NoteBook | Who Uses NoteBook
NoteBook User Profile – Law Firm
The law firm of Foreman, Lewis & Hutchison (FLH) adopted Circus Ponies NoteBook as their electronic trial notebook system. A small, elite “strike team” of experienced senior litigators who were all trained at the prestigious Trial Lawyers College, FLH focuses exclusively on trial work.
Streamlining Discovery
NoteBook’s familiar spiral notebook interface with pages and tabs gives FLH a flexible tool for taking and arranging notes, and combining them with PDFs, transcripts, charts, graphics, even video deposition excerpts.
NoteBook’s integration with other apps provides an instant bonus, with direct, menu-based access to important Address Book contacts, as well as iChat and Mail integration. Adding a checkbox, due date, and iCal alarm to any item in a Notebook makes action item management simple. The built-in To Do page in the Multidex provides quick access to all action items in a Notebook, no matter the page they reside on.
The lawyers use NoteBook’s voice annotation feature during depositions to take notes in sync with the voice recording and easily start playback from any point to review a portion of the recording.
Boosting Performance in the Courtroom
Preparation and rehearsal are crucial to a smooth courtroom presentation, and this is an area where NoteBook helps FLH to shine. Kern Lewis, a founding partner of FLH, pioneered the use of his electronic “Trial Notebook,” with sections set up for Pre-Trial, Voir Dire, Opening, Witnesses, Exhibits, Important Discovery, Damages, and Closing. The Witnesses section contains one page per witness, each with an outline of his direct or cross-examination. Each outline contains links to all the exhibits and materials he needs to access during the trial.
“When I am going through the outline with the witness, I introduce the paper copy of Exhibit 7 into evidence,” says Mr. Lewis. “Once it is admitted into evidence, I click on the file icon in my NoteBook outline which opens the document in Preview.
“I drag this document off the left of my screen onto the projector which has been set up as an extended desktop and voilà: the jury sees the exhibit on the projection screen with no fumbling with an elmo. This keeps the courtroom focus squarely on what I am presenting, rather than on how I am presenting it.”
Says Lewis, “In the past, I have had jurors tell me after trial they thought my side had credibility because we were so organized, while opposing counsel had papers scattered everywhere. Having my whole trial on my MacBook connected to a projector, with only a legal pad on the table, makes a powerful start-to-finish presentation to a jury. Even by itself NoteBook seems to justify our firm’s move to the Mac.”
