I'll See All 10,000 of You in Court!
Litigation Support Systems at Looney & Company
by Stephen Schiavo
Associate Professor
Computer Information Science
College of Technology
Missouri Southern State University

Looney & Co. of Houston, Texas, provides professional services to litigants throughout the five-state area.  Their rapid growth -- they were #86 on the Inc 100 list in 1993 -- would have threatened to bury a less progressive company.  However, founder and CEO Richard Looney committed to exploit information technology to make sure their ability to produce kept pace with their growth in demand.

At that time Looney & Co. was engaged in supporting a number of law firms involved in the case against Dow-Corning and other defendants over the alleged health effects of breast implants.  The growing load required them to type up  hundreds of subpoenas demanding records, reports, x-rays, and pathological materials.  They had to stay in frequent contact with the person subpoenaed until the material was provided; they had to schedule a pickup, and produce the accompanying paperwork to deliver the materials to the attorneys and judges involved in the case.  Finally, they needed to produce the invoice and track it through payment.

After trying other options, they engaged a consulting firm in Salado, Texas -- who in turn engaged me -- to design and manage the implementation of a system to provide the following functions:

• log customer requirements (the equivalent of work orders)
• schedule the key milestones necessary to complete the job on time
• produce the actual subpoena demanding the appropriate records, materials, or deposition
• schedule the pickup of the materials demanded
• track the activities up to completion of the order
• produce the formal legal forms necessary to convey the material to the court
• bill and collect for the job

 Together we designed a FoxPro  database consisting of causes (cases), attorneys, law firms, parties (plaintiffs and defendants), and custodians (offices and persons holding the records or materials being subpoenaed).  These established, Looney's people could enter a new order by creating a new cause between plaintiff and defendant, represented by their respective attorneys.  Against that cause, they would then enter orders for all manner of materials, records, and depositions -- in person, in writing, or recorded on audio or video tape.  The tangible result of the order entry was the subpoena, formally prepared and assembled by an extensive set of rules encoded in Microsoft Word's  macro language.

They could schedule periodic reminders to follow-up at a specified time -- for instance, to confirm with a radiology clinic that the required x-rays would be ready for pick-up at the appointed time.  They could record pertinent notes from phone calls -- that the attending physician insisted she had never treated the patient in question, and had no records on her.  In general, they maintained a detailed history of the transactions leading to the surrender of the required materials.  Those details supported not only the charges included on the invoice, but also documented clearly the timely and effective response provided by Looney & Co. to each request.

The system was implemented first in the Houston headquarters.  Then, as it was refined and proved, it expanded to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi.  Those offices, each with its own database of local firms, causes, and custodians, were linked in turn to the central database in Houston for reporting, and for sharing information that spanned cities.  The case load grew dramatically, including a large number of cases involving the celebrated "Rattler" roller-coaster at Fiesta Texas theme park -- but the head-count needed to process the work professionally and quickly remained relatively low, with highly favorable consequences to the bottom line.

The greatest impact of the computer revolution can be realized when progressive, far-sighted managers at the top determine that "there's got to be a better way," and commit the time and resources to find it.  Such an executive achieves a level of mastery over his or her enterprise that provides options unavailable to conventional management.  Intelligent systems, based on a thorough understanding of the critical success factors of the business, can produce the kind of results people have hoped for from computers since their inception.  What it takes is ...

• a clear definition of the problems and opportunities confronting you
• a thorough analysis of the factors contributing to those problems and constraining those opportunities
• a creative, far-sighted, and thoughtful design of the simplest, most direct means to accomplish the goals
• and closely monitored implementation of the prescribed systems, through to completion.

Continued monitoring thereafter, and continual improvement in process and scope, insure the success won't be short-lived.