Working with a law firm to develop their own in-house trial team is not the kiss of death for your company as a trial technology service provider. The key to any successful business is: How useful can you be in a supporting role to the law firm? How can you make your company indispensable while maintaining a seamless transition?

If they plan to have an in-house paralegal/IT person operate the trial presentation system, the logical questions are: What is your firm already using?  What is the comfort level of the IT person or paralegal with that software? Is the paralegal/IT comfortable with shouldering the dual responsibilities? Let’s assume, the case is extremely document and video deposition intensive. In other words, in a traditional trial environment, a paralegal must keep track of:

1. Exhibits that are offered for identification only

2. Exhibits entered in to evidence

3. Exhibits that are on hold due to pending rulings on objections by the opposing counsel, and,

4. Must also accurately note all the deposition excerpts’ cites read or played in court.

These tasks are not only daunting, but also critical and they require the paralegal to pay undivided attention to the trial proceedings. Will the responsibility of the staff member be compromised while operating the trial presentation system? This is an extremely important decision the lawyers will need to make well in advance of devising their trial strategy, as court staff will not be kind if the person is unable to identify the exhibits and cites because he or she forgets to note down the exhibits and video excerpts entered into evidence while operating the trial presentation system at the same time. Our general opinion is that whoever is operating the trial presentation system, should be perform that task, and only that task.

The reality is that more and more firms will use and train their own staff, and our job as a trial specialist will be to make them more effective, and continue to provide support services. When a firm has never used any particular trial software, we recommend Sanction, as it is generally a more user friendly software for the novice. The transition for a firm to begin the process of developing an in-house trial operator is time consuming, can be costly, and depends on how many trials the firm does a year, access to resources. Sometimes it is simply not cost effective for a firm to maintain a trial presentation division of its own. When it is cost effective, we recommend extensive training over a period of time provide them with a back-up technician in trial for the first few trials.

The value of having a trial presentation company provide assistance with training, support, graphics, video editing, and upgrading presentations for an in-house trial team cannot be overstated. You are not losing a client, but rather ensuring a lasting relationship wherein there will always be overflow work regardless of whether the law firms use their own staff members.