In my previous post, I mentioned the new direction in which I would be taking this blog. Instead of going on about the individual components of modern elawyering applications, I have decided to embark upon a major project in which I will build an elawyering application from scratch. I'll be documenting this from start to finish, all the way through to deployment on the web. Hopefully, you will stick around and provide input and ask questions along the way. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to my rss feeds so that you know when a new entry is posted.
What is ABIEE™?
ABIEE™ is an acronym for "Alliance of Bankruptcy Information and Expert Exchange". As you can see, ABIEE™ will be an elawyering application focused on bankruptcy practice. In this first entry, I will discuss what my vision for ABIEE™ is and what ABIEE™ will be able to do.
The Intended Audience
The intended audience for this series of entries can be made up of four distinct disciplines. It may be that you act as two or more of these disciplines. Specifically, I will focus on lawyers/bankruptcy petition preparers; application/web designers; application/web developers; and SEO technicians/web marketers. These ent
ries are meant to be a reference for lawyers to use when discussing their own elawyering application with these additional parties.
My Vision for ABIEE™
When I thought of the idea for ABIEE™, I wanted a place for consumers and bankruptcy professionals to meet and connect. The "A" in the name ABIEE™ stands for "Alliance". Additionally, the "E' at the end stands for "Exchange". Both of these terms symbolize connecting at a central location. The "I" stands for "Information". It is my goal that participating bankruptcy professionals will contribute in some way to the building and maintenance of a robust bankruptcy information repository. All these elements combine to make a central location for consumers to connect with and facilitate the exchange of information with bankruptcy experts who can ultimately help them with their cases.
From the bankruptcy professionals standpoint, ABIEE™ will be a place to acquire new clients as well as manage just about every aspect of the bankruptcy case for that client. In a way, ABIEE™ will have a built in case management system which will intelligently integrate with each acquired client. I know this is a lot for one application to achieve, which is why I will break the portions down into manageable chunks.
Next, let's take a look at a preliminary list of what ABIEE™ will do for each type of user (the bankruptcy professional and the consumer/client).
What will ABIEE™ do for the client/consumer?
The following is a preliminary list of features that will be available for clients/consumers. This list is subject to change over the course of development.
- Obtain relevant bankruptcy information from a vast repository of experts
- Organize all documents related to bankruptcy in an organizational system that allows the client to maintain everything in one place before they actually file (This will be the focus of the service from the client side).
- Maintain a checklist
- Create a library of resources
- Ability to search and view information, bio, etc of bankruptcy professional publicly listed in the ABIEE™ directory.
- Ability to message prospective bankruptcy professionals through ABIEE's™ messaging system.
- Ability to select a bankruptcy professional to complete their documents.
- Ability to submit a case review/means test to selected bankruptcy professional
- Ability to receive analysis and results of means test from bankruptcy professional
- Ability to convert from chapter 7 to 13 on bankruptcy professional's prompting.
- Ability to submit payment to bankruptcy professional.
- Ability to retrieve completed documents from selected bankruptcy professional.
- Ability to maintain a calendar of important case events.
The following is a preliminary list of features that will be available for lawyers/bankruptcy professionals. This list is subject to change over the course of development.
Pre-filing:
- Automated means testing result notification and retrieval
- Option to start case at chapter 7 or 13
- Method to identify red-flags
- Method to communicate case review to clients
- Method to request more information from client
- Method to decline a case
- Method tr secure retainer/service/fee agreement/disclosures
- Method to set custom amount of payment and ability to collect either on or offline.
- Method to retrieve client's core information
- Method to automatically generate documents for filing.
- Method to retrieve uploaded documents
- Method to be notified when a client selects them for service
Post-filing:
- Method to export information for back-end use
- Method to list all clients
- Method to close/inactivate matters
- Method to convert matters to chapter 13 and notify client
- Method to receive additional chapter 13 information from client
- Method to track deadlines
- Method to receive reminders for a particular case
- Method to message clients
- Method to automatically generate more specialized documents, such as motions for a particular client
- Method to calendar arbitrary events for a particular client
- Method to calendar critical events
- Method to tickle events
- Secure transactions
- Method to request additional information from client when necessary
- Activity log generation and exporting (searchable by date)
- Built in timer
- Memo/note creation and association methods directly appendable to activity log