An Interview with Eric Evans, Technical Support Advisor

Indiana University Student Legal Services

Reprinted with Permission

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askSam:   Can you tell us about your department and your role within this university group?

ERIC EVANS:   Student Legal Services provides legal advice and representation to the student body at Indiana University.  Students confronted with legal problems can come in and meet with 2nd and 3rd-year  law students who are closely supervised by one of our four licensed attorneys.  My role is to build and maintain the computer systems for the office, which includes the above-mentioned attorneys, three support staff and about fifteen to thirty interns.

askSam:   Which askSam product(s) do you support?

ERIC EVANS:  We've been using askSam since 1989.  Since then, we have graduated through two DOS versions, askSam for Windows 2.0, askSam 3.0 Professional, and now we are currently using the askSam 3.0 Professional Network version.

askSam: What applications are you finding for askSam?

ERIC EVANS: Our main askSam database keeps a log of our clients' cases including other involved parties, file number, interns and attorneys working on the case and a description of the case itself.  This gives us easy access to information we need to quickly locate a file or check for possible client conflicts.  Our secondary database keeps track of past interns, where they have moved to and what positions they currently hold.  This allows us to keep in touch with former interns for the purpose of referrals and to send them annual reports.  Each attorney also keeps an additional database of appellate case decisions that could affect current or future Student Legal Services cases.

askSam:   How has askSam made your job any easier, faster or more efficient?

ERIC EVANS:  The askSam program is an integral part of our legal education program as well as the day-to-day operation of our office.  Having all of  our cases in one database is particularly helpful for our interns.  We encounter a lot of similar cases and askSam makes it easy for an intern to look up previous cases that match the fact pattern of what they are working on.  This allows them to locate and review the earlier file and prevents duplication of work effort as well as enlightening them to legal theories that they might not otherwise have thought of.  The interns can use our database of previous interns to make valuable contacts to assist them in what can at times be a difficult job market.  Also, by using the attorneys' keyword database, they can locate recent case law that the attorneys have already found to be relevant to our work.  All of these uses have proven to be valuable in the educational process.  It familiarizes the interns with the benefits of using a legal database and because askSam is so easy to install and set up, the interns are more inclined to purchase copies of the program for their own solo practice or if they are later employed by a firm seeking a database solution.

     As for the day-to-day operation of our office, it makes it very easy to run conflict checks.  The report writer is very simple to use and it makes it easy to generate reports that highlight trends in our cases.  We've been using various versions for close to ten years now and I'm still discovering fresh uses for the program.

askSam:  Can you describe the implementation of our education licensing program within your organization and was pricing a factor in deciding to use our products?

ERIC EVANS:   The education licensing program has been great.  It has allowed us to upgrade easily as our needs have changed.  Other programs are prohibitively expensive and it can become easy to feel trapped with a product that doesn't adequately serve our needs.

askSam: What type of customer support have you received from askSam Systems?

ERIC EVANS:  To be honest, we haven't had to use customer support very much.  The few times we have, the email support provided by askSam has been prompt, friendly and informative.

askSam:  Would you recommend askSam and why?

ERIC EVANS:   I have recommended askSam many times.  Because of it's competitive pricing and ease of use, askSam is perfect for many different situations.  It's simple enough to be used as a basic database for non-business uses such as recipes or home inventories; yet at the same time, it is heavy-duty enough for even a large amount of data.  Our main database has close to twenty thousand records in it and with askSam professional's indexing method, we can search the entire database in under two seconds.

askSam:  What applications do you plan for askSam in the future?

ERIC EVANS: I plan on integrating our databases with other applications such as word processing and spreadsheet programs.  I also plan on developing an internal web site with the HTML tools askSam provides.

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Eric Evans

Indiana University Student Legal Services

703 East Seventh Street

Bloomington, IN 47405

Phone:   812-855-7867

Email: stulegal@indiana.edu     

URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~sls