Choosing Litigation Software
What is litigation software?
Litigation software enables lawyers to prepare legal cases for presentation at trial. It is the legal software tool required by legal professionals organising and indexing paper and electronic documents. Litigation software includes a database that is ordered hierarchically in folders and functionality such as imaging tools to prepare exhibits for court.
Most UK litigation software packages originated in the US. However there is little difference between US and UK requirements from the software and basic functionality is similar in both administrations.
Litigation software packages provide the basics of the following labelling capabilities for documents: A description, date, unique document reference number, document list position number, records of senders, recipients and people who were copied documents, document type and sometimes a document source.
Lawyers and legal experts need to be able to easily:
- input data and documents to the litigation software
- edit it
- add notes or criteria
- sort and filter the database
- and retrieve information in a form that is useful.
More sophisticated litigation software also has:
- More powerful search capabilities, enabling lawyers to rapidly find phrases and passages in large documents, saving enormous amounts of time.
- Advanced controlled data sharing through the use of secure areas and the ability to transport evidence between office and court.
- Redaction of documents capability to protect privacy, intellectual property and remove privileged information
- The ability to enhance accuracy of disclosure through the use of advanced textual analysis technology.
Iken Litigation Software and Support Services fall into the more sophisticated litigation software category, coping easily with both large and small cases, they can be scaled to meet our customers’ needs.
Considerations when choosing litigation software
- Most legal departments and law firms, regardless of size, now require dedicated litigation software. However, software need not necessarily be purchased in full, your organisation may prefer the software as a service, or lease option. This provides easier payment terms and the ability to quickly upgrade as needs develop.
- When determining which litigation software system to choose, consider the number of users, whether they will need remote access to the database, and who will have the technical responsibility for maintaining your system. All these will have significant impact on which litigation software company you choose.
- Decide on the essentials that your firm needs. Find a litigation software supplier who can meet that need and cater for further growth at a future date.
- Does your litigation software supplier provide other legal software? It is much easier to work with a supplier who can integrate all the case management software and matter management software that you use.
- Ask about after sales support and software updates and training for your staff
- Your litigation software company may provide litigation support services as well as systems, for example taking away some of the onerous data collection tasks.
- If possible get recommendations from happy clients when choosing your litigation software provider or at least read testimonials – they are a start.
- Once you have narrowed down the choice of companies, ask two or three of them for a demonstration of their litigation software.
To arrange a demonstration of the Iken litigation software solutions, or to enquire further, please contact us today on 0117 373 0790 or fill in our online form.