Already a staple in countries like Singapore, integrated "electronic" courtrooms that allow for paperless proceedings and digital presentations have started surfacing across the globe, reaching the United States in 2016. But with the benefits comes the challenge of managing the digital evidence needed for a trial.
For Sean Morgan, director of litigation and trial technology at Cornerstone Discovery, such a challenge was a problem in need of an innovative solution. His effort at Cornerstone eventually led to the development and recent launch of Docfol.io, a trial exhibit management and automation platform.
Legaltech News caught up with Morgan to discuss what his new platform offers trial attorneys, the ins and outs of its capabilities, and the market for its services.
What it is: A cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) trial exhibition management and automation platform, Docfol.io was designed to help attorneys execute and manage the tasks that go into getting digital exhibit files ready for trial. Morgan notes that these include the "process of renaming inventorying, bates stamping, watermarking, applying exhibit stickers, and generating exhibit lists."
How it works: Using a drag-and-drop feature, users can import their exhibit files into the platform to format them with specific names, stickers, bates stamps and the like. While renaming can be done manually for each file individually, the platform also allows for "bulk renaming," which Morgan explained as a feature that automatically renames everything for the user while maintaining references to the original file names and having places set up for custom descriptions. These names can be based off of standard naming conventions or customized conventions that users create beforehand.
In addition, the platform has a "production wizard" that allows users to automatically add bates stamps or exhibit stickers, which are either standard or customized, to individual or multiple exhibit files as well.
Its limitations: Though Docfol.io has "limited presentation capabilities built in," Morgan noted that for the time being it should not be thought of as a trial presentation platform, but instead "a standalone tool which serves a very specific purpose."
Those using Docfol.io will therefore need to link it up to another trial presentation software. Morgan, however, does not dismiss the possibility that Docfol.io may one day develop into an "all-encompassing trial management and presentation product" in the future.