ‘Referred Out Attorney’ blank, it means that the case was referred out, but no firm or attorney information was entered in the case in the ‘Refer Out/Sub Out’ section of the Retainer/Referral Page.

If you did not specifically filter for ‘Settled’ or ‘Not Settled’ cases prior to running your case search (and included that column in your report as I did here) and want to display Settled cases only, click the pin to the right of the column heading labeled ‘Settled/Not Settled’ then check the box for ‘Settled’ (or check the box for ‘Not Settled’ if you want to display those).

If you want to have your results show the total cases for each firm, drag the ‘Referred Out Law Firm’ column from the grid to the top left area of the screen labeled ‘Drag a column header here to group by that column’. Your results will now show the count for each firm.

Clicking the ‘plus’ (+) sign to the left of the firm name will give you a drop down showing the specific cases for that firm.

Drag the column header back to the grid to return your report to the grid format.You can export your Case Browse results to a PDF document, Excel Spreadsheet or Word document by selecting the appropriate format in the top right corner of your screen.

[1] In the next release of SmartAdvocate we will have a Referred-Out Firm Performance Report included as one of the ‘Standard’ reports