TechnoLawyer: Litigation/Discovery/Trials

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a hot new bates stamping technology, a Web-based time-tracking application, and a virtual mall for malware-free software. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

A Bates Stamper on Steroids
By Jill Bauerle
Once upon a time, lawyers manually affixed bates stamps to documents. Thanks to xerography, copy machines eventually replaced the hand stamps of old. Last week, LexisNexis CaseSoft announced the latest in bates stamping technology — CaseMap Bates Stamper. This nifty utility plugs into Acrobat Standard or Professional 6 or 7, and enables you to apply bates stamps to one or more PDF files. A wizard walks you through the bates stamping process, providing options along the way. You can use any combination of letters and numbers for the bates stamp (prefix plus number — up to 34 characters total), and then store that particular format for future use. You can use any font, position the bates stamp anywhere in the document, and even add a white background to ensure that the bates number will be visible. When batch processing, you can have the CaseMap Bates Stamper ignore documents that you've already stamped. This way, you won't have to select only the new files, which kind of defeats the purpose of batch processing. When you finish applying bates stamps, you can use the Send PDFs to CaseMap wizard to incorporate the documents into CaseMap. A new addition to this wizard enables you to list the documents in CaseMap by bates number. Once in CaseMap, you can create facts and issues from the documents along with the corresponding bates numbers and hyperlinks. As with all LexisNexis CaseSoft products, the CaseMap Bates Stamper comes with one year of free support. CaseMap Bates Stamper sells for $149, but the company is offering it for $99 until May 31, 2006. Learn more about CaseMap Bates Stamper.

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Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a new litigation support tool for mobile litigators, a new and improved version of a popular practice management application, and a powerful e-discovery search tool. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Discovery on the Go
By Jill Bauerle
Litigation never sleeps. The same is apparently true of the programming wizards at Dataflight Software. Hot on the heels of FYI 2.0, released in late 2005, comes FYI 3.0. FYI enables litigation teams to securely access their Concordance and Opticon databases remotely over the Internet.

FYI 3.0 has two components — FYI Core Server and FYI Reviewer. FYI Core Server is the brain — it resides on your firm's server. FYI Reviewer serves as the eyes and ears — the front-end application (you can also use Concordance and Opticon to access FYI Core Server).

FYI Reviewer now sports a simple Google-style search while retaining Advanced Search for power users. FYI 3.0 also works with Syngence's new "Synthetix" technology, which ranks your search results by relevance without any slowdown. Once you find relevant facts and documents, you can "tag" them and add "issue codes" and annotations. New multi-level tagging enables you to place a fact/document in more than one group. You can also send tags and their related facts and documents to CaseMap with one click.

When you pull up a document, the new image viewer enables you to view the scanned image and its text side by side. FYI Reviewer also handles transcripts and electronic discovery. You can import transcripts in ASCII, LiveNote, PTF, or PCF format, and then manage and annotate those transcripts as you see fit.Regarding e-discovery, you can review everything, including e-mail, in its native format with its metadata intact.

FYI Core Server also boasts a number of new features, including true SSL encryption, and separate firewalls for the server and the database. You won't need a Web server to run FYI Core Server, and you won't need weeks to get it set up. FYI Core Server runs on Windows 2000 or higher.

Learn more about FYI 3.0.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Sean Fosmire, Review: Correlate for Outlines and Flow Charts

TechnoLawyer member John P. Starkweather asks:
"I'm interested in creating flow charts for my practice. Ideally, it would closely resemble MindManager with its ability to incorporate Web sites and documents and its integration with Microsoft Office. However, MindManager doesn't map a process or a decision tree in the same way a flow chart can. For example, I'd like to map the process of taking a case from filed lawsuit to closure. One map could deal with service of process. We could check service by linking the chart to the court Web site. If service is effected, then the flow chart would link to our form motion to default; if not, it would link to our forms for appointing a special process server and creating an alias summons. Once service is effected, that piece of the chart would be completed. Any thoughts?"

In my opinion, an excellent candidate for this type of process is Correlate. Correlate allows you to create outlines that show relationships between things and to connect those with URLs, files on the network, or other linked items as needed. One sheet can contain one or many "trees" of outlined items, placed where you want them, so there is some degree of unstructuredness allowed.

M. Sean Fosmire
Garan Lucow Miller, P.C.
www.garanlucow.com
Marquette, Michigan

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Coming May 09, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Ever wonder how some law practices run so smoothly? In this article, attorney and legal technology enthusiast Bryan Sims discusses the technology he finds invaluable in his litigation practice. From hardware to software, Bryan covers it all. Find out how one lawyer increased his productivity by stepping up his tech savvy — and how you can too.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Voting in the 2006 TechnoLawyer @ Awards began last week!

If you vote, you'll receive free of charge the TechnoLawyer E-Discovery Cheat Sheet. This two-page PDF file written by e-discovery expert Dennis Kennedy can serve as a valuable educational tool for you and especially your new hires and clients.

Here's what some voters have said about the cheat sheet:

"Thank you. The e-discovery cheat sheet is very informative."

"Covers the basics and highlights the risks of screwing up."

"I found it very concise and helpful. In my practice, I often function as a Litigation Support Manager. This is a great tool to share."

Voting ends on May 19th. Please vote today and download the cheat sheet.

Coming April 25, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Still using version 1.0? How quaint. If you have not yet upgraded to the latest version of your trial presentation software (or still use posterboard and a pointer at trial), listen up! In this two-part series, veteran trial presentation consultant Timothy Piganelli discusses the latest and most innovative features of today's trial presentation software. In Part 1, Tim explored Sanction and TrialDirector. In Part 2, he explores TimeMap and Visionary.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming April 27, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Olivier Oosterbaan reviews several document collaboration tools including Google's new acquisition, Writely, Caren Schwartz reviews QuickBooks for legal billing as does Christian Connell, CaseSoft CEO Greg Krehel discusses the benefits of Adobe Acrobat Professional versus the Standard version, and Clint Pullin offers up an Acrobat Bates stamping tip. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming April 20, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Business Development Manger for Adobe Legal Rick Borstein offers up a hot tip for bates stamping PDF files, solos Mark Rosen and Larry Vollintine review QuickBooks (Premier and Pro Editions, respectively) for time-billing, Geoff Ormrod suggests a fix for those having problems upgrading Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and Thomas Shigo challenges technology resellers to provide some straight talk about Dragon NaturallySpeaking (and other legal technology solutions). Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming April 18, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Still using version 1.0? How quaint. If you have not yet upgraded to the latest version of your trial presentation software (or still use posterboard and a pointer at trial), listen up! In this two-part series, veteran trial presentation consultant Timothy Piganelli discusses the latest and most innovative features of today's trial presentation software. In Part 1, Tim explores Sanction and TrialDirector. In Part 2, he explores TimeMap and Visionary.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming April 14, 2006 to Fat Friday: Mark Lieb reviews a handy password recovery program for use in e-discovery, Grady Thrasher discusses a workaround for integrating DeltaView PE with Worldox, David Hudgens reviews his experience with PCLaw, Michael Bates reviews the Web hosting and design company he used to build his firm's Web site, and Corey Rich discusses the convenience and cost of online public records. In addition, this issue features links to 10 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.