Applications in a legal setting?

[Pynkbyrd]

I work in a law office as a secretary. Part of my job is filing clippings
from law journals, etc., into files having to do with different categories
such as Food Stamps, Social Security, etc. Apart from being generally
organized, there's no way of knowing what sort of clippings we have on a
particular topic without going to an overstuffed file drawer and pulling all
the folders to take back to the office. What I would like to do is create a
database, or index, of every clipping we have, detailing keywords for filing,
the location of the clipping, and cross-referencing them with other items
they may have in common or are cross-filed with. Has anyone ever done
anything like this? Is this even feasible? Easy to do? I'd like to include
such information as: where and when the article originally appeared, the
author, any cases quoted in the article for precedence, etc.

If anyone can be of assistance, please email me at (e-mail address removed)

Thanks!

 

[John Vinson]

I work in a law office as a secretary. Part of my job is filing clippings
from law journals, etc., into files having to do with different categories
such as Food Stamps, Social Security, etc. Apart from being generally
organized, there's no way of knowing what sort of clippings we have on a
particular topic without going to an overstuffed file drawer and pulling all
the folders to take back to the office. What I would like to do is create a
database, or index, of every clipping we have, detailing keywords for filing,
the location of the clipping, and cross-referencing them with other items
they may have in common or are cross-filed with. Has anyone ever done
anything like this? Is this even feasible? Easy to do? I'd like to include
such information as: where and when the article originally appeared, the
author, any cases quoted in the article for precedence, etc.

It can certainly be done - if you want, you can even scan graphical
images of the clippings.

But it's a LOT of work. The data entry is bad enough, but the
intellectual work of determining which keywords to use (and being
consistant in doing so) is a major task. You can certainly keep track
of file locations, and use Queries to do a lot of the
cross-referencing (i.e. if there are two clippings which both are
linked to the "Food Stamps" keyword, and also by the "Atlanta"
keyword, you can create a report showing both clippings).

I'd suggest investigating it further, but don't underestimate the
amount of work this will take - nor should you underestimate the
amount of work that it will save, in the long run.

If anyone can be of assistance, please email me at (e-mail address removed)

Done... but it's generally considered polite to come back to the
newsgroups for your answer. Private EMail support is for paying
clients; most of us who answer here are volunteers donating time,
often from our consulting businesses.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Guest]

FEASIBLE? YES
EASY? NO
DONE BEFORE? TWICE BY ME, at LEAST

IT WOULD BE AROUND 40,000 MAN HOURS AT $280 AN HOUR

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Pynkbyrd,

Relational databases such as Access are designed to allow immensely
flexible querying and reporting of rigidly structured data, and it takes
care and skill to make them do a really good job on loosely structured
mostly textual data such as yours.

You may find your needs are better met by a product that's designed from
the start to do full-text indexing of loosely structured data, such as
Bekon Idealist (which I use for my cuttings index, recipes, and lots
more), InfoSelect or AskSam.

 

[Ron Gibson]

You must be smoking crack.

FEASIBLE? YES
EASY? NO
DONE BEFORE? TWICE BY ME, at LEAST

IT WOULD BE AROUND 40,000 MAN HOURS AT $280 AN HOUR