The client file is the only screen where you work on the paper. You open it by clicking a client in the Clients list or in the sidebar. At the top it shows the name of the client and of the open matter, a few figures and the working buttons; below them, the client's matters with their folder tree.
The first time you go into it, JUDLEX shows you a six-step guide. Here it is in more detail. To replay it, click Help and choose Guide to this screen.
Step 1. This is where the paperwork lives
You can drag the papers anywhere on this screen, loose or in folders, as jumbled as they were given to you. JUDLEX copies them into its vault and does not touch the original. They go into whichever matter you have open. How to do it, and what the chat does meanwhile: Add papers to a matter.
Step 2. One matter per thing
New matter creates a matter's folder. Give it a name you will recognise a year from now. It is not a case file: the case file is the proceeding that is later built on this paperwork. See Matters.
Step 3. Bring the papers in
Add documents opens your computer's file picker. Each file that comes in can be split into the real documents it contained: an eight-hundred-page dump is one document and can be forty papers. See Read a file and split out its documents.
Step 4. Filing costs nothing
Classify puts every paper whose type is already known into its folder. It is arithmetic, not a query to the artificial intelligence: it does not cost a cent. Whatever could not be identified stays in plain sight, under Unfiled. See Classify and identify.
Step 5. The matter's tree
Below are the client's matters. When you expand one, its folders appear; when you expand a folder, its subfolders and papers. The same paper can appear in two folders without there being more than one file. Matters and folders are listed alphabetically, with numbers read as numbers (“2” comes before “10”), and Unfiled always comes last.
The columns of the tree are:
NameThe matter, the folder or the paper.
StartedThe date of the oldest paper inside, that is, when the events the papers describe began. If no date is on record, a dash appears.
FiledWhen the matter was added to JUDLEX.
DocsHow many documents there are inside.
PagesHow many pages they add up to.
WeightHow much disk space they take up.
CaseOn the matter's row, a green dot with the number of case files built on it, or a grey dot if none has come out of it yet, which is normal for a matter that has just come in. On a folder, the number tells you how many of its papers are already in a case file. If an amber to confirm label also appears, those are papers JUDLEX put there that you have not reviewed yet; clicking it confirms them all.
One matter is expanded at a time. When you open the client file, the most recent one is expanded, and clicking it again collapses it.
Step 6. The case file starts here
Each matter's three-dot menu has Create case file, which builds the proceeding on this paperwork. The matter stays as it is: the case file links the same papers, it does not copy them. The option is greyed out until the matter has at least one split paper.
The figures at the top
Next to the name of the client and of the matter there are a few labels:
documents and papers: how many files have come in and how many real documents have been taken out of them.
What has been spent, in dollars: what sorting out this paperwork has cost with your key. It only appears once something has actually been spent, and it does not include what working each case file costs later, which is counted separately.
unfiled: papers that are stored and readable but do not have a folder yet. It is not an error: it is what is left to decide. When there are any, the label turns amber, and clicking it opens the list in the tree.
The buttons at the top
They act on the expanded matter. Some only appear when there is something to do:
New matter: see Matters.
Read and split all (N): splits in one go the N documents that have come in and have not been split yet. It uses artificial intelligence and tells you what it will send first. See Read a file and split out its documents.
Classify, Identify the rest (with AI), Missing types (N) and Accept all N: see Classify and identify.
Look at N pending page(s) (with AI): pages of documents already split that could not be read yet. See Read a file and split out its documents.
Misspelled names (N) (or Fix a name) and People: see Who is who in the papers.
Add documents: see Add papers to a matter.
Originals: the files exactly as they came in. See The originals.
Memory: everything JUDLEX knows about the matter, with its citation. See The matter's memory.
While JUDLEX is reading or splitting, a line under the buttons shows where it has got to, with a Stop button. If you close the client file or reload the window halfway through, the work carries on: when you come back, the line tells you what is running and since when.
Above the tree
Search papers… finds papers by name, type, who signed them, what they are about or the name of the file they came from. Capitals and accents make no difference, and the words can go in any order. Next to it you choose where to look: In all matters of the client, or in just one. Each paper found shows which matter and folder it is in, and from there you can open it, move it or file it. The search runs on your computer and costs nothing.
On the right, two buttons: one to create a new folder and another to export the tree to a folder on your computer. See Move and rename folders and papers and Export a matter's tree.
The matter's chat
With a matter expanded, the Chat panel talks about that matter: each matter has its own conversation, which picks up where you left it. There you can ask about its papers, ask it to work through what is left or to reorganise the matter, and that is where it tells you what it is doing when new papers come in. See Add papers to a matter and The consultation panel.