This article will show you how to:
- Create a Criminal matter
- Enter Court Details
- Enter Charge Details
- Enter the Court contact card
- Add Uncommon Contacts
- Change existing General matter to Criminal General
- Subscribe to the Criminal Precedent Profile
To create a new Criminal General matter, follow the steps below.
- Click New Matter from the Home Screen.
- Select State: NSW.
- Select Matter Type: Criminal General.
- Select which party you are acting for (Defendant or Prosecution):
- Enter the party details - see Adding Contacts for more information on adding contacts.
- Select 'Court Details' to enter the Case Number, Registry and Court:
- See Entering the Court contact card (below) for further details on how to create new Court contact cards.
- Select 'Charge Details' to enter your Police Reference (H number) and all the charge(s) within a particular Court Attendance Notice. Select 'Add Charge' if you need to add additional rows of charges:
- If you have multiple CANs in one matter, you can 'right-click' > Add Charge Details to add Charge Details for your second and subsequent CANs:
- To add Uncommon Contacts to your matter, open the Matter Settings and select the appropriate contact from the Parties & Data available in your matter.
For Criminal General (NSW), the available parties include Barrister, Legal Aid, Corrective Services, Parole Authority, Legal Agent, Expert, Witness, Process Server, Previous Solicitor and Additional Contacts:
Entering the Court contact card
- Create an Organisation contact card for your particular Court Registry.
- Enter the registry Street Address, PO Box Address and other contact details.
- Next select Advanced view.
- Enter the Registry name in the 'Branch' field:
- The Case Details layout will then display as follows.
- By adding the Registry in the Branch field, you will be able to differentiate between your Court registries and avoid creating duplicate contacts:
Change existing General matter to Criminal General
Existing NSW General matters can be easily changed to Criminal General as follows:
- Open your existing General matter (used for criminal matters)
- Open Matter Type
- Select change...
- Select new Matter Type as Criminal > Criminal General
- Select OK:
- Select which Party you are acting for (Defendant or Prosecution)
- Enter Reason For Change
- Select OK:
Your matter will now appear as 'Criminal General', with the party roles and layouts that are available in the Criminal General matter:
Don't forget to!...
Subscribe to the Criminal Precedent Profile
You can subscribe to the Criminal Precedent Profile in your Smokeball Settings:
- See Precedent Profiles for more information on subscribing to precedent profiles.
We have some new Criminal precedents and forms available in the Smokeball Precedent Library, including automated Court Forms:
You can also 'Request a form' to have additional forms added to the Precedent Library!