Over 10,000 documents to manage, 1,000 notes in their system, in excess of 50 depositions, 80 witnesses to track, three years of medical bills totaling nearly $2,000,000.00 to monitor...all coming together resulting in a $ 22,000,000.00 settlement.
We recently spoke with our client Daniel J. Richards, at The Richards Law, P.C. in Oxford, MD, who was responsible for this substantial settlement. He thanked his paralegal, Talia Sansetti, his firm and acknowledged the use of technology, for playing and integral part in preparing the case for trial.
Having a technology based resource was an invaluable tool in managing a case of this magnitude. Talia confirmed the trial team utilize every aspect of the system including user defined fields and tabs which were created especially for this case and ultimately implemented in other case types.
Witness Tabs: Talia created user-defined Witness Tab which helped track plaintiff's and defendants' witnesses based on type, name, connection to the case, and deposition and recorded statement details including date taken, date the transcript was received, court reporter/videographer, and whether or not the witness would testify at trial. The user-defined tab also allowed Talia to track when experts were retained and reports received. Having the ability to enter every witness and then filter, search and run reports on the information attached to each witness was an invaluable organizational and essential time management tool for this case.
Dollar Value Tabs: This tab was used to keep track of nearly 600 entries that reflected case expenses, liens and medical bills related to this case. The Dollar Value Tab was also an important tool for the management of case expenses. In a case of this size, bills came in every day. Determining whether a bill needed to be processed for payment or if it had already been paid was made easy using technology tools.
Checklist: Talia told us, "the rule was that we, as a team, added every single task which needed to be completed into the checklist. Once every task or 'to do' item was on the checklist, we had the ability to prioritize tasks instantaneously. We could determine where we were in terms of trial preparation. There is no comparison between working from a checklist every day and shuffling through legal pads to find that 'list of things we discussed at yesterday's team meeting'!"
Notes: For this case alone, more than 1,000 notes were entered into our database. Talia said that having every piece of mail, every telephone conversation, every memo and nearly every thought necessary. One of the features Rita relied heavily upon was the text search used in conjunction with the Note Tab. Everything can be searched by text and key word.
Calendar: Once discovery began, scheduling in this case became a project that could have easily required the attention of an additional secretary. By utilizing the tools built into the database calendar, Talia was able to handle scheduling. Over 50 depositions were taken most of which were scheduled more than once. Due to the number of witnesses and attorneys involved, entire days were blocked out and then witnesses were slotted in at certain time intervals.
Both Dan and Talia agreed that the case could not have been managed in a cost efficient manner without the use of technology. LS Sherman helped Dan and Talia decide what software would work best for their case at the lowest cost. They were able to assist Talia at setting up all of her Tabs and determining what was important pre-trial and then what to integrate for trial and motion preparation.
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