For your firm to be successful with eLuminate, eGeneration’s lead and case management software, it is important to understand how each component of the software can help your firm. eLuminate’s data is categorized into three sections: Leads, Contacts, and Matters. “Contacts” are anyone or any place that is associated with a case, or a “Matter.”

Where contacts come from:

If your firm uses eLuminate as a case and lead management software, you are likely familiar with the process of converting leads. Leads are your unsigned clients. When you do decide to take on a new case, you can automatically convert a new client into both a matter and a contact.

You can also create contacts yourself. You can add in anyone associated with a claim as a contact: A claimant’s spouse or children, an employer, police who were dispatched on the scene, or any involved party. You’ll often need to add contacts yourself, as there are numerous people a firm will need to be in communication with to win a claim.

Once you associate a contact with a pending case, all of your contacts will be displayed within the matter in an organized list.

What you can do with contacts in case management software:

You can customize your contacts exactly as you would your leads by utilizing custom fields and custom views. An easy way to use custom views for contacts is to simply sort your contacts by type. eLuminate comes with dozens of views already set to categorize your contact by type. Some views clients use most often include:

• Claimant
• Medical provider (great for Social Security disability, personal injury, and workers’ compensation attorneys).
• Judges
• Witnesses (critical to many workers’ compensation or personal injury claims)

Custom views can be used to segment your contacts by whatever you wish. For example, you can create a custom view that allows you to see all of your contacts who have outstanding paperwork. You can then use Mass Actions to send reminder emails to every contact, reminding them to fill out your paperwork. Custom views allow your firm to expedite the process of winning claims.

Why contacts are important:

Contacts are great because they can be used for numerous cases. For example, Social Security disability attorneys typically visit the same ODAR office if they take local leads. Creating a contact for your local ODAR office and associating it with all your pending cases in that area dramatically cuts down on the time you need to spend sending out paperwork to the right parties.

Contacts can be any place or person you need to be in communication with to win your claim. If you receive referrals for Social Security cases from a doctor, the doctor and hospital may be contacts. If you’re an employment law attorney taking cases from the same employer, the employee could become a contact. The examples are endless.

Would you like to discuss how eLuminate can help your firm close cases faster with the use of contacts and matters? Give us a call today at 617.800.0089. We’d love to discuss the product further and give you and your staff a free tutorial of the software.