As all of those working today were born after the advent of the motion picture and most after television became a common appliance in the home, I bet that all have sat through hours of courtroom drama on the big and/or little screen. There, before our eyes, a crime is committed, the matter is investigated, the accused is brought to trial and justice is served in a short time span of an hour or two.
Those working in the litigation side of legal work know that things do not move that quickly. Sometimes it may seem as if the matter is moving like traffic at rush hour – going nowhere fast or stop and go, stop and go. At other times, things may move at ‘break neck’ speed, but, hopefully not towards a ‘train wreck’.
Hi, my name is Patrice Fatig. I am a paralegal working in the complex litigation field of Antitrust and a member of the ILTA “Trial Support A-Z” Series project team. Other members of the team include: Chris Acosta, Nicole Schnarre, and Karen Pierson.
Over the next few months, we will be looking at and discussing issues that a Litigation Support Department may encounter in helping Litigation teams prepare for trial, such as taking deposition in anticipation for use in trial, collecting and preparing documents and evidence for trial use, setting up a war room and assisting in courtroom presentation. Our topics will include items such as Litigation timeline, Project Management and Workflow, Technology, War Stories and Trial Presentation. We will be blogging, podcasting and developing checklists and other tools for use in Trial Support. Our goal for this series is to provide information and tools for use by all involved to better understand the process, the various components involved in litigation, and the work and needs of the different members of the entire litigation team – lawyers, paralegals, project managers, litigation support personnel, …..
Trial Support begins long before the trial begins. As such, laying good ground work for trial begins even before the filing of the complaint. Research indicates that somewhere between 90% and 95% of civil cases never make it to trial. While some of the cases are withdrawn, dismissed, consolidated with other cases or settled, for the few that do make it to trial, having a well laid-out “roadmap” (plan) to the ultimate destination – the trial – can make the journey, wherever and however it ends, successful.
Since movies and television cannot show all the different parts of a case, most of the public is unaware of how complex litigation can be. While no one can predict the exact route a case will take, there is a general outline of the various steps that it can be found in civil litigation. In our first podcast, we discuss these steps. To assist with the discussion, I created a general timeline of the elements one might encounter in civil litigation.
I encourage you to look over the timeline before listening to the podcast.
In conjunction with this podcast, I created a Case Work Plan and Assessment “Checklist” for use by members of the Litigation Team. While not every item on the list applies to each member of the team, it will help each team member better understand what work is being done by other members, where they might be able to assist others in their work and how others’ work impacts their projects.
Look for the next podcast in our series called “Trial Support, A Z” where we will be discussing Project Management. Karen Pierson is the team leader for this portion of the project.