The jury trial has been slowly disappearing.
While that is true, any time a new matter comes to your firm, you should be thinking about the possible endgame – presenting evidence in a hearing, trial, settlement conference, or regulatory review.
In particular, we are focused on moving evidence from the Review to Prep services within Nextpoint. Even though the Nextpoint platform is one, integrated service that moves evidence from collections through the end of a matter, the phases of any matter are distinct and demand special attention.
On Thursday, July 31, I will be hosting the last in a series of our Client Success Summer Camp, a free, three-part webinar that will offer all of the tips, workflows, and guidance you need to manage any matter from start to finish. I will talk about how to move evidence from review to trial preparation. ( These webinars have been recorded and are now available for viewing. )
In the meantime, here is an introduction to the concepts I will be covering.
Phase One: Collecting your Evidence
eDiscovery review today often involves unimaginable volumes of evidence. We’re talking about volumes of evidence so overwhelming that lawyers often understand they will likely never review more than a fraction of it.
However, when you’re going in front of judge, panel, jury, or other audience, you will be dealing with only a relatively small subset of your evidence that has been thoroughly reviewed and vetted.
At this point you probably could recite many of the key passages from this evidence from memory. In the past, there was no seamless way to move evidence from your review platform to your litigation database. Nextpoint offers a new mechanism for transferring evidence – electronic evidence Exchange for transferring existing data, adding new data, depositions (video and transcripts), and other data you will need.
Preparing Your Exhibits
The special concerns for preparing your evidence begins with issue coding, exhibit stamping, and organizing your evidence. Nextpoint has built-in custom exhibit stamping services and deposition designation workflows that help get your evidence are ready for you to build into presentation materials and exhibits. Special considerations include:
- Exchanging designation print-outs
- Calculating run-times for your actual Hearing or Trial
- Pulling together designations for multiple deponents for motions-in-limine
Managing Other File Types
Controlling versions and access to files is the most important consideration at this point. Nextpoint is a cloud repository, which means you maintain one, single copy of all evidence. Once evidence is in the Nextpoint, you can use the file section to organize outlines, PowerPoint slides and other files where multiple versions will be created during the preparation phase. You can invite others to view the files and notifying them when updates have been made.
I hope this gives you a sense of the broad issues to be considered as you move evidence to a trial preparation service. Please sign up for our webinar series to get more details about upcoming topics and downloadable materials. The entire series will also include strategies for meet and confers and tips to prepare for your next trial or hearing.
