The Trial Technologist's View: Litigation Support

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Litigation Support

The Trial Technologist's View

Trial Technologist's have different views of a trial than anyone in the courtroom. Here is my point of view of current and past trials I've been involved with. I'll also discuss software/hardware tips & tricks revolving around the legal industry.
By Blake Boyd

Post Frequency: 1.2/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2011 at 15:17:26

The Perfect Low Cost Courtroom Document Camera (Elmo)

Posted on March 30, 2011
Two years ago we purchased a couple of these AVerMedia document cameras. We needed a very portable doc cam since we move in out and out courtrooms so often. They’ve been real troopers and have help present that evidence that wasn’t scanned in, or the attorney just wants to publish the exhibit in a different [...

A Funny Animation Video of a Lawyer vs. Insurance Adjuster

Posted on March 08, 2011
We incorporated this youtube video into a PowerPoint presentations used at TTLA’s “Destination” CLE event in Las Vegas. Figured some of the readers here might enjoy a chuckle or two (after relating it to their own practice)!

eDiscovery and the Walmart Class Action Suit

Posted on March 02, 2011
Guest post by: Rudy Rouhana, Daegis In April the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the biggest class action employment discrimination case in U.S. history. The court will not hear the arguments of the case. Instead it will consider whether the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was right in allowing it to [...

Commercial Trucking Accident Mediation Presentation

Posted on February 23, 2011
Here’s a keynote presentation we put together for a mediation in west Texas involving an 18 wheeler driver that fell asleep and hit oncoming traffic. This PowerPoint was used in mediation to help the plaintiff’s attorney explain his stance on the case to the mediator and insurance adjuster...

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Take Your Trial Tech on the Road ? We?re Worth It.

Posted on February 18, 2011
Sunday 2/3/11; I missed 2 calls on my cell phone. I was already asleep and didn’t hear the phone ringing at 1:30am cst. I always check my phone when I wake up and noticed the missed calls.. And a frantic voice mail from an attorney hoping we could make it out to New Mexico [...

Keynote Tutorial ? Adding Scrolling Bullet Points

Posted on February 16, 2011
Here’s a tutorial I created on how to use apple’s keynote to effectively use bullet points that could be displayed in a trial or mediation presentation. If you need to use bullet points (and it’s hard not to, but it can be done) his effect will hopefully help the jury or mediator follow along...

Criminal Defense Verdict ? Wining by the fear of technology?

Posted on February 11, 2011
Last week we were hired to provide litigation support and present evidence in a local criminal trial where the defendant was accused of tampering with a witness and false entry on a government record. You can read more about the trial from news reports here, here and here...

5 Courtroom Annoyances

Posted on February 04, 2011
The technology should be as transparent as possible, not a distraction, some others don’t seem to care. Here’s some annoyances that I have seen from “the other side” while sitting through trial. (note: these are tips for technologists and “hot seat” running attorneys...

Opening Statement Presentation ? NO BULLET POINTS ? $16 Million Verdict

Posted on February 01, 2011
Most attorneys, paralegals and litigation support staff don’t understand that Legal PowerPoint / Keynote presentations are supposed to be used to help support the story, not tell it. The attorney is Batman and the PowerPoint, Robin. I was excited to learn I was being given freedom to design the Opening Statement without a single [...

Top 10 Jury verdicts of 2010

Posted on January 31, 2011
I find it interesting to read about the massive verdicts that are awarded sometimes. Always makes me wish I was working on the trials to hear what the jury must have gotten so mad about. Average of $157 million! The more interesting list would be to see how much is actually collected on the top [...

Tort Reform PowerPoint CLE Presentation

Posted on January 27, 2011
Continuing legal education is an area of the legal systems that we feel is very important, so much so that we offer presentation creation and editing of existing presentations free of charge for certain CLE events (contact us for more information if you feel that your presentation could benefit from our charitable offers)...

Presentation for a Class Action Hearing

Posted on June 23, 2010
A while back we created this presentation in Keynote for use in a hearing where the attorneys were explaining to the Judge why this matter should be granted class action status. It’s difficult to explain the argument in text, but generally they were arguing that the fraud was occurring while using the US Postal service...

The Next Major Case?

Posted on June 09, 2010
This came up over dinner a few weeks ago, and I thought it deserved a few minutes of our time. US Ethernet Innovations was founded in East Texas. They purchased a portfolio of 35 Ethernet Patents coincedentaly called the “Ethernet Patent Portfolio” from 3com...

Ben Stevens shows us how to print handouts in Keynote

Posted on June 08, 2010
I was reading an article today on SBOT.org (which is the state bar of Texas’ Technology sections blog) about “story boarding” presentations for the courtroom. Pretty interesting article and I agree with the philosphy. But what caught my eye is this quote: “Practice Tip: If you?re using a Powerpoint (or Keynote) to persuade a [...

We?re not moving to ?Minority Report? brain scans.. yet

Posted on June 04, 2010
I’m a firm believer that eventually science will find a undeniable way to prove whether or not someone is lying. From everyone I’ve talked to that has any clue about the potential, they say we’re far from proving it scientifically...

Best Laser Pointer For Your Presentation

Posted on June 01, 2010
Laser pointers are very useful during presentations, allowing the speaker to point important areas on the display screen from across the room. Red laser pointers are the most common type and use a lower powered light, normally a 650nm wavelength. You can get a common red laser pointer for less than $20 today...

What you need to know about LCD Monitors in the Courtroom

Posted on May 04, 2010
Technology is cheap! Acquiring a full courtroom monitor setup (plaintiff, defense, witness, judge, dual display) would cost a fortune only a couple years ago. Now you can have a slick outfit for a relatively good price. But don?t let this confuse you? Take a quick look online and without much searching you can find a 22? [...

Voir Dire Exhibit Board ? Proximate Cause

Posted on April 28, 2010
A Trial Tech view reader from California saw our Negligence board example and had use create a similar board but with the definition of Proximate Cause. We mailed him the print and he had it mounted at Kinkos/Fedex. We printed an extra copy and mounted it, think it turned out pretty good...

What to say when asked if you want a MPEG or DVD..

Posted on April 22, 2010
Every video deposition we take we ask the client what format they want their video in. There is two standards in the industry; MPEG1 and DVD, each are completely different from each other. MPEG1 – This is the format of choice for all the trial presentation software packages...

Adobe TV Reveals CS5 Launch

Posted on April 13, 2010
Adobe TV revealed the CS5 launch today, with the Creative Suite 5 Production Premium Kit, it’s pricey – but reaming with the goods needed for any designer serious about their work.. The kit includes an upgraded Photoshop with “Truer Edge, which has better edge detecting technology, and of course Content-Aware Fill, which definitely looks like [...

Video Depositions: Picture in Picture

Posted on April 12, 2010
I’m working on a bunch of video depositions that opposing counsel had taken.. Synching them for trial.. He’s using a PIP (picture in picture.. where he turns into a little box at the top right and the elmo takes up the whole screen, and vise-versa) with an ELMO, and while that used to be [...

Audacity ? Free cross-platform audio catpure/editing

Posted on April 06, 2010
Audio editing is something that we run across from time to time. Sometimes it’s old cassettes or voicemail that was recorded in a digital format, but today’s job was taking the audio from a old and barely functioning digital audio recorder and exporting it to mp3...

Reducing Microphone Hum

Posted on April 02, 2010
Today i want to share a few tips on how to reduce microphone hum. Since Microphones and microphone cables are espefially sensitive to hum picpup because of the great amplification needed for microphone level signals (few millivolts). The hummign can be caused to microphone signals because of ground loops and because of induced noise...

Voire Dire Exhibit Board ? Negligence

Posted on April 01, 2010
With two more trials coming up next week I went ahead and prepared some “stock boards” as we like to call them. We offer them to our clients to show the panel the actual legal definitions, rather than trying to explain from notes. We often ship these to the city we are working [...

Simple Features of Adobe Acrobat

Posted on March 29, 2010
Adobe Acrobat has some amazing and simple features that do not come in the free download of Adobe Reader. Probably one of my personal favorites, is the ability to combine .pdf’s, insert and extract pages as well as separate all pages into separate files...

Mid week Humor via video deposition

Posted on March 28, 2010
Stumbled across this video on youtube. I think I secretly hope this happens to Edgar someday.. .

This almost makes me want a Pre..

Posted on March 26, 2010
Why is it that the fans are the ones that always come out with the best advertisement for gadgets? And why do big corporations not take notice? This fan submitted video almost makes me want to buy a pre.. Although I’m still sticking with the iPhone.

World?s Fastest Book Scanner

Posted on March 25, 2010
Well, this post is more on the Techy side but very interesting. A researcher at the University of Tokyo has developed the world’s fastest book scanner, which uses a “book flipping scanning” method “that does exactly what it sounds like, digitizing 200 pages per minute...

Soft Tissue Attorneys? Deposition Technique [video]

Posted on March 25, 2010
We routinely provide courtroom setup and playback of video depositions for small car wreck cases. It?s actually a pretty good bargain for the attorney as we: Synch the video depositions, make the clips, link the evidence, setup/break down the equipment, and playback the video...

Medical Illustrations

Posted on March 23, 2010
Listening to a doctor explain a procedure is one of the most difficult topics for a jury to visualize. Any case that involves injuries, whether it be a medical malpractice suit or a car wreck benefits from a quality medical illustration or animation. DLS does not create our own medical illustrations for use in our [...