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| TimeMap 3.0 | |
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As I reviewed this product, I kept thinking back to my first year of law school. Everybody had advice about how to succeed on exams — some good and some bad — but there was nearly universal agreement on the need to draw a timeline of the facts. When you first come in contact with a new set of facts, there are few things that sort out what happened as well as a timeline. A timeline not only shows sequence, but also shows clusters of activity and periods of inactivity. In short, timelines add perspective to what otherwise would be an abstract list of dates and events. Timelines are great, to be sure, but the actual process of creating one can be a chore. Unless, of course, you have a product such as TimeMap 3.0 from CaseSoft. In its third version in as many years, TimeMap is quite simply the best product available for creating and presenting timelines. The program has a learning curve that falls somewhere between a pocket calculator and a No. 2 pencil, and it lets you easily produce paper or electronic presentations of a series of events with the quality you would expect from a full-blown art department. Events on the timeline can be entered individually or in groups, and the only information you need to enter is a date and the associated fact. As you add events, the software automatically adjusts the start date, end date and scale of the timeline to best fit your information. Virtually every display characteristic is configurable, including the size, shape and color of each element. The result is a program that requires very little effort to produce an acceptable end product, but still allows you the latitude to tweak the visual for those with the time, inclination and ability to do so. TimeMap 3.0 is similar in look and feel to the previous version, but with some notable improvements. The program now includes live spell checking with suggested corrections. The Fact Style Gallery displays several fact box designs you can apply to your events with a few clicks of the mouse. To assist with consistency, the gallery includes a separate section for styles you have used in the present timeline. You also have the ability to add pictures to your timeline. As in other programs, you can change the size and placement of pictures. Presentations are greatly improved, starting with the addition of a full-screen mode. More substantively, CaseSoft added the ability to link external files to any fact, text box or picture. You can click on a paperclip icon, and it launches the appropriate viewer to display the attached file. How you use this feature will depend on your individual needs. I used it in a particular case to highlight inconsistencies in a witness’ story over time. As more information became available about the underlying circumstances of the case, this person changed the story to avoid appearing inconsistent. Alone, the changes were too subtle to warrant much scrutiny. However, by scanning letters that contained the mercurial story and linking these letters to events on the timeline, I was able to tell the story in a powerful and obvious manner. The timeline clearly showed the letters were not sent at random, but were fabricated, self-serving attempts at damage control. The folks at CaseSoft also have improved what was already my favorite TimeMap feature — its integration with CaseMap, the company’s flagship product. When you enter facts in CaseMap, you easily can send them to TimeMap and insert them in a timeline. When this feature is combined with CaseMap’s “drill down” features, you quickly and easily can create a series of related timelines. Using the same set of CaseMap facts, you could create, for example, one timeline for undisputed facts, another timeline for each person’s version of events, and yet another for facts that will relate to special verdict findings. The link prevents you from having to re-enter the duplicate information for each different timeline. This already-powerful feature now includes the ability to send more information to TimeMap, including linked files. That way, when you link a file to a fact in CaseMap, it will be available in your TimeMap displays. The end result of these changes is a product that deserves a place in every litigator’s tool kit. As a standalone product you can create professional looking timeline presentations of a quality that easily justifies its price. When combined with CaseMap, this product becomes almost indispensable. The download is relatively small, the installation and setup are simple and the benefits of TimeMap are apparent within a half hour of firing up the program. I highly recommend downloading the trial version of TimeMap and trying out this product for yourself. |
CaseSoft Price: $199 per individual license. Contact CaseSoft for information on volume discounts. Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/2000/XP Reviewed by David Hiersekorn, a legal
researcher and brief writer based in Orange County, Calif. He can be reached
at hiersekorn@ PROS CONS VERDICT |
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