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ATTORNEY SUPPORTCreating Timelines forLitigation Presentations:Tips and Techniquesfor Popular ProductsBy Timothy A. Piganelligraphic departments to assist withbasic timeline graphics. The obviAttorney teams frequently require ous choice is the in-house litigationassistance creating chronologies ofsupport department, assuming oneevents based on either facts or docu- exists. Creation of graphic timelinesments. Whether these are for opening can be outsourced as well—but forstatements, a settlement conference, a cost. That added expense mightor just a way to analyze a case, some be more easily justified for defensetimeline is almost always needed.firms who can bill those services toOften, trial teams create chronol- the client, but for plaintiff firms whoogies of their cases without realizing must absorb these costs, trying tothat they will later need to have them accomplish this task in-house is usuexpanded into visual presentations.ally preferable.This is because a chronological strucCreating Timelines—ture is frequently the way cases arepresented to juries, judges, or otherChoose Your Tooltriers of fact. Visual representationCreating graphic timelines hasis important. It sometimes becomesthe underlying foundation for theflow of all information related to acase. Therefore, it is important thatcare be given in the creation of visualtimelines.Litigation support professionalsstruggle with how to create timelinegraphics in the most effective, easyand understandable way. This articleexamines some of the do’s and don’tsfor creating graphic timelines, andalso looks at some of the visual aidtools that are available to assist withthis important task.For most attorneys, the first challenge is how to get a visual created.Many law firms rely on in-house20November 2007/January 2008 Litigation Support TODAYbeen made easy by litigation supportsoftware and even a few non-legalapplications. Several good techniquesand specialized products are readily available for litigation supportprofessionals for creating effectivetimelines; among them, Timemap,TimelineXpress, MS PowerPoint,Visio, SmartDraw, and other softwareprograms. This article takes a look atsome of the key features about a fewof the most popular products.Timemap, by CaseSoft may be theeasiest application to learn and use.If a person can type, they can use thisapplication. By simply adding datesand events to the New Fact Box, one

can begin to create a timeline. Asone keys in dates and facts, the timeline automatically builds. TimeMapcreates the base timeline and adjuststhe time scale automatically.TimeMap is a tool for the beginner. By picking a color scheme and atemplate, one is on their way to creating a timeline. Most of the selections for style can be picked frompre-built templates. One can easilychange colors and backgrounds withdifferent gradients just by doubleclicking on an event.Another good and easy choiceto build a litigation timelineis TimelineXpress, by inDataCorporation. It has the same easyinterface at Timemap, and creationof a timeline is as easy as typinginto boxes. As shown below, onesimply keys in events and dates andTimelineXpress builds the timeline.In addition, as one keys in the eventsand dates, it automatically scales thetimeline.Creating timelines using eitherTimeMap or TimelineXpress can befurther simplified by importing thedata directly, thus eliminating theneed for typing altogether. Both ofthese programs will accept importeddata from any program that canexport in a comma-delimated ASCIIfile format. This means that practically any program that can create afact and date list can be importedto Timemap or TimelineXpress. Inaddition, with a little set up time,the Summation application includesa chronology table that can also beimported into either Timemap orTimelineXpress.A third option for creating graphictimelines is MS PowerPoint. It isnot really timeline software, butrather presentation software thatcan be adapted to this use. UsingMS PowerPoint for this purpose canbe difficult and involves a learningcurve, but its potential is almost limitless. Using it, one can create almostany kind of timeline conceivable.In addition to MS PowerPoint,there are other general softwareapplications that can be used to create timelines. Some of these areVisio by Microsoft and SmartDrawby SmartDraw.com. SmartDraw is avery popular graphic software, andmany legal professionals use it forother tasks besides timelines. Forthe direct litigation timeline task,however, recommended products are,TimeMap, TimelineXpress, or MSPowerPoint.Attaching Exhibits toTimelines—the GraphicComponentTimelines used in court are frequently introduced during an opening statement. When presenting atimeline to a jury, it is important thatthe timeline, and any other graphicfor that matter, have credibility.Each event depicted on the timelineshould tie to a defensible source orhave foundation behind the event.One of the best ways to show thefoundation behind each event is to tiethe event with some sort of evidencein the case. In a timeline, a way to dothis is to link the event with either adocument exhibit or testimony.Most of the tools mentionedabove do an excellent job of allowing the user to attach either imagesor multi-media. However, the besttool for this job is MS PowerPoint.Although it may not be the easiesttool to learn for a timeline application, having exhibits zoom out fromindividual events on your timelineis very compelling. The figure belowgives a three-step view of how anexhibit tied to an event could “zoom”out and display front and center.This is the only tool of those mentioned here that can be used to getthe image to be viewed on the samescreen and still be part of the timeline graphics.This technique is accomplishedLitigation Support TODAY November 2007/January 200821

ATTORNEY SUPPORTusing MS PowerPoint’s animationfunctions and inserting pre-builtgraphics. It is a very effective visualtechnique to show an audience alinked exhibit. Once the exhibit isshown, the image zooms back intothe event giving the audience the“visual” foundation for the timelineentry.On other hand, for ease of use,TimeMap has a simple way to attachimages to each event. The processonly requires that you select an imagethat is accessible and link or hyperlink to the timeline. The limitation of22November 2007/January 2008 using TimeMap for linking exhibitsis that when you click on an attachedexhibit, TimeMap opens a new window, launches the default softwarefor the linked image, and then presents the image. One way to workwith this is to have the linked imagealready prepared for optimal viewing by having the specific text on thepage “blown out” or annotated. Fromthe viewer’s perspective it appearsas if you are zooming in on the text.Zooming in is helpful because presenting a full page on a graphic usually is not readable to a jury across aLitigation Support TODAYcourtroom from a screen or monitor.The figure below shows this in twosteps. First, the TimeMap timeline,then the linked image with a portiontorn out, highlighted and annotated.TimelineXpress has a uniqueway of attaching images to its timelines. The feature is very useful andallows for real time annotating ofany linked images. Once you haveselected an image and launched thehyperlink, a window appears. ThenTimelineXpress brings up a utility,allowing the user to zoom, highlight,and annotate in real time.n this manner you can manuallyemphasize areas of the document asyou go, compared to having to prebuild the exhibit.Expanding Timelines - DrillingDown to More DetailIn some cases, many of the caseevents occur in a relatively shortamount of time. For example, atimeline may consist of twentyevents that span over a three-yearperiod. Yet, twelve of those eventsmay have occurred in a singlemonth of that three-year period. Itis here that you may need a timelinethat can be “interactive.” The ideais to have the timeline “expand”to show more detail, for example,twelve events in one month. Thereare two ways to approach this challenge. First, TimelineXpress has aunique feature that allows the userto expand and compress their timelines by sliding a scroll bar near thebottom of the screen. All you haveto do is to enter all the events onyour timeline, as discussed above,then, when you get to the “condensed” area, expand the timelineout to show the audience the detail.In the figures below, the events inthis sample timeline become verycondensed and cramped near theright side of the timeline. Eventsare overlapping and unreadable.By expanding the scroll bar at thebottom, you can spread out those

portion actually zooms out from theoriginal timeline in green.This allows the viewing of detailedevents during the December timeframe. When the presentation of thisportion of the timeline is completed,CONTINUED ON PAGE 36events that are condensed makingthem easier to view.There are more dynamic waysto achieve this effect however, byusing the animation features of MSPowerPoint. In the following example, the user animated the expandedportion of the timeline and focuseson it showing the condensed events.The red portion of the timeline isbuilt such that when activated, thisTechLaw’s law:Organization makes the job go fasterContending with document similarities is a challenge in any reviewproject. TechLaw’s near-duplicate identification process, powered byEquivio technology, takes de-duplication one step further by findingnearly identical documents - such as files with a few different wordsor formatting differences - and grouping them into sets for targetedcomparative analysis.Now, a single reviewer can work through an entire group of relateddocuments, categorizing them consistently and quickly.The results:6 speeds overall review6 strengthens quality of analysis6 reduces costContact TechLaw to discuss the right tools for your job. Call 800-TECHLAW (832.4529). www.TechLawSolutions.comITLA Nails ad Horizontal.indd 17/20/07 2:15:19 PM