Cudgel FAQ

Calendar, Client, and Case Control From A to Z®

Cudgel is so comprehensive, what if I don’t often need all its features?

Simply use the features of Cudgel that you need, knowing that when a case does explode, you have your Cudgel Companion at the ready.

Most litigation settles before trial. For most cases use Cudgel to record due dates, parties, adverse counsel, and the case caption. As the case develops, include the history, papers, notes, and costs of the case. When needed, start specifying the facts you must prove, points of law, evidence, issues in dispute, and matters for judgment.

Why consider a niche product from GreenLight?

Because no other calendaring litigation and transaction companion is as easy to use, simultaneously sophisticated, and designed with deep appreciation for how people and organizations actually work. Years ahead of its time, Cudgel was patented. Cudgel with CalendarEye, Client Portrait, and Cadence maintains it’s decades-lead for user friendly, powerful innovation that lets the computer aid the professional, not chain you to inflexible procedures that don’t fit.

How do I get the free demo?

A free demo of Cudgel and Helix is available on this website. The demo is time-, record-, and print-limited but otherwise is a fully functioning version 4.5 of Cudgel (with some updates to v 7 and to Helix 7 and Mac OS X, 10.12 up). Cudgel 7.0 has been developed, Cudgel 8 is expected to be released shortly.

Cudgel 7.0 already does a lot more than Cudgel 4.5, including revisions for the paperless and less-paper offices, and much more. The downloadable older Cudgel 4.5 Demo with CalendarEye and Client Portrait provides a detailed experience of the earlier parts of Cudgel, its relational logic, and its Calendar, Client, and Case Control From A to Z®.

The GreeenLight Demos webpage [< click] contains several files:

1) ReadMe-CudgelDemoX.pdf;

2. 2)Cudgel® Manual 45a.pdf;   This pdf is a static export of the Cudgel manual, which is dynamic and interactive within Cudgel.
   

3) Helix Engine demo.app.zip;

4) Helix Help;

5) Cudgel®45.703-DemoX.zip;

6) Cudgel_ABA.pdf;

7) Client Portrait MWk.pdf;

8. 8)Cadence Review CDLB.pdf.
   

Already have Helix 7 platform demo from QSAToolworks?

If you already have a Helix 7 demo

<http://www.qsatoolworks.com/1product/demoreq.html>, then simply use the Cudgel®-DemoX.

How do I install the demo?

After download, drag Cudgel®DemoX folder onto your Mac desktop. Read the ReadMe-Cudgel®DemoX file. UnZip then Double click on the Cudgel® icon, and  you’re in Cudgel and Helix.

How do I use the demo?

The fastest way is to use the initial tutorial data and follow the Start button guide, or run through the commands. Most views have a top-left “?” button, clicking it displays a relevant page from the integrated User Manual. A slower way is to simulate the development of a case. You can also read part or all of the Cudgel integrated manual.

As a Demo user, choose the “Welcome to Cudgel” view from the Demo menu bar. Click “Online User Manual,”, then select from the popup menu Chapter B, Basic, and read Structure Cudgel—Client Portrait—CalendarEye; What This Software Does, How Cudgel Works—Basic; Hardware for Helix & Cudgel. The 2002 User Manual is also available to Demo users by clicking Manual icon in the Help row of Topview.

Then select each command under the In and Out menu. If you want more explanation of the fields, select Custom Help and the view’s alphabetic name. Then select each command under the List menu. Finally, select the commands under the Make, Demo, and other menus. The print command is often disabled in the demo version, but you can print Yes! and FeedBack under the Demo menu.

Cudgel is so flexible, what’s the suggested sequence for entering data?

After completing the Tutorial and deleting the sample data, just follow the built-in SetUp guide. You’ll start by entering your firm name and contact data, then your own data

Enter your firm name as Actor record 1, then enter the attorneys and support staff. You can always add new people later, but it is convenient to give yourself the first numbers. Enter the judges and other actors you frequently interact with. Enter any clients you have that are frequently in litigation or otherwise have frequent matters. Print or display ActorsQ to review and proof your data.

Customize Cudgel for your firm by entering the names of your file locations (Zone), departmental or matter Units, and some of your most frequently used short form letters (Scripts).

Then enter your pending cases in Cite view: enter the date filed if no opinion has been given yet (Date Open field). Make sure you enter Yes in the Own? field, indicating this citation is for a case you’re litigating. (The same Cite view is used for precedent and other cases of interest.) Choose Fix>Open Cases to view a list of your active cases.

For cases that have progressed beyond Complaint and Answer, start entering the Paper data. You can Auto Docket entries if you want, or if you’re in a rush, enter docket due dates first and paper titles later.

Enter your due dates in the Date view. You can enter anything into Cudgel’s docket, it need not only be a case.

Actor, Cite, Paper, Date are the basics; thereafter enter data as you encounter it and want to keep it neatly organized and retrievable.

Transaction matters are even easier: your client may already be entered. Choose Open Vfile and enter at least a title for the matter, the next due date, and the lead attorney.

Can I use Cudgel for precedent retrieval?

Yes. Simply enter as little or as much information about past cases as you wish. Computers generally tradeoff storage space versus access time. If you want to archive old cases, you can port key data between Cudgel collections. (If you port, ensure you have the right licenses and the record numbers have remained parallel.)

How does Cudgel work with Sonar?

Sonar, by Virginia Systems, is a full text retrieval application. If you wish to search deposition transcripts, you can use both Sonar and Cudgel. Use Sonar to find key terms, enter your concise results into Cudgel. Or use the Mac’s native Spotlight searching. Some use Spotlight, Tembo, or Houdah Spot for deposition searching and Cudgel for its integrated datasystems.

How does Cudgel work with Client Portrait and CalendarEye?

Cudgel is optimized for litigation; Client Portrait—The Professional’s Marketing and Conflicts-of-Interest System—is designed to organize all your clients, ex-clients, prospects, referrals, associates, government officials, vendors, personal friends, and more. CalendarEye neatly keeps track of due dates, task targets, key past event (Marker dates), any date that was or is important to a case, matter, attorney, or the firm. CalendarEye, Client Portrait, and Cudgel are now seamlessly integrated.

Our firm uses Windows computers, how can we use Cudgel?

Cudgel is designed on the sophisticated and user friendly Macintosh and Helix platforms, and isn’t now available for Windows-only hardware. Big Giant Donut, Helix’s developer, expects to have a Helix version available for Internet browser use in 2024. If litigation or efficient firm marketing and management is important to you, consider how a Macintosh with Cudgel and other powerful, consistent software may help your practice.

Can some partners use paper reports?

Yes. Cudgel is designed to permit both complete computerization and paper reports. Partners using paper reports still have the advantage of readily obtaining neat, updated reports; automated litigators have critical case data at their fingertips.

Does Cudgel support a paperless or less-paper office?

Yes. Among many other newer additions, Cudgel’s key functions have been augmented to support the paperless or less-paper office. You have choice to store digital documents within Cudgel or in external locations coordinated and retrievable in Cudgel.

Is Cudgel guaranteed?

GreenLight thirty-day guarantees its products to perform as we describe them. If you have any problems let us know. If you want a refund, let us know what didn’t work right, send back the GreenLight materials, and certify that no copies remain.

Does GreenLight support its products?

Yes. We build our software on proven platforms like the Macintosh and Helix. Cudgel specific questions can be emailed or phoned to us during Chicago business hours. If you have a Helix question, QSA Toolworks supports its licensed Helix users, as does the Helix community. For additional training to further customize Cudgel, QSA Toolworks and experienced Helix developers provide Helix training seminars:

<Helix-L@gibhenry.com>.

GreenLight Software

GreenLight Gets You Going . . . Fast, Flexible & Friendly™

Cudgel®, The Flexible Litigation Companion with Docket, comprehensively coordinates evidence, witnesses, facts, laws, papers, notes, docket due dates, costs, and more—key litigation information from complaint through discovery to trial and appeal.

Cudgel®—“excellent weapon for organizing and retrieving case information... Litigation attorneys will love Cudgel’s ease of use, power and versatility”. ...

Sophistication—10

Ease of Use—10

—Computer Counsel

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