Jim: I commend you for your dedication to this venture- it is a hard one to work out- there are just so many variables that it makes it difficult  to design- 
Let me assist you with getting out of the "handwritting" part- MSWorks(which is almost always installed on most computers now) can very easily be used to create a case by case data base-and it takes no time to do this- - send me a copy of your front sheet or cover sheet and I'll do it for you- only takes a few minutes and you will love it.
John Rutledge has seen what I was working with a number of years ago- when I would take my "Toshiba Liberetto"( which was a very small 75 mhz pentium computer- that was about the size of a short carton of cigs- fit inside my coat pocket) into the rec rooms and be able to check and see if I had done the basic title work for the cases I was doing- it saved tons of time and I was able to cut my stays in the remote counties to the minimum- 
Send my your FS and I'll send you back something to at least "play" with.I have been using this format since the last big crash- 1991-1992, when I had time to enter all of my back work - at least about 6000 entries- the rest have been added over the years- now up to 10085 entries.

Steve