THE MOVE FROM PAPER TO SOFTWARE

As a veteran litigator and solo practitioner, Don Burns measured the size of a case in terms of banker’s boxes. For Don, a small case was one banker’s box worth of documents. A medium-sized case was two to six boxes. A big case maxed out at 10 to 15 boxes. So when he got a new case in the office with an initial data load of 100 boxes, he knew his approach and procedures would need to change. He set out to find the right solo law practice software for his firm.

THE CHALLENGE

For years, Don had used proprietary software created by a friend to keep track of his documents. The software worked, but it was clunky and slow, even on small cases. It was definitely not designed for the amount of information his new case would involve.

The most pressing challenge was email. The quantity of email to be reviewed in the case was exponentially higher than any case he’d ever handled before. “I would have never gotten through that volume, read it, and digested it,” Don said. “I would have had to bring in a large team of young lawyers, and even then, the efficiency of the review would be very limited.”

He thought about using statistical methods to reduce the email count, but he’d never done that before and it concerned him. In every case in his career, he had walked into court confident that he had mastered the evidence and was intimately familiar with every document. Now, for the first time, he wasn’t sure that was going to happen. Don worried about the possibility of being ambushed in the middle of trial by a critical document that had been produced to him but had escaped his review. This had happened to him early in his career and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Don also needed software to help him with his courtroom presentation. The systems he had used before weren’t fast enough. The images he’d show in the courtroom would freeze or delay at critical points during his argument. These delays annoyed the jury, broke their train of thought, and infuriated him. They were devastating to the delicate balance and pacing he relied on during his trial presentations. Any software that might slow things down and distract the jury from considering his arguments could cost him and his client a victory.

THE SOLUTION: COMPREHENSIVE SOLO LAW PRACTICE SOFTWARE

Don researched his options and selected Nextpoint as his ediscovery software. Nextpoint was the best fit for a variety of reasons. He found that the features Nextpoint offered allowed him to “stay on top of his documents.” But what really set Nextpoint apart were its subscription terms and its client service. He liked that the terms were variable over time. He liked the pricing. And most of all, he liked the Nextpoint people.

“From the very beginning,” Don said, “Nextpoint was responsive, cooperative and interested in my success.” He felt from the outset that the Nextpoint team would be easy to work with, and it has turned out exactly that way. “Our team has been very, very pleased,” he said.

“With firms like Don’s that have not used ediscovery software in the past, the most important thing is to show the value of having a software tool at all,” said Rakesh Madhava, CEO at Nextpoint. “There has to be a clear and present need, and clear pricing that makes sense to the principals.” The advantage Nextpoint offers over other software providers is 20 years of expertise in the ediscovery space, and the unmatched experience of its team, many of whom are litigation veterans who serve as trusted advisors to Nextpoint clients.

THE OUTCOME

In Nextpoint, Don found the document management tool that met his immediate case needs as well as a platform to support future cases. He was particularly pleased by the keyword search functionality of Nextpoint. “There’s a keyword search feature that is really accurate. Very quick. I’ve done some things to test the accuracy of the search tool and it’s caught everything,” Don said. This has helped ease his fears of an unanticipated document ambush during his case.

In addition, the case management tool has worked so well that he’s looking to apply Nextpoint to the smaller cases he’s handling. And while the case hasn’t reached trial stage yet, Don has tested out the presentation features and found them to be “a vast improvement” over the tools he has relied on in the past.

Small firm or large, the complexity and volume of data is expanding in all cases. Nextpoint is the smart, simple, affordable answer to modern ediscovery and case preparation.