By Matt Kleiman, Product Analyst @ LegalMation
While LegalMation’s CEO, James Lee, was managing his prior law firm, he was always trying to push his partners and associates to properly kick-off a new case that came in through his firm’s doors. The initial (and perhaps key) step to properly “kick-off” a new matter was to put all the key facts (dates, party names, potential witnesses, timeline of events, etc.) in some organized fashion that could be shared among the team members on the case, and collaborate as the case proceeded. So James purchased a case management software which, ideally, would serve as the single tool for team members to collaborate, input information, organize documents, assign issues to facts, etc.
Although it sounded simple enough, the majority of attorneys made excuses for not using it: my case is not right for this tool; my case will likely settle soon so no need to use the tool; it’s too cumbersome to use; I don’t want to learn a new tool; I’m too busy for this.
After months of use (or non-use), James realized that the real reason why lawyers don’t embrace great tools such as this one, is simply because by nature, lawyers are reactive and not proactive. His partners and associates, while proclaiming that they would use the tool, ended up putting it up on the shelf, which, along with many other tech tools, simply collected dust.
Fast forward to LegalMation…learning from experiences such as the above, and leveraging LegalMation’s already existing capabilities, James thought that by extracting all the key facts in a newly filed lawsuit, and placing it onto a case management tool in a very easy to consume format, would at least get lawyers started with the initial task of launching a case. This is where LegalMation partnered with Relativity and its Case Dynamics tool. Now, LegalMation’s Fact Import will analyze a complaint, and in mere seconds produce an accurate and effective timeline of the events within that complaint.
With this a lawyer can quickly understand the story behind the claims against the client. The timeline will display the facts and events as they occurred either on a date, around a date or within a specific timeframe. This acts as a map to the discovery paper trail needed for the case. What laws, policies, or terms were in effect on a specific date? What witnesses were present at a critical event to the case? When was a contract signed, work performed, or a party injured? The timeline assists in pinpointing the location of crucial evidence and forming your defense.
The timeline can also be used for case file management. On the timeline a user can click on any event and find related documents, issues, key entities and even interview questions. The timeline serves as a critical component for all case management.
Work that may have taken upwards of a few hours can now completed within minutes, saving time and money for both lawyers and clients alike. So James can breathe a little easier today knowing that he has knocked off one more excuse for lawyers not to use great tech tools available to them. LegalMation just does it for them. Where is the excuse now?
