Archive for the ‘ABA TechShow 2012’ Category

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Small Case eDiscovery from the ABA Techshow

June 4, 2012

Written by Council Member Michael Curran of Flex Discovery

This blog is a little late following the ABA Techshow, but it covers a somewhat timeless subject regarding whether it is best to handle small eDiscovery matters on your own or whether to seek professional help.  At the ABA Techshow this spring, a presentation on the subject of small case eDiscovery was given by Sharon Nelson, President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., and Bruce Olson, President of ONLAW Trial Technologies, LLC. 

During the presentation, both Ms. Nelson and Mr. Olson offered insights on how lawyers can do eDiscovery themselves.  I have spent the last several years working with vendors assisting lawyers with their eDiscovery matters, and I agree with many of the points raised by the speakers.  Although self-service eDiscovery is not for everyone, there are plenty of attorneys and law firms capable of handling their own small eDiscovery cases.

One self-help eDiscovery topic the speakers discussed was data collection.   The speakers stated that self-collection is an affordable option and recommended products such as safecopy2 and Harvester.  Reasonable actions in an eDiscovery case rely in part on the concept of proportionality, which means that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on eDiscovery for cases with little underlying value.  Hiring an outside forensics expert to perform a collection can be expensive, so saving several hundred dollars per computer may make sense in small cases.  Some self-collection programs may require a level of technical skill not taught in law school, so you should give these tools a test run before proceeding in your case.

The speakers also addressed small case data searching, and they mentioned that DT Search Desktop (approximately $200) can be used to view, index and search documents for a preliminary review of document sets.  DT Search is one of the main tools utilized by eDiscovery software manufacturers for searching.  I have used DT Search several times because it is so popular in eDiscovery tools.  If you are an expert at searching on Westlaw and Lexis, you can certainly learn how to find documents using DT Search with a little practice.  Quick View Plus was also suggested as a method for viewing multiple types of documents for which you may not have the appropriate native program in your law office.

As with any do-it-yourself project, you can save money if you do things right yourself.  However, you mitigate risks by hiring outside experts.   Overall, if you are the type of attorney who gets excited about performing your own small case eDiscovery by using tools such as DT Search Desktop, safecopy2, Harvester, Quick View Plus, and dozens of other software products they never taught us about in law school, then you should be able to handle many small eDiscovery tasks with a little training and practice.

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Review of CaseMap and Timemap by Robert A. Ray

May 3, 2012

CaseMap and TimeMap are programs by Casesoft, Inc. which is now owned by Lexis/Nexis.

CaseMap describes itself as a “fact and issue management software.” I have been using CaseMap for a number of years and would not feel that I was properly prepared for trial if I did not have CaseMap. CaseMap allows you to enter information about people, places, things, documents etc. and then pull the information out in any way that you want. That’s not a very good explanation so I’m going to walk through how I use CaseMap when I’m preparing my cases.

The first thing you do in CaseMap is enter what they refer to as the cast of characters. I refer to it as my witness list. When you first start, you can put as little information in as the name or as much information as you have on each person. For instance, the attorney can enter the names of each of the people involved in the case whether they’re the parties, witnesses, experts, or whatever. The legal assistant or secretary could come in at a different time and fill the information out about each person by adding their address, telephone number, e-mail address, whether they’re scheduled for deposition, whether they’re going to be called at trial, etc. Once you have created the cast of characters, you can move on to entering some of the more important facts of the case. If you’re working on an auto accident case, the first fact that you would enter may be the accident itself. You put in the date of the accident and as little or as much information as you want. You might decide that you just want to put this down as “the accident.” You might want to put it down as “Paul Payne was hit by Don Davis who ran the red light.” If you’ve already entered Paul Payne and Don Davis into your cast of characters, as you start to type their name, CaseMap will automatically fill in their complete name.

So far, there’s nothing too special. However, were CaseMap really shines is when you’re reviewing documents. When you install CaseMap, it adds several buttons to your Adobe Acrobat program. The two that you’ll use most often are “send PDF to CaseMap” and “send fact to CaseMap.” As you receive documents in your case like the accident report or the medical records or witnesses statements, they should be in PDF form or you should convert them to PDF form by scanning them. Once the documents are in PDF form, you can have CaseMap Bates stamp each page. CaseMap is smart enough to know which PDF files have been Bates stamped and which have not so that as you get additional documents in and you add  them to the documents folder, you can have CaseMap Bates stamp the new ones without changing the Bates stamps on the ones that have already been processed. You can do that in bulk without having to open each individual file in Adobe Acrobat. Once the PDF file is Bates stamped, you can open it in Adobe Acrobat and click on the “send PDF to CaseMap” button. A dialog box will open up and ask if you want to send that to the documents list or the pleadings list or the proceedings list, etc. Since you’re working on a document, the default document lists should be selected. When you click on OK, the document is added to your CaseMap file with the Bates numbers and the document name. If you look at your document list in CaseMap you’ll see that there’s a little paperclip icon next to that document. When you click on that paperclip CaseMap will open Adobe Acrobat and open that particular document. I also print off the document list showing the Bates numbers and names of the documents when I’m responding to a request for production. I send that list to the other side so that everybody knows what documents were produced and what the Bates numbers are.

Let’s say that you have an 800 page medical record from the hospital that you have processed and placed in CaseMap. You start reviewing the record in Adobe Acrobat and noticed that on page 103 there is a note by nurse Smith that Paul Payne was moaning and that Smith called Dr. Jones and got permission to increase the dosage of Vicodin. If you don’t have Nurse Smith and Dr. Jones listed in your witness list, you would add them now. You can highlight that passage in Adobe Acrobat and then click on the “send fact to CaseMap” button which will bring up a dialog box giving you the option to add the date and time of the event. When you click okay, the fact is placed in your CaseMap facts list. If you look at the facts list you’ll notice that there’s a little icon of a paperclip on the fact that we just entered. If you click on that paperclip CaseMap will take you to page 103 of the medical records where you have highlighted the entry by nurse Smith. CaseMap also has additional lists like an “issues” list. In the auto wreck case you would have the various issues as negligence, damages etc. and you can have the damages issue broken down further by property damage, pain and suffering and lost wages etc. In the entry above by nurse Smith, you would click the little box under the issue of pain and suffering.

Once you have the information in CaseMap the real benefit of the program is getting that information back out. I will go through how you might get the information that we just entered back out of CaseMap. If your opponent files a no evidence motion for summary judgment alleging that there is no evidence of pain and suffering, you can have CaseMap list every fact where you have checked the checkbox under the issue of pain and suffering. You’ll then get a list of facts that just has entries that discuss pain and suffering including the entry on page 103 of the hospital records. If you’re getting ready to take the deposition of nurse Smith or Dr. Jones you can have a list of the facts prepared were nurse Smith or Dr. Jones is mentioned. The list will not only have what each one said or did but it will have the reference to the place in the document for you to refer to. So if nurse Smith says Paul Payne never complained of pain, you can show her page 103 of the hospital records and question her about that. If you want to know everywhere in the records were Vicodin was given to Paul Payne, you can have CaseMap give you just those entries were Vicodin is mentioned.

TimeMap is another Casesoft product that creates visual timelines. If you need to visually show a chain of events, TimeMap makes it easy to enter the information and display the timeline. In addition to entering the information yourself, you can also export information from CaseMap into TimeMap which will set up a visual timeline based on that that. Additionally, you can choose the colors of the different events and photos link them to exhibits and generally easily create visually appealing timelines.

As I said, I’ve been using Casemap for a number of years. The way I prepare my cases and need instant access to the facts in the case or the contact information of all the people involved in the case, I could not practice economically without Casemap. You can download a free copy to try Casemap at Casesoft’s website, www.casesoft.com. Download the program, review some of their webinars on how to use it and give it a try. If you are involved in litigation, you’ll want this program.

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Gadget review (kind of)

April 30, 2012

Some people’s attitude on gadgets is similar to Will Rodgers’ attitude on people–they never met a gadget that they didn’t like, while the rest of us are probably more sensible when comes to gadgets. Truth be known, many gadgets are more impeding than improving productivity anyway.  Having said that, here are some of the gadgets I saw at the ABA TechShow I considered worth mentioning.

Rii mini i6 wireless keyboard

Mini i6 keyboard is not just a wireless keyboard because the operative word here is “mini.”  This six-inch device is a full keyboard with a built-in touchpad that includes various features and Bluetooth functionality that are capable of being used with nearly every modern electronic device such as computers, televisions, XBOX 360, PlayStation 3, etc.  For those of you who are more work-oriented, mini i6 keyboard also includes a built-in laser pointer that may come in handy during presentation.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJzjrFRwouQ)

Toshiba 14-inch USB Ultra-portable LCD Monitor

This ultra-portable LCD monitor is for those of you hipsters who insist that two screens are better one.  Now you can take the dual-screen action to the road with this relatively light-weight (2.8 lb) LCD monitor.  It’s less than an inch thick and comes with a handsome carrying case that serves as a stand when opened.  It can simply be powered via an USB connection from your notebook computer, but it can also be powered via an optional power cable that’s sold separately.

Neat mobile scanner

If the theme is small and light-weight, this two-pound NeatReceipts mobile scanner certainly fits the bill because it is only 1.6 x 10 x 1.3 inches in size.  But the best part of this product is not the scanner itself, it’s actually the software that allows a user to look up key information quickly after scanning.

I had seen the above-mentioned products but I had not tried any of them myself.  If these products work as good as advertised, you may want to take them with you when you travel.

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The Ethics of Advances in Legal Technologies from the ABA Techshow

April 10, 2012

Written by Council Member Michael Curran of Flex Discovery

The ABA Techshow was held last month in Chicago.  Several representatives from Texas were on hand to record the latest advances in legal technologies and report back to members of the Computer & Technology Section of the State Bar of Texas.   As with many conventions including the upcoming State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting in Houston on June 14-15, 2012, the ABA Techshow was divided into tracks with different rooms focused on different subject matters.

On the first day of Techshow, I attended the Litigation Track sessions during the morning.  There were two morning sessions including:

  • Preparing to Litigate: The Latest Smart Litigation Management Tools by Dan Siegel, Law Offices of Daniel J. Siegel, LLC, and Martin Tully, Partner with Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP; and
  • Effective E-Discovery in Small Cases by Sharon Nelson, President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., and Bruce Olson, President of ONLAW Trial Technologies, LLC. (to be covered in another blog post).

In Preparing to Litigate, Dan Siegel and Martin Tully discussed how lawyers and their staff can use the latest technologies to help them more efficiently prepare a case for litigation.  More important than any one particular technology recommendation was the overall theme that lawyers must be familiar with the continued advancement in legal technologies in order to effectively represent their clients.  As stated by Dan Siegel during the presentation, no patient would go to a doctor if the doctor insisted that he was not going to use one of those new fangled MRI machines because they machines were not around when the doctor graduated from medical school.

Just as doctors are required to keep up with the latest advances in medical technologies, lawyers too must make an effort to keep up with technologies that can improve their practice.  The speakers also cited ethics rules that require a lawyer to be competent in providing their services by staying aware of technology advances impacting their practice.

Most speakers at Techshow tried to avoid specific product endorsements, and the speakers also rarely limited their suggestions to a single right way of doing things.  Although no “must have” list of specific technologies was provided in this session, the speakers provided good insights regarding the types of technological advances that are benefiting lawyers.  Some of the areas in which lawyers can improve their practices included:

(1)    Automated Checklists – Using technologies to track important deadlines and case milestones to stay on track throughout the litigation lifecycle

(2)    OCR – Making all documents for your case keyword searchable so that they can easily be found and grouped together as needed

(3)    Eliminating Paper – One speaker went so far as to state that lawyers in his office can get fired for reading paper transcripts due to the inefficiency of this practice and the inability to take advantage of programs that link important sections of a transcript to other trial prep software

(4)    Remote Access Capabilities – With a growing amount of legal work being performed outside the office, the speakers discussed several tips to improve your remote working capabilities such as: (a) travelling with your own hotspot rather than relying on unsecure wireless networks; (b) using Go to My PC or similar remote access applications to access programs on your office machine; and (c) bringing long extension cords, extra batteries and network connection cables to put you in control of many of the physical limitations of your remote location.

Siegel and Tully briefly mentioned topics such as eDiscovery and Cloud Computing, and these topics were covered at length in other seminars and were not a major focus of the discussion.  The speakers also discussed some of the major trial software programs that have been around for years and compared them to a few programs that are new to the market such as many of the iPad apps.

Overall, lawyers can more effectively and efficiently represent their clients by using any of several technologies that focus on the management of litigation cases and organization of relevant documents.  Failure to take advantage of technologies that can improve your efficiency and safeguard your clients’ information may be akin to doctors who refuse to take advantage of scientific advances in medicine.  With all this good advice regarding how to responsibly represent clients, I hope they offer ethics credits during this CLE course next year.

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Can Anyone Tell Me Who ‘Brought It’ to ABA TechShow 2012? Anyone? Anyone? Ben Stein Brought It! (mark i unger)

April 1, 2012

Economics Teacher:

“Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says?”  Ben Stein, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

It’s not often I get to see, hear and meet someone of such iconic old-school flair that laughing yields to the head-nodding usually associated with the thought ‘yes, yes I agree with everything that guy says.”  While I can’t say that full and total ‘agreement’ on all is in the cards, I did find myself nodding ‘mucho’ times this past Friday when Über-Actor, Economist, Attorney and Funny/Smart-Guy Ben Stein Keynoted the ABA TechShow 2012.

Stein was introduced by Natalie Kelly as ‘my new best friend’ (after a post-TechShow planning session led to a chance Ben-Stein-Run-In in a department store).  Next thing you know, we’re all the better for Natalie Kelly’s luck and Stein’s graciousness.

Stein started out with a few jokes (email me if you want the one about the Rabbi, Priest and Trial Lawyer), to loosen up and to loosen us up, repeatedly citing Canada, to the delight of ‘Tech-Showing’ Canadians and co-referencing, for some reason, Jenna Jameson.

“I’m happy to be here, but I did hear that the choice was between me and Jenna Jameson.  They chose me but I’m sure she knows a lot too.”

He did start and finish with prepared remarks about the serious nature of the state of practicing law and the grave need for same—

“The law has always been assumed to be a vital national institution.

“”People should know at the earliest part of their lives what their rights are.”
“[Yet] There’s a huge obstacle…it’s expensive.”

“Unless a person can get access to a lawyer, they’re in danger of losing access to their rights.
“There will be a lot less law-breaking (bad for you guys), the more people know about their rights”

Some such quips which might have been flying off my tweeting digits were -

“The life of law…is not logical experience.”

“Life is a game.  Unfortunately it always has the same outcome”

It’s my hope that in the future that the law will be taught in community colleges, night schools… and maybe even law schools.”

“The C in C-level work stands for Chronic”

“The labor force (sad to say I include my son in this group) just doesn’t want to work”

“Its’ not a job to live in Beverly Hills and paint model warriors while living with my wife’s manicurist”

“I’ve never had a manicure in Canada”

“Canada, doing ok? Yeah, doing ok…we’re jealous…but we do have Jenna Jameson…but come to think of it, she might be from Canada.”

He continued off-script with a barrage of stories and cocktail party banter-chatter that made all of us both grateful for the experience and yet wishing we could invite him over on a monthly if not weekly basis.  His Java-induced riffs (he had 2 cups of Starbucks on the podium) included such notables as –

“I co-hosted “America’s Most Smartest Model.  We took 16k people who called themselves models and asked them Questions. None of them could do it.  When we asked them what was the official language of Australia, every single one said “Australian”.

After noting that he “Learned one thing while a speechwriter for Nixon — people want one thing after you start a speech…they want you to finish.

And ‘Finish’ he did, as his points continued anecdotally to demonstrate the fact that many of the people he was encountering didn’t have the knowledge or ability to solve many of the problems our society was now encountering, ‘paraphrastically’ stating –

‘We have a very chronic shortage of knowledge…We don’t know how to solve the many problems…education, unemployment, inadequate access to medical care that we now face.’

“We’ve got to do that…or we’re going to be eaten alive…I’m sure it’s better in Canada…”

“I’ve lived by many famous people.  I live close to Barbara Streisand whose voice is like ‘buttah’; and my house is smaller than the shed she keeps her tools in.”  

“But the real stars are soldiers, public defenders, prosecutors, Judges’, people who have children with autism, cops, men/women injured in the wars — they keep coming back…from these people the solutions will come…”

From this he concluded with a story from his boyhood, when he went to hear John F. Kennedy speak:

“When I was a boy…I took the bus…in the snow to watch Kennedy’s inauguration…I heard him say some words that apply to lawyers and everyone –

“We all ask G-d to bless this great country…Go to work for this great county…”

Stein finished with “But here on earth G-d’s work is our work. Let’s go for it!”

Indeed, It’s not often I get to see, hear and meet someone of such iconic old-school flair…with such new and re-emerging importance.  I think I am better for it.  I think everyone in the audience was as well.  Thank you Ben Stein.

mark i unger (@miunger)

(photo by antony ng)

 


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ABATechshow – Update from Council Member Robert (Tony) Ray

March 29, 2012

Techshow 2012 started today. I’m going to make my blog entries with the voice dictation that comes standard on the new iPad. You’ll forgive me if there are some mistakes in the post.

The first session that I attended was the session on building client friendly websites.

The program was more comprehensive than I thought it would be.  The session started out with showing a list of what the typical law firm has on its website. Namely:

  • Firm news and announcements,
  • Papers, articles, publications,
  • Lists of speaking engagements,
  • Attorney profiles, including information on education, awards, and achievements,
  • Practice and service area descriptions,
  • Firm information descriptions, such as information about the firm, its history, and contact information, and
  • Representative work, such as transactions, case summaries, and client victories.

This information may be valuable to lawyers, but the typical prospective client doesn’t get any information that they’re searching for. Typically, the public is searching for the following information:

  1. How you and your firm will help them (both with their legal problem and any associated non-legal needs),
  2. That you and your firm have the experience and expertise required,
  3. That your fees will be reasonable in light of their budget and expectations.
  4. That they can trust you.

The speakers propose that law firm website should address the fundamental question that the public has, “how can you help me?” All in all, the session was very good and very informative.

For more information of our coverage on the ABATechshow, please follow us on Twitter @TXBarCompTech or the hashtag #ABATechshow

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What To Expect When You’re Expecting:  ABA TechShow 2012

March 28, 2012

Mark I. Unger (@miunger)

I write this from the plane, siphoning off some slow $5.00 Southwest Air Wifi (disappointing given the beta test about a year and a half ago) but still juiced up on coffee and the mere ability to get the 30,000 foot hookup.  This flight is the ABA TechShow flight and, as veterans will tell you, it’s likely the best flight of the year.  Every year in Chicago, the Legal ‘TechGensia’ accumulates, some knowing and some not knowing what to expect, but expecting nonetheless.

This year is most likely going to generate a lot of buzz on the topics of  iPads (and tablets and Apps) and the Cloud.  While SXSWi a couple of weeks ago was rife with Social Media Apps as well as the highly controversial Human Wifi Hotspots, Techshow is a bit more practical.  With critical mass of convergence on the iPad coming faster and faster, integration into the Cloud is moving at an even faster pace.  Dropbox integration (and Box and Evernote for that matter) is now commonplace if not expected.  If one of your trial presentation, practice management or PDF Annotator Apps has a function, it is expected that a new one that wants to date you should also have this.  In this sense it’s almost like speed dating — 2 minutes to convince me that you’re worth the tab, and maybe a collective hour over the next three days to convince me that you’re worth a second or third or fourth date.

We all know that in technology (and life), what we learn to use well first is generally what we stick with and, with the exception of ADD-Adled Techie-Lawyer-Wannabes like myself, change is hard.  To quote an ex-girlfriend of mine who (while in my presence) when asked how she stays so healthy in dating relationships, stated “Well, I start with really low expectations.”  Oops…wrong quote.  She also said ”I’m not frustrated; I’m just adjusting to transition…with despair.”  Well, when you come to TechShow, it’s to adjust to transition, if at times with despair, because it’s one of the only places and ways to make the adjustment both exciting and worth it.

This year brings the superlicious excitement of the unofficial event “LexThink” (formerly Ignite Law), a series of 11 speakers, each presenting for  6 minutes (1/10th of an hour and usual minimum billing increment of lawyer types).  Brought to you by veteran ‘Techshowers’ Matt Homann and JoAnne Foreshee, this two-year old event is an ignitable kickoff to an incredible 2 and 1/2 days of serious legal technology.  This year’s speakers include –
1.  Mark Britton:  Back to the Future
2.  Richard Granat  Legal Industry Startups: An Overview
3.  Roe Frazer:  Being a Web 2.0 Lawyer in the “Thank You Economy”
4.  Will Hornsby:  Ignite This! Five Ethics Rules That Should Be Incinerated
5.  Ruth Carter:  Flash Mob Law
6.  Jason E. Dyer:  Where Canasta and Counsel Collide
7.  Eric Hunter:  Moving Towards 100% Web
8.  Jay Shepherd:  One Word That Will Reinvent How You Serve Clients
9.  Matt Spiegel:  Don’t Just Communicate …
10.  James F. Ring:  Ending Cheap Talk in Legal Bargaining
11.  Steve Best:  Passion
See also previous speakers’ presentations via the link above.

The meat of the matter or two days of seriousity couched in humor of intense learning at this years TechShow comes in the form of 6 categories/tracks per Day.

Day One (1) includes –
1.  Paperless;
2.  Mobile/Smartphones;
3.  Digital Marketing, made up of
4.  Large Firm
5.  Litigation; and
6.  Collaboration

Day Two (2) posits –
1.  Solo/Small Firm;
2.  Solo/Small Firm Basics;
3.  Cloud Computing;
4.  MAC
5.  Advanced IT; and
6.  E-Discovery/Advanced Topics.

Add into the mix Keynote Speaker and actor/economist/lawyer/smart guy -

Ben Stein (“Bueller….? Bueller….”), along with

60 Tips in 60 Minutes, 60 Apps in 60 Minutes and a Saturday morning nightcap of 60 Sites in 60 Minutes, and you’ve got enough legal-tech mojo to fill your hard drive for at least six months.  If you’re lucky (and diligent), possibly a year till TechShow 2013.

Stay tuned for MORE blogging from Texas Bar Computer & Tech Section Members

See the Full Schedule at http://www2.americanbar.org/calendar/TECHSHOW/Pages/CompleteSchedule.asp

mark i. unger
@miunger

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