Cases and Appointments
A case in CARES comprises only a case number (made up of the court, year, case type, and sequence) and the date the court opened that case. A case is sometimes shared in CARES—more than one attorney can always be “appointed” to each case. Sometimes the case you are looking for already exists in CARES because an attorney was already appointed to it, e.g. for another sibling or, occasionally, in error.
The attorney who is appointed to a case in court must also be "appointed" to that case in CARES. An appointment in CARES is what links a case to an OCR attorney and to the specific child(ren) whose interests are represented by that attorney. An attorney's appointment—not the case—belongs to their office. Each appointment may include multiple child parties.
Create an Appointment in Your Office
The appointed attorney and their office members can only bill for activities after completing Steps 1 through 5 below. All billing and case management functions are available after setting up at least one appointment in CARES to a case. Remember that the attorney who is currently appointed to the case in court must also be "appointed" to that case in CARES as described below; official reports including your invoices depend on CARES reflecting the correct attorney of record.
Creating appointments takes several steps, so please note that OCR's Billing Policies and Procedures allow your office to bill up to 0.1 hours per appointment as "Data Management > Open Case."
1) SEARCH ALL CASES:
- After logging in to CARES, click on Cases > Search Cases on the left-side menu.
- In the search fields, enter only your case's court (usually a county), 4-digit year, and/or case sequence. The case sequence is the end of the case number, e.g. 12JV1234. (If you search for more appointment-specific information like a child's name now, the search will come up blank because you have not yet created your appointment.) Need help?
Efficiency Tip: Appointment creation is fastest when you start by searching all cases--your search entries will carry over to case creation as needed, so searching first is never a waste of time. Make your case search faster by using only the sequence (e.g. 1234) and the county, then scroll through the few cases that appear.
2) FIND & APPOINT TO CASE:
Click on the Search Cases button as shown above. If you see your case listed, go to (a) below. If not, go to (b). Click here for additional info on Supreme Court or Court of Appeals cases.
a) If your case DOES appear under "Matching Cases," click on its blue case number. Now is your last chance to double-check the year, district, court (county), case type, and case sequence (e.g. 12JV1234). Always double-check these during appointment creation to avoid having to redo data entry if you later discover they do not match your case. Click the blue Create Appointment button (or, if you made edits, "Save and Create Appointment") at the top right of the screen.
- OR -
b) If your case DOES NOT appear under "Matching Cases," click on the Create Case button (midway down on the right) and your search criteria will transfer into a Create Case form. Enter all required/asterisked info about your case. Now is your last chance to double-check the year, district, court (county), case type, and case sequence (e.g. 12JV1234). Always double-check these during appointment creation to avoid having to redo data entry if you later discover they do not match your case. Click the blue Save and Create Appointment button (top right of the screen).
3) ENTER APPOINTMENT INFORMATION:
- Optionally, type in an Appointment Nickname.
- Select the Attorney Name: this must be the attorney of record appointed in your office:
4) ADD YOUTH:
Repeat the following for each child party. You must add at least one child party before you can save your new appointment.
Click the Add Child Party button toward the bottom-right of the appointment screen. At the top of the form that pops up, search among existing children by entering a full first OR last name. Try not to add a duplicate child if you can find the child already in CARES by searching here. If you find the child by searching here, go to (a) below. If not, go to (b).
a) If you DO find the child/youth by searching, click the checkbox beside them, then "Add Selected Party." (But, if you don't find a good match, skip to (b) below; do not overwrite data by fundamentally changing a name and identity—this could corrupt other attorneys' data!)
- OR -
b) If you DO NOT find the child by searching, you can enter exactly what you need by clicking the "Create Child Party" button at the bottom.
Complete the pop-up screen that asks for data about this child:
- The "Shared" portion at the top is visible to and editable by anyone who views this child in CARES. (Do not overwrite shared data by fundamentally changing a name and identity.) The "Private" portion is only for your office's appointment. More on this
- Your Attorney Role and its Start Date are required. Usually when creating an appointment, you only use one role checkbox and one start date (then, if your role shifts later, return here to check a second role box). However, if you began this appointment in a best interests role and have already shifted to client-directed, use a checkbox under both models of representation and enter two dates to reflect the timeline of the attorney's roles so far. More on attorney role(s)
- Scroll down to view all the optional case management fields for this child. You may or may not have this information yet; you can return and update anything later as needed.
- Scroll to the bottom as shown above. If you see an asterisk by "Placements," it means one is required: add at least one placement by clicking "Add Placement" or "Add Saved Placement" (learn about saved placements in Record Placements). Choose a placement type and, if prompted, indicate whether the placement is out-of-home. Make sure to enter a start date for the child in that placement (you only need to record back as far as the start of your appointment), then Save.
- If you are choosing from existing placements, type a full word in the "Search placements" table. Check the box beside the correct placement.
- Enter the best information you have at this time—e.g. you may only have a description and no address at first.
- You can return to and edit this information later by selecting the checkbox beside the placement and clicking “Edit Placement.”
- Later, remember to add a placement end date before recording the next placement.
Click the blue Add Child Party button at the bottom right to finish. Remember to repeat this step for additional child(ren) on this appointment. See Associated Appointments for a shortcut if you have multiple appointments with the same child. (If the Add Child Party button is not available, scroll up and look for asterisked or red fields indicating an error or missing data. The Representation End Date--for ending the child party--is not available until after you have saved the appointment (next step).)
5) SAVE:
Important: Click the blue Save button in the upper right of the appointment profile to finish creating your appointment. Saving your appointment is mandatory but the Save button will not be available until you have successfully saved at least one child party (Step 4).
This appointment is now saved in CARES, available in your Cases > My Appointments screen as a shortcut, and standing by to record your activities when you're ready.