The many ways technology is used for Trials and internal business processes in the Legal Industry are becoming less obscure, but a relatively new way of leveraging legal tech is the use of cloud-based platforms and tools to organize and prepare legal teams for Depositions. Developers are always looking for new voids to fill and it seems like they are finding what they’re looking for in legal. Some of the more impressive apps facilitate group collaboration, progress tracking, evidence review, testimony tracking and digital/paperless transcripts.
A couple examples of cloud-based collaboration platforms are Factbox and AllegoryLaw. With Factbox you can input case law/facts, and source links/deposition transcripts into dynamic documents. What’s more, you can search and sort through each document using filters that you customize to your preference. With AllegoryLaw you can gather all documents you receive during the Discovery process, share them with your team and allow them to review, make notes and reply with comments or analyses.
Are you also still using a yellow legal pad and pen during your Deps? In addition to those two platforms above, there are other applications that help legal professionals with their note-taking. A simple app search will yield hundreds if not thousands of apps for this very simple function. The major difference is the user experience and cloud capabilities. For example, Microsoft’s OneNote and Evernote are both great note-taking apps that go above and beyond in the cloud-based collaboration arena. If typing notes isn’t your thing, both of these apps allow you to handwrite your notes with a stylus, provided you have a compatible device.
As far as transcripts go, the days of sitting at your desk with stacks of paper performing the tedious task of reading every single line, flagging pages, marking them up with notes and then spending another thirty minutes looking for one particular note or page are over. Apps like TranscriptPad, Depoview, Mobile Transcript, or Westlaw’s Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript bring your transcripts to your iPad or tablet. You can mark them up on your device and bookmark pages and/or notes for later review. All are accessible on the cloud from internet-capable mobile devices at all times.
All of these tools and apps are relatively affordable and incredibly easy to use. By just employing one, or testing it for a week, you might just find that going digital with your depositions could be just what you needed.
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