CaseSoft FYI - February 2006

This FYI issue features a new white paper: Turning Chronologies into Fact Factories.  We hope you enjoy our article (and certainly won't mind if you see fit to email it along to others).

Our monthly Acrobat Tips & Tricks column takes a field trip to Adobe Systems, the developers of Acrobat.  Adobe Systems is hosting a live webinar this Friday for CaseSoft clients and their guests.  The session will look at the litigation-oriented features that distinguish one version of Acrobat from another.  We'll also recap the tight integration between CaseMap and Acrobat.  Details and registration link below.

Training fest: Below we make available a new brochure that summarizes our many no-charge and fee-based training offerings, we link to new Interwoven and Hummingbird Integration Webinars and also announce these new CaseSoft Academy open-enrollment classes:

• Support/Training Certification Webinar for Lit Support/IS Staffers

• CaseMap in Half a Day

• Acrobat in Half a Day

CaseSoft Client FYI is our monthly e-mail newsletter (click to view prior issues) providing updates and tips for CaseMap, TimeMap, NoteMap, TextMap, and DepPrep users.  Please follow the instructions located at the bottom of this email message anytime you would like to unsubscribe.

CaseSoft FYI February Contents

1. Joint Adobe Systems/CaseSoft Webinar This Friday

2. New Brochure Summarizing CaseSoft Training Options

3. Three New CaseSoft Academy Classes

4. Learn a Key Feature in 30 Secs: TimeMap's Repeat Flag Option

5. Interwoven and Hummingbird Integration Webinars

6. Legal Nurse Consultants: Hope to See You at March Conference

7. New White Paper: Turning Chronologies into Fact Factories

Case Analysis Jumpstarts are one fee-based offering discussed in our Training Options Summary.  If you're starting work on a new CaseMap case file, why not have a member of our CaseSoft Academy staff visit your offices to lead this case-specific (and thus client billable) brainstorming exercise in which we'll work together to get the basics of a cast of characters, case lexicon, fact chronology and issue outline organized in CaseMap. 

Click to review a sample Jumpstart Session agenda.

To schedule a Case Analysis Jumpstart or get any questions answered, please write Julie Parker at jparker@casesoft.com.

No-Charge "CaseMap Fundamentals" Phone Training

Are you a CaseMap user who has yet to take your "CaseMap Fundamentals" phone training?  Do you know someone who is?   The only cost to your organization is that of originating the phone call to be trained.  In under an hour, we'll show you the basics of CaseMapping. 

Please note that our phone training schedule is often filled two weeks or more in advance.  Write Sam Cairns at scairns@casesoft.com and he'll work with you to book a session soon. 

CaseMap in Half a Day

This open-enrollment class is designed to provide new CaseMap users with a solid introduction to our flagship case analysis tool.  Class topics include CaseMap Fundamentals, Creating Great Work Product, and Using the “Send to CaseMap” Feature in Acrobat and Other Tools.  

Click to see a complete agenda 

Please note that CaseMap in Half a Day isn't intended for clients who have been working with CaseMap for more than a year.  It's a lecture-based class, not a hands-on session like our daylong CaseMap 201 class. 

This class is $125 per seat for those covered by CaseSoft Product Maintenance and $175 per seat for those who are not.

CaseMap in Half a Day classes are currently open for enrollment in:

• New York on Thursday, March 16

• Charlotte  on Wednesday, April 5

• Washington, DC on Thursday, April 6

• San Francisco on Thursday, April 27

• Vancouver on Thursday, May 4

• Orlando on Wednesday, June 14

Sessions run from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., which means you can attend the Acrobat in Half a Day class in the afternoon if you wish.  Please contact Sam Scaggs at sscaggs@casesoft.com or 904.273.5000 x 230 to book a seat.

Acrobat in Half a Day

This half-day class teaches attendees how to use Adobe Acrobat to enhance their litigation practice.  It's intended for those who are relatively new to Acrobat, not for Acrobat power users. 

This class is strictly about Acrobat and doesn't cover CaseSoft tools.  You don't even need to be a CaseSoft user to attend.  (The tight integration between CaseMap and Acrobat is reviewed in the morning CaseMap in Half a Day session).

Class topics include Key Litigation Features in Each Acrobat Version, Searching PDFs, and Scanning and OCRing Paper Documents.  

Click to see a complete agenda

This class is $125 per seat for those covered by CaseSoft Product Maintenance and $175 per seat for those who are not.

Acrobat in Half a Day classes are currently open for enrollment in:

• New York on Thursday, March 16

• Charlotte  on Wednesday, April 5

• Washington, DC on Thursday, April 6

• San Francisco on Thursday, April 27

• Vancouver on Thursday, May 4

• Orlando on Wednesday, June 14

Sessions run from 1:15 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., which means you can attend the CaseMap in Half a Day class in the morning if you wish.  Please contact Sam Scaggs at sscaggs@casesoft.com or 904.273.5000 x 230 to book a seat.

Support/Training Certification Webinar

Another new class we're offering this year is a Support/Training Certification webinar for Litigation Support and IS staff members.  We also offer this session as an in-person, open-enrollment class in large cities, but have had numerous requests for a webinar-based offering from Lit Support/IS staff members located in smaller cities.

The class will be held as four two-hours sessions scheduled over two days.  The first of these classes is slated for 3/21 and 3/22.  The class will be capped at 12 attendees so Q&A is practical.

While we're still finalizing the exact way the agenda will be broken across webinar sessions, the topics being covered will be quite similar to those taught in our open-enrollment Support/Training Certification class, the agenda for which you can see by clicking this link. 

Our TimeMap 4 timeline graphing tool includes a new option that's handy when Facts flags straddle page breaks.  When TimeMap is in Repeat mode, any fact that doesn't print completely on a page will be reprinted in its entirety on the following page.

To enable the Repeat option, open your timeline graph and select File/Page Set Up.  In the Page Set Up dialog box, select the Layout & Options tab and click Repeat in the Page Break Mode radio group.

7. New White Paper: Turning Chronologies into Fact Factories

A question before beginning our article: Are you connected with any state bar, local bar or paralegal association publication?  If so, we would be honored to have one of our 10 white papers considered for publication.  We have versions of all of our case analysis articles that make no mention of CaseSoft tools.  And we'll gladly edit our white papers to fit your requirements re word count, etc.  We can also write a new article from scratch.  Please contact Nancy Smith at nsmith@casesoft.com if you're interested in discussing further.

Introduction

Many case chronologies serve strictly as fact warehouses. They're only used to store the finished product of case analysis: facts that have solid sources. That's a shame. To get the full benefit of a chronology, it should be used as a fact factory, not as a warehouse. Sure, factories include storerooms for the finished product. But the factory's true purpose is production.

Turn chronologies into fact factories by following the simple brainstorming process outlined below. Your chronologies will become case investigation aids that focus the discovery process and have a dramatic impact on motion practice, trial preparation and case outcome.

Fact Factory Overview

How does a factory work? Procure raw materials. Perform a series of processes that transform these supplies into finished products. Monitor the quality and quantity of the goods being produced. Reject the duds. Ship the finished products so they can be put to use.

How can the factory metaphor be applied to a case chronology? Gather into the chronology the raw materials of hearsay, rumors and even guesses developed by brainstorming. Move these prospective facts through a process where potential sources are first identified and then investigated to see if they can be turned into solid ones. Polish and inspect the results. Discard facts that still lack court-worthy sources. Finally, put the completed facts to work in Motions for Summary Judgment, Pretrial Motions and at trial itself.

Before expanding on the fact factory concept, let's address this common concern: Isn't it risky to mix facts with solid sources and prospective facts that have no source together in a single chronology? Won't finished facts be lost among the work in progress? There's no need to worry. Anytime you want a list of only those facts that have solid sources, a mouse click can filter the chronology down to that subset for viewing and reporting purposes.

Here are the details on implementing the fact factory brainstorming process and some simple tactics for maximizing its effectiveness . . .

Step One: Compile Prospective Facts

The first stage of the fact development process is devoted to generating the maximum number of prospective facts. Again, prospective facts are those for which court-acceptable sources have yet to be developed -- hearsay, rumors, and even the results of brainstorming guesses about what facts might be turned up during discovery. This is the grist we'll attempt to mill into final product that can be used at trial.

Clients and other friendly witnesses can supply plenty of raw material. Embrace the hearsay and rumors clients provide regarding case events and players. And the job's not done when clients have provided the good news. Be sure they also furnish details regarding potential problems and negative rumors.

Want to increase the quantity and quality of prospective facts your clients provide? Ask them to work up a list of important case facts/events and a separate list of case-related rumors prior to meeting with you to discuss the case. It helps to have clients get things down on paper and the task is sure to get clients' mental juices flowing in advance of your meeting. Use the work product your clients supply to prompt questioning during the intake interview.

A second way to develop prospective facts is to tap your experience with similar cases. What were the key facts in those matters? Is it possible similar ones could be turned up in the case at hand? If you make it standard practice to develop fact chronologies, you'll be able to pull the chrons from prior analogous matters and use them to stoke your thinking.

Brainstorming to create prospective facts can be challenging work. How can it be simplified? You've probably heard the joke that runs, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Lawsuits can be elephants. Make them easier to consume by thinking about one issue or legal claim at a time. Your narrowed focus makes it possible to think more deeply and creatively. Brainstorm issue by issue and you'll produce higher quality prospective facts and a larger set of prospective facts that covers all case issues thoroughly.

Take the hearsay, rumors and brainstorming ideas you develop and add them to your chronology as facts. Make it easy to distinguish these facts from ones with solid sources by using CaseMap's "Status" column to note which facts are prospective. Marking facts as prospective also makes it easy to filter the chronology so it displays only prospective facts or only those facts that have court-worthy sources.

The pick list of choices available for the Status column already include values of Prospective, Undisputed, Disputed by Us, Disputed by the Opposition. You can modify these values and add others appropriate given the nature of your case. When a court-acceptable source is found for a prospective fact, its status value can be upgraded to undisputed or disputed by a particular party.

Step Two: Assemble Potential Sources

Now it's time to develop as many potential sources as possible for each prospective fact. Where are these ideas going to come from? The same places as the prospective facts -- your clients and your brain.

Review each prospective fact in the chronology and brainstorm on potential sources. Ask each team member to do likewise. Add CaseMap's default "Potential Sources" column to the Fact spreadsheet by right clicking any field header on the Fact spreadsheet, selecting the Insert Fields option, and picking Potential Sources from the list of choices. Use this field to capture details about the persons and documents that may prove to be sources for each prospective fact.

Supply clients with a printed fact chronology that includes an empty column where they can jot down potential source ideas. Meet with them to review the results of their efforts and update the master chronology's Potential Sources column with client suggestions that pass muster.
When you finish this stage in the fact factory process, some prospective facts will have many potential sources and other prospective facts will have few, if any. These results should provide an initial indication of which prospective facts are likely to be completed and which will be rejects.

Step Three: Convert Potential Sources Into Solid Ones

Assign team members to investigate the potential sources that have been identified. The chronology containing prospective facts and their potential sources can aid these efforts in a number of ways.

First and foremost, your chronology teaches the team what to search for during discovery. Scavenger hunts are much easier when there's a list of the items you're trying to find. The list of prospective facts has the secondary benefit of helping the team understand the general nature of the facts for which you're looking. This increases the odds they'll turn up facts similar to the prospective ones even if they don't find the exact facts developed by brainstorming.

Here are some other ways a chronology containing prospective facts can be used to drive the discovery process:

• Extract key words and phrases from prospective facts and use them as the basis of searches across the text of electronic documents and OCRed paper documents.

• When a deposition approaches, filter the chronology down to those facts that list the deponent as a potential source. One way to run this filter is to select the name of the deponent in a cell of the Potential Sources column, right click and choose the Filter by Selection option that appears on the shortcut menu. Use this information to generate deposition questions intended to elicit the facts in response.

• As your confidence about certain facts grows, consider filing a Rule 36 Request for Admission based on them.

When a court-acceptable source is developed for a fact originally entered as prospective, update the information about this fact in the chronology. Enter details in the Sources column provided in CaseMap's default Fact spreadsheet. Flip the value of the fact's Status cell from Prospective to Undisputed or whatever other value is appropriate.

If you have an electronic version of the deposition or document from which the fact has been sourced, consider linking the fact in the chronology to the corresponding passage in the source material. Once this link has been made, a mouse click will open the source document and select the original passage so anyone reviewing the chronology can see the fact in its original context.

Step Four: Polish & Inspect

Scrutinize each fact and tighten the language that's used to express it. Make sure the fact is stated as clearly and concisely as possible. If you haven't done so already, link each fact to the issue or issues on which it bears so it's easy to group facts by issue for use in MSJs, to help develop trial themes, and so on.

When the discovery cut-off date approaches, filter the chronology down to those facts that remain prospective -- the ones for which solid sources have not yet been developed. Decide if any last-ditch effort should be made to find a source or sources for them. Some prospective facts are going to end up as rejects. When you've determined that's the case for a particular fact, just delete it from the chronology.

Step Five: Monitor Results

Our chronology now provides a single centralized repository of all case facts in all states of development. This makes it easy to monitor the quality and quantity of what we're producing and the status of the discovery process.

We can use the chronology to answer these and many other questions: What's the quality of the facts we've finished? What's the quality of the prospective facts being worked up? How's our progress at working up the facts of this case? How are things going relative to the success we've had in other matters?

In addition to giving us a means to evaluate our case-specific progress, the chronology provides a way to teach new team members the case analysis process and to assess the effectiveness of our lessons. It's easy to filter the chronology so it only displays those facts worked on by new team members. Use this view to check their work product and to provide material for feedback.

Step Six: Put Your Facts to Work in MSJs and Elsewhere

The final step in the fact factory process is to put your chronology to practical use. We're not producing these facts just to have them sit on the shelf!

A particularly important example of the many ways a chronology can be put to work relates to Motions for Summary Judgment. A detailed chronology makes it easy to evaluate when a MSJ is possible and appropriate. It should also help identify opportunities for partial summary judgment on divisible issues.

A good chronology also makes its far easier to prepare a MSJ or to respond to one. If you're filing a MSJ, a couple of mouse clicks can ship the undisputed facts related to one or more case issues from the chronology to your word processor for inclusion in the MSJ or a Separate Statement of Material Facts. If you're opposing a MSJ, it's also just two clicks to send the disputed facts related to each case issue to a word-processing document. There's no need to burn the midnight oil when drafting MSJs. The facts are literally at your fingertips.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the factory analogy that underpins this article. More importantly, I hope this article has caused you to think anew about the power a chronology can bring to the case analysis process. If you're not already using chronologies in the proactive way outlined above, give it a try on your next case. I believe you'll very pleased with the results.

I'd appreciate your feedback on these ideas.  Please write me at gkrehel@casesoft.com.