Adding DeskSpace and Its Features
A matter is rarely held by one person. The counsel who argues it, the associate who drafts for it and the junior who attends the next date each carry a part of it, and the parts tend to live wherever each person keeps their work: a draft in one inbox, the next date in a diary, the instructions in a notebook, the judgment relied on in somebody's folder. DeskSpace is a place on Legalise where all of that is kept together, organised around the case itself.
The Desk and a DeskSpace
The Desk remains your own working area, private to you. A DeskSpace sits beside it as a separate room for one matter, holding the work of everyone working on that matter. You start one from the Desk with New DeskSpace, give it the matter's name and a short description, and it appears among your DeskSpaces on the Desk, with the one you last opened also shown on the homepage.
Four sections for one case
A DeskSpace is arranged the way a case file is: Documents, Hearings, Notes and Authorities. The next hearing is shown at the top of every section, so the date the matter is working towards is always in view.
- Documents holds the drafts, briefings, reviews and files for the matter. From my Desk moves in a single document, or brings in a whole case folder as a copy, with a choice of what comes in before it does. The folder on your Desk stays exactly as it was. Files can also be uploaded directly.
- Hearings holds the matter's dates, each with a time if you want one, and on any one day a hearing with a time is listed first.
- Notes holds the working notes on the matter, filed as Instructions, Proceedings, Meetings or Misc.
- Authorities holds the statutes and judgments kept for the matter.
Anything worth keeping in view can be pinned for everyone in the DeskSpace, and a short label can be set on its tile so it is easy to tell apart from the others.
The people on a matter
People are added by name, or by email address typed in full, and join once they accept the invitation. Activity, in the DeskSpace menu, records the changes made in the DeskSpace, so anyone opening the matter after a few days can see what happened in the meantime.
Two people, one document
When the last save of a document was someone else's, saving it asks first, naming who saved it and when. You can save your version as the final one, or make a personal copy into one of your own Desk folders, which nobody else in the DeskSpace sees.
When work leaves a DeskSpace
Your own work can be withdrawn, which keeps it recoverable for a time, or deleted for good. Moving someone else's work out of a DeskSpace gives you a copy and keeps the original recoverable, so nothing in the matter is lost by a single move. If you leave a DeskSpace, your own work can stay for the others, go to a new folder on your Desk, or be deleted. When a matter is over, its DeskSpace can be shut down.
The thinking behind it
The record of a case outlasts any one person's part in it. Drafts change hands, dates move, and the advocate attending a hearing is not always the one who prepared for it. DeskSpace keeps that record with the matter, in one place, so whoever picks the case up on a given day finds it as the last person left it.
For how your own Desk is organised, see How to Use the Desk on Legalise.