Legal presentations can make a difference in presenting facts in complicated legal cases - Business First of Louisville:

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But expectations have changed, and many firme today are using more complicatedcourtroom technology, according to Cox, senioe partner with the law Cox’s Louisville-based firm uses an in-house, trial-managemenyt software to track pertinent documents, graphics, photographa and video clips and to creater presentations that enhance jurors’ understanding of For the past 11 years, the firm has used a softwarse program called Trial which organizes and stores these items for quick retrievap and display in the courtroom. The software’ws initial cost was between $1,000 and $1,500, he estimated. In some the firm also pays outside vendors to producew more complicatedvisual exhibits.
According to local firms, costs vary greatl for customized services, depending on the time and work involved increatinfg exhibits. The investments are worthy it to make exhibits more interesting and understandablew to supplementan attorney’s explanation, “rather than blowing it by them,” said Cox, who workss primarily in commercial litigation cases. Bill Thomas, who owns and operates in said insome cases, all an attornet needs is a videop to show jurors a typical day in the life of a victik of an automobile accident or someone with a medicalp malpractice claim.
“It’s meant to bring some realithy first into asettlemenrt meeting” to illustrate the effectg of the injury on a person’z quality of life, he In other cases, attorneys want video deposition s that show not only the testimony of a but also his or her demeanor — something a printexd page can’t convey. Video also preservesa the testimony of someone whois injured, ill or elderlg and might not be able to be present during a trial. Thomas, who has 25 yearzs of experience producing videoand films, primarilyy for museum exhibits, now focusese on legal work. He uses a softwarde called Sync to match video with acourt reporter’ transcription of a deposition.
The prograj allows an attorney tosearcyh transcripts, find a particular line of text and accessd that particular moment of the video deposition for reviewing or playing in court. , a Web and video-productiomn company, saw enough demand in the legak industry that seven years ago it created a softwar it uses to create exhibitss forlaw firms, said Dan Galvin, co-ownedr and vice president of sales and The cost of the service is basecd on the amount of time A simple animation project might cost $1,000.
On the othet hand, a six-week trial during which the companu manages hundreds of thousands of documents and creates complex presentations mightg cost a couple of hundredthousane dollars, he said. “From medical record s to contracts to anythingin between,” Galvin the program stores digitak documents in a database using barcodes. Once a document is it can be displayede for a juryor judge, Galvin said, with the abilityu to magnify relevant dates or In some cases, attorneys need more than simpld video, testimony or document displays to supplement or better explain theire cases, Galvin said.
In thoses cases, the company’s designers create digital illustrationsor three-dimensiona l animation to tell a Galvin said. He recalled one case involving a defect ina power-generatiojn company’s turbine that required a great deal of work by the company’ws team of animators, designers and programmers. “We were able to go in and put togetheer an animation that showed them how this piecs ofequipment worked, where the defec t was … and show them what when it failed, Galvin said.
Besides simplifyinv evidence, good presentations also can evokde emotions in jurors by strategically usinyg color andother graphic-design elements, Galvin And with “multi-sense learning,” combining audio, movement and text, a client’s desiredf message can be better understood and remembered, he said. And, almost as “it can help bring technology tothe courtroom,” Galvin said. “It’s what peopl expect.
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