The legal case management (LCM) software is a Bulgarian free software initiative aimed for use by not-for-profit advice centres in order to make better follow-ups of their cases, campaigns and activities.

The software facilitates the following tasks:
 To store cases in a database,
 To add follow-up information to each case,
 To manage statistical information about clients,
 To easily generate various reports based on the activity.

Additionally, the software encourages collaborative work on common activities and encourages the adoption of good practices, such as a clear methodology for follow-up work, structured archiving, etc.

Integration into your office’s activities

The software can be installed either on one computer or shared over a network. You can then provide a personal access to each member of your organisation. This allows them to chose how they want to work on a case and how the case information should be shared with the other members.

Users can then create new cases (or campaigns) to which they can attach a list of people or organisations involved as well as to add follow-up information.

 Organisations providing advice or consultations will benefit from being able to quickly consult the database for background information on a client’s case and evolution, contact information, etc.

 Lawyers can use the software to track the evolution of a case and the resources spent on a particular client, as well as to track the status of a case in court.

 Office managers can generate reports based on the activity for a given period. The variety of reports include: activity overview for each staff members, statistical information on cases or clients, and general overview on how the usage of the organisation’s resources. Such reports facilitate the reporting on projects and the creation of new budgets.

Software freedom

LCM is a Bulgarian community initiative developed by IRBF, funded by the Open Society Institute and distributed as “free software”. The software is being developed for local not-for-profit advice centers, but anyone has the freedom to use it, to redistribute it locally and to adapt it to their own needs.

The software is currently available in English and Bulgarian, but more translations are welcomed and very easy to do with the help of an online translation interface.

Current status of the LCM project

LCM will be released in May 2005, but a testing version is available on the Internet. This public testing area allows visitors to create their own personal account and experiment with the system:

 www.lcm.ngo-bg.org/public

If you are interested, you can also actively help us to make a better software by answering the attached questionnaire. Your answers will help us to document the software in a way which will focus and facilitate the use of the most requested functionalities.

Contact information

You can also contact us for more information or to send us additional comments:

Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation (IRBF):
 Website: www.socialrights.org
 E-mail: irbf@ngo-bg.org

Project developers and testers:
 Website: www.lcm.ngo-bg.org
 Email: legalcase-devel@lists.sf.net