Needed capacities or functions - Advanced Editing for Appellate Brief and Major Litigation
Some programs may do minimal or no major litigation or appellate briefing and should tailor the acquisition of technology for these purposes to its program needs accordingly.
For programs that engage in major litigation or appellate briefing:
Train staff and provide technology tools to assist staff in working collaboratively on the production of large projects, such as appellate briefs and major litigation. Some programs can make such tools available by co-counseling with private law firms or similar agreements. Therefore, "access" to tools in this baseline is not necessarily "ownership" of the tool or a program-specific license.
Provide tools that allow staff to simultaneously edit and maintain a version history of collaboratively produced documents.
Provide PDF editing software to add and remove pages, automatically redact sensitive information, rearrange pages, and add running headers and footers (e.g., Bates numbering)
Staff who work on appellate briefs should have tools to produce and maintain tables of contents, tables of authorities, and citations.
Staff should have an electronic method to organize discovery, including the ability to tag, add Bates stamps, and find relevant discovery responses.
Important Considerations and Best PracticesOrganizations that handle large litigation cases or appeals should have tools to effectively produce briefs and manage litigation that requires sifting through discovery. Depending on program needs and size, an organization that conducts major litigation or appellate briefing can look to any combination of tools, such as:
|