Litigation Support
Practice Specific

We have all relied on our notes to deliver the knock-out impeachment punch to a witness only to find that our reference leads us instead to the witness' hearsay account of Aunt Millie's description of what little Elaine wore to the junior prom. Computers cannot eliminate this possibility, but they can enormously reduce the occurrences. Furthermore, a computer error is highly unlikely to present you with what appears to be a valid transcript citation; it is much more likely to spew instantly recognizable garble. Many of us have Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, but not a clue how powerful the searching capabilities of these programs have become. While powerful, they do not entirely solve the problem. Someone still has to cut and paste, and type in a valid citation. Moreover, they do not match the transcript-specific features and conveniences of T/A-LAW by Future Technology Resources Ltd.

T/A-LAW is designed to hold, sort, search, analyze, summarize, and print reports on documents such as depositions and trial transcripts. The first step is to create a new matter. Then, documents are added to the matter. Only ASCII and WordPerfect 5.1 formats are supported. Of course, most programs can produce ASCII output. You identify the kind of document it is and give it a name. Then you can invoke the program's powerful search features, or read the document.

This program offers great advantages, even if you highlight or dictate your summaries for your assistant. Text is marked with the mouse pointer, and two windows pop up. The top window allows you to associate your highlight with an issue; the second allows you to make notes about the highlighted text. Both can be searched later. On the top right of the issues dialogue box is a pull-down menu of the issues you have defined. You can associate one or more issues with the highlighted text. The pull-down menu can be rolled back up with the click of the mouse. Highlights can be removed by covering them with a right mouse click, or all "annotations" can be removed on the "File" menu.

Searching capabilities are extensive. You can search using legal operators such as "and," "or," or "not." Less common legal operators "to," "near," and "then" are also employed. These 20-word defaults can be changed in the "Matter Setup" dialogue box. The 20-word default can also be overridden on a per-search basis without venturing into program setup. The report options are equally extensive, including the ability to summarize information from more than one document, which should be very useful for deposition and trial preparation.

T/A-LAW is very good at what it does. However, I would like to see a full gamut of Westlaw/Lexis-type search strategies. The program is otherwise filled with niceties like allowing you to click your past choices from pull-down menus which the program "remembers" automatically. It also prompts you to save your annotations. The program works fine at all resolutions, but does not redraw itself quite right except using small fonts at higher resolutions.

The documentation is precise and instructive. Context-sensitive help is provided. Free technical support is available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. MST Monday through Friday via T/A-LAW's home page, e-mail, facsimile and toll telephone call. They will include network support by the time you read this article.

$495

Reviewed by Steve Schmidt, attorney, Singer, Smith & Williams, Albuquerque, N.M.

Apr/May '98 Issue

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Updated 09/18/01
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