Building ABIEE™ - ELawyering Application - Entry 1

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.

1. Obtain relevant bankruptcy information from a vast repository of experts
2. 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).
3. Maintain a checklist
4. Create a library of resources
5. Ability to search and view information, bio, etc of bankruptcy professional publicly listed in the ABIEE™ directory. 
6. Ability to message prospective bankruptcy professionals through ABIEE's™ messaging system.
7. Ability to select a bankruptcy professional to complete their documents.
8. Ability to submit a case review/means test to selected bankruptcy professional
9. Ability to receive analysis and results of means test from bankruptcy professional
10. Ability to convert from chapter 7 to 13 on bankruptcy professional's prompting.
11. Ability to submit payment to bankruptcy professional.
12. Ability to retrieve completed documents from selected bankruptcy professional.
13. Ability to maintain a calendar of important case events.