Would you like a chance to win one of 20 licenses for our new DepPrep witness preparation tool?  We're giving away 20 licenses to readers of this month's Client FYI.  Details below.

Three more reasons to read this month's Client FYI:  Below you'll find links to a new article on issue analysis, details on CaseMap 5.1, and dates/times for a wave of new training webinars.

Have you seen a ReportBook -- the new workproduct that CaseMap 5 makes it super easy to produce?  Why not check out a sample PDF ReportBook by clicking this link.  Using CaseMap 5, you can create PDF ReportBooks like this example without purchasing a full Acrobat license. 

Is your organization preparing budgets for 2005?  If so, please let us know if you would like estimated pricing for additional CaseSoft licenses and/or for 2005 Extended Maintenance.

CaseSoft Client FYI is our monthly e-mail newsletter providing updates and tips for CaseMap, TimeMap, NoteMap, TextMap, and DepPrep users.   Anytime you would like to unsubscribe, simply follow the instructions located at the bottom of this email message.                                                       

Do you subscribe to Law Technology News?  If so, we would greatly appreciate any votes you cast on our behalf during the current Law Technology News Awards balloting.

There are a number of categories where you might logically vote for CaseMap/TimeMap, including Case/Practice Management Software, Litigation Support Software, Knowledge Management System, and Practice Tools.  CaseMap 5 would hopefully also be a great choice for Product of the Year 2004.

We would be gratified by your votes on our behalf in any of the categories you deem appropriate!

Law Technology News subscribers please click to vote

The new CaseSoft Webinar Center is up and rolling.  We have a mixture of live and recorded events available for you this week.

          Click to view Acrobat/CaseMap Integration Webinar

          Click to view the What's New in CaseMap 5 Webinar

3. TimeMap Certification Webinars for Legal Assistants

If you are a legal assistant user of our TimeMap product, please consider becoming TimeMap Certified.  Enroll in one of our free TimeMap Certification Webinars being held this week.  Please spread the word about these sessions to any legal assistants who are TimeMap users.

The first 60-minute session runs this Thursday, September 30 at 1 PM ET. It's offered again this Friday, October 1 at 4 PM ET.  If these dates/times don't fit your schedule, please be on the look out for next month's Client FYI email, which will announce additional dates.

Certification Requirements & Results:  In order to become TimeMap Certified and receive certification documentation from us, you'll need to complete these two steps in addition to attending the webinar: (1) Read a brief article on new uses for timeline graphs and answer a question related to the article and (2) send us a TimeMap timeline you’ve created for an actual case thereby demonstrating your proficiency with TimeMap (names can be changed to protect the innocent).  Additional details on obtaining the article and sending us your chart will be supplied at the end of the webinar.

Click to enroll in one of our TimeMap Certification for Legal Assistant Webinars

6. Creating & Using Issue Analysis Memos

We've just finished a new article on how and why to analyze case issues. Even though the article doesn't make explicit reference to our CaseMap case analysis tool, the ideas in this piece definitely apply to creating an issue outline in CaseMap.

Click to view "Creating & Using Issue Analysis Memos."

Have you read our other articles on case analysis, e.g., "Chronology Best Practices," "Creating a Great Cast of Characters," and "Better Visuals Via Brainstorming"?

Click to review our other think pieces and obtain PDF versions if desired.

"Creating & Using Issue Analysis Memos" offers 12 guidelines for creating an issue analysis work product and reviews 9 ways issue analysis memos can be put to work on your behalf.

Here's one of the 12 guidelines as a teaser:

The best way to organize your issue analysis memo is as an outline, not a flat list.

An outline is the proper way to deal with the hierarchical relationship among claims and their elements.  In an outline, elements are nested below the claims to which they relate.  Visual presentation mirrors legal reality.

In contrast, a flat list masks the relationship between parent claim and child elements, and, thus, can easily confuse.  Consider a Fraud claim.  Proving Fraud requires a showing of these elements: Intent, Reliance, and Loss.  In a flat list of issues, Fraud, Intent, Reliance, and Loss are displayed on equal footing.  This is a counterintuitive presentation of the issues for those who understand the parent-child relationship between claims and elements.  And it’s an extremely misleading one for clients and others not versed in the law.

An outline structure also provides the best way to organize thinking regarding themes and arguments.  Here again, an outline handles the real world correctly and a simple listing falls, well, flat. Arguments are typically marshaled in support of our position on a claim or one of its elements.  Using an outline, arguments are easily binned under the claim or element to which they relate.  Conversely, if we added arguments to a list that already contained claims and their elements, we would just be compounding the mess caused by parent and child dimensions appearing on the same level.

A final problem with using flat lists to organize issue thinking is that they quickly grow into ungainly monsters.  As argument ideas are added, a list just gets longer and longer and longer.

An outline is a far more elegant method for dealing with the increase of issue ideas over time.  It can be viewed fully expanded or collapsed so that it hides all child nodes below a chosen depth.  For example, an outline can be set to present only the handful of top level issues or just the top two levels.

CaseMap 5.1 is fully compatible with CaseMap 5.0. CaseMap 5.0 users and CaseMap 5.1 users can work in the same case file at the same time.  However, in order to take advantage of the changes in 5.1, a user must be using CaseMap 5.1.  The 5.1 update is free to all licensed CaseMap 5.0 users.

The major feature addition in CaseMap 5.1 is the ability to make case fields read-only for one or more staff members.  A field's read-only settings are controlled from a new Security Tab in the Field Properties dialog box that appears once you've installed CaseMap 5.1.  To display the Field Properties dialog, right click any field header and choose the Properties option on the shortcut menu.  When a field is read-only, it cannot be edited at all, even on new records.  Therefore, you should not make a field read-only for a staff member if you want that staff member to be able to add new records and enter information into the field.

CaseMap 5.1 also includes a new Case Script, "Bulk Field Copy".  This script allows you to copy all data from one field to another in the current spreadsheet.  CaseMap automatically adds this script to any case you open in 5.1.

CaseMap 5.1 also fixes a few bugs that have been discovered since the release of 5.0, in particular, a problem linking with Concordance 8.

DepPrep is our brand new witness preparation tool -- an electronic tutorial that makes it easy to groom witnesses for their depositions.  DepPrep handles the bulk of the scutwork, leaving you free to focus on the critical issues.

DepPrep certainly isn't intended to eliminate the interaction between witness and counsel as deposition approaches.  Rather, we think you'll find that it enhances the time you spend with a witness.  DepPrep users report that witnesses who spend 30 minutes with DepPrep are ready to make the most out of their interaction with counsel.

We’re going to give a free DepPrep license to twenty (yes, 20) CaseSoft clients who download the trial version of DepPrep by the end of day Friday, October 1.

Click to download a full-featured trial version of DepPrep 

When you download, please enter "DepPrep Drawing" so we'll know to include you in the drawing.

Again, you must have downloaded by the end of day Friday, October 1.  Cindy Boseman of our Support/Training staff will be drawing the names of winners on Monday, October 4.  She'll contact winners on Tuesday, October 5.  She'll also send an update on the drawing results to those whose names weren't drawn.

If you don’t win one of the free licenses, you’ll still have a chance to save on DepPrep due to your download.  DepPrep is normally $149 per user license, but if you download DepPrep you’ll have a week grace period in which you can purchase DepPrep for $99, backed by our year guarantee.

If you're one of our many clients who has already purchased DepPrep, you're still eligible to win a no-charge license if you download DepPrep this week.  If you win, you can have an additional DepPrep license for someone else at your firm or you can have a no-charge license for our NoteMap outliner or TextMap transcript manager.

Here are samples of feedback on DepPrep:

"I have used DepPrep with several witnesses and concluded they were more comfortable and better prepared at the time of their depositions as a result.  There is an obvious qualitative improvement of the witness' understanding of the deposition process because of DepPrep. They just make better witnesses.  They better understand the deposition process after reviewing DepPrep for 30 minutes than if I work with them for a longer time."

"My practice has been to sit the client in front of a workstation where I set up DepPrep and then meet with the client afterward.  When I meet with the client after they review DepPrep, I can concentrate on the wedge issues of their testimony, confident they already know what depositions are about."

Looking to get the very most out of CaseMap and TimeMap?  Consider attending one of our advanced CaseSoft Academy classes.