Litigation Software Comparison Offers Ideas for Law-Firm Managers
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2009: 25th Anniversary of TOPICS! BC Legal Management Association A newsletter to help our members and partners stay current with the business of law Summer 2009TopicsTopics WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS? WE OFFER PROS AND CONS Why the face? See Paula Litigation software Butler’s latest administrative- case challenge, Gillian’s comparison offers ideas Reference, on page 4 for law-firm managers By Johanna Mustapic, President, Triage Data Solutions ALA conference in New Orleans gets our busy BCLMA reps all jazzed up hinking about pur- Tchasing litigation- By Stephanie Marsh tunities to learn, share ideas, develop management soft- Fasken Martineau strategies and network. Throw in a little ware? There are many entertainment and a few door prizes, options out there, and bout a dozen BCLMA Representa- and you’ve got a conference that’s not more being developed Atives and Affiliates attended the As- to be missed! all the time. sociation of Legal Administrators’ 38th Johanna Let’s see if we can Annual Educational Conference and SESSIONS EDUCATIONAL, HELPFUL Mustapic shed some light on Exposition in New Orleans in May. The capable New Orleans Morial some of the most commonly used soft- There, we mingled with more than Convention Centre hosted the event. ware, including some of their individual 1,000 delegates from around the world, The facility is literally a mile long; at pros and cons. However, since everyone including Brazil and Australia. least three other conferences were being works slightly differently, and has differ- ALA’s four-day conference supports, held at the centre at the same time. ent requirements, you will need to de- promotes and celebrates the legal man- Numerous presentations and infor- Litigation software ª to Page 2 agement profession by providing oppor- All that ALA jazz ª to Page 5 Goalsetting 101 – Motivation & Perspective watch TV and be reminded by com- by Jan Whyte, CPC, CHANGE MANAGEMENT mercials, weekly Administrator, Murphy Battista FORMULA programs and t this special time year, the in- movies that there is Acreased hours of daylight and DISSATISFACTION X VISION ‘another’ life out abundance of sunshine often bring us X FIRST STEP TOWARD CHANGE there. We may see increased energy and motivation to em- > RESISTANCE TO CHANGE something we bark on some sort of personal work. would like to ac- That means achievement, focus, re- in achieving your aim of positive quire, or some way Jan Whyte solve, adventure or exercise, and the change are magnified now. of being what we Change Management Formula set out in the Through summer holidays – indeed, would like to become. It may be the blue box truly resonates. any time we are able to take time off only time during the year we have the Even if you are not feeling the ener- work, relax and enjoy some much- chance to spend quality time with good gy and motivation now, we’re about to deserved ‘down time’ –our daily influ- friends or family members, and thus we explain to you the phenomenon of the ences are different than usual. may gain some wisdom that would oth- process, and why the chances of success We may have the time to, say, Goalsetting 101 ª to Page 12 Summer 2009 BC Legal Management Association www.BCLMA.org Member Services: [email protected] Topics 2 Litigation software ª from Page 1 content of those documents. than Summation due to a different plat- cide what options work best for you. form and its ability to search across mul- Now, if you haven’t looked at litiga- CT SUMMATION – WIDELY USED tiple databases easily. tion-management software at all, don’t Summation is a good choice if you’d like The interface is clean and fairly easy confuse it with document-management to be on the same page as most other law to learn; however, it isn’t as easy to split software. Litigation-management soft- firms, since it is the most widely used liti- and merge documents with images, and it ware is specifically designed to manage gation-management program in B.C. only tracks parent/child relationships for your evidence, transcripts and pleadings Users can perform most functions on their native documents. (and sometimes more). own with a moderate amount of training. Unlike Summation, Concordance can cre- It allows you to create your List of It can readily handle cases of up to ate a “Post-it Note” on your image, as Documents, exchange lists electronically about 100,000, perhaps as high as 150,000 well as the usual highlighting, redacting pursuant to the BCSC Electronic Evi- documents, provided you have a fairly fast and so on. dence Practice Direction, and integrate computer. The cost is reasonable and is The cost is comparable to Summation, all parties’ documents into one database for concurrent licenses, so it can be ac- but now requires a yearly subscription in- that can be sorted and searched any cessed on anyone’s computer within the stead of a purchase price with the option which way. firm, but only simultaneously by as many of yearly maintenance. All of the following programs integrate licenses as you have purchased. images so that when you sort, you can Real-time reporting is also built in, INSIDE INTROSPECT view the documents in that order imme- and you can upgrade to the Enterprise ver- Introspect can handle any case size be- diately. (Hint, get yourself set up with a sion, which has an SQL backend, for re- cause of its SQL back-end, but you will dual monitor so that you can view the ally large cases, or provide web access need a person experienced with SQL to image on the whole screen.) through the WebBlaze add-on. help run it, and to import and export In various ways, they each also include data. the ability to link OCRs of your typewrit- CONCORDANCE – GO LARGER Since it is IT-intensive, it is probably ten documents so that you can search the Concordance can handle larger cases Litigation software ª to Page 3 Domain Experts in cost recovery solutions #2400 1066 West Pender Street, Vancouver BC V6E 3X1 Phone: 604.685.1078 Toll free: 800.667.0332 www.sai.ca Summer 2009 BC Legal Management Association www.BCLMA.org Member Services: [email protected] Topics 3 Litigation Software ª from Page 2 LITIGATION SOFTWARE COMPARISON — WHAT FEATURES ARE IMPORTANT TO YOUR FIRM’S LITIGATORS? not the best choice for small cas- es. PROCESS SUMMATION CONCORDANCE INTROSPECT RINGTAIL It does have document- grouping functionality built in Import Data Yes Yes IT intense IT intense (Equivio) to help in the review Export Data Yes Yes IT intense IT intense process of massive document sets, but it is much more expen- Can export the images as PDF Yes No Yes Yes sive than either Summation or Concordance. Has spell-check for data entry Yes Yes Custom No Multi-language support No No Yes Yes RINGTAIL FOR REMOTE Ringtail is an excellent choice Track progress of reviewers Manually Manually Automatically Automatically if remote access is important through the Internet, and not Links with CaseMap/TimeMap Yes Yes No Yes just a VPN, as this product was Integrates e-discovery native files Yes Not video files Yes Yes designed specifically for a web browser. Transcripts Yes Yes No Yes The downsides: the user in- terface has a slightly dated look, Real time Transcripts Yes With LiveNote No With LiveNote and the data needs to be loaded Links with Links with Links with Trial Presentation No from a central location, not Sanction & Trial Director Sanction & Trial Director Sanction & Trial Director remotely. Through VPN, Through VPN, Web Access No Yes Ringtail can handle larger cases, Citrix or WebBlaze Citrix or FTI and is similar in price to Introspect. Please note that this report is based on Triage Data Solutions is a litigation document CASEMAP best knowledge of the writer regarding management company specializing in scanning, Casemap is an accompaniment to Sum- costs and features of the programs men- printing, photocopying, optical character recogni- mation, Concordance or Ringtail. While ideal tioned at the time of writing. tion (OCR), electronic document conversion, for analyzing key documents, Casemap is All details should be verified with the database coding and litigation software sales and not recommended for managing and ex- individual software provider. training with offices in Vancouver and Calgary. changing large volumes of data. It also links with TimeMap, which cre- * SQL: Structured Query Language: A database computer language that retrieves and ates visual timelines – great for use in manages data in relational database management systems, database schema creation and modi- court. While relatively inexpensive, you fication, and database object access-control management. must pay per year, using subscription pricing and per user. * VPN: Virtual Private Network: A computer network in which some of the links be- All of these programs, either through tween nodes are carried by open connections or virtual circuits in some larger networks (such the Internet or on a laptop, allow you as the Internet), as opposed to running across a single private network. to access your cases remotely – no more dragging binders and boxes Trusted around. Cost-Savings You will be able to analyze your Specialists client’s case faster, and know sooner how Specialists in Excelera Consulting Group will: your case looks in comparison to your Overhead Cost • Identify significant, measurable opponents’. Reduction cost savings While any new program will take • • implement best-in-class purchasing some getting used to, the more you use it, Advisors to Western processes the more you will wonder why you shuf- Canada’s Top Legal • negotiate premium contract terms fled paper for so long.