Litigation Chronology and Evidence
Information about Facts, People, and Evidence, the evidence dashboard, and the chronology tab inside the litigation suite.
- FAQ - Litigation Chron and Evidence Dashboard
- Litigation Chronology Tab
- Evidence Dashboard
- Facts, Issues, and People
CHRONOLOGY - GENERAL
- Can issues, facts, and people be connected to each other to indicate a relationship? For example, “these 5 facts support my wrongful termination issue”.
The ability to connect issues, facts, and people to each other to establish new dimensions is not included in this release, but will be coming soon. For example, connecting people and the facts associated with that person, or sorting facts by issue in the Chronology tab. - Can I connect issues, facts and people to transcript testimony?
Issue, fact, and people coding is currently limited to document evidence, but we are working on providing the ability to connect these key case elements to testimony evidence.- Notably, The ability to connect issues to transcript testimony currently exists, but is separate from our new Chronology functionality. Those issues have to be set up in the database via MORE > Settings > Transcripts as Transcript Issues.
- Are these features available in the Discovery suite as well?
These features are not currently available in the Discovery suite; however, we understand the importance of building your story early on in the case. Users can currently denote Key Documents and Issues which will be automatically translated to Case Chronology. You can also create tags for Facts and People to reference as you build your story in Case Chronology. Our next round of updates in September will include deeper integrations with the Discovery suite.
Additional Notes on Transferring from Discovery:- Users can create a "Key Document" single checkbox custom field in Discovery and it will Exchange to Litigation and map to our new built in field
- Users can create their Responsive Issues and code in Discovery and those will Exchange to Litigation and map to Document Issues in our Chronology/Dashboard
- Facts and People cannot yet be exchanged, but we will review post-launch. In the interim, users can create custom picklist fields for Facts and People in Discovery and Exchange those to Litigation. Once they do, they can reference their custom coding and update to our new built in fields (screenshot below)
FACT, ISSUE AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
- Which user permission levels in Litigation can access and utilize the case building elements (facts, issues, people)?
- Advanced users can access the Chronology where they can create/edit/delete facts, issues and people. At the document-level, Advanced users can create/edit facts, issues and people.
- Standard users can access the Chronology tab where they can view fact/issue/people coding and navigate throughout relevant data. At the document-level, Standard users can utilize all existing facts, issues, and people to code their documents.
- Basic users can access the Chronology tab and view existing facts, issues, and people together with relevant data. At the document-level, Basic users can view all facts, issues, and people which have been applied to the current document.
- View only users cannot access the Chronology tab or fact, issue, people coding at the document level.
- Where did my issues go in the document coding panel?
Case Connections section in document coding panel - Can I exchange Responsive Issues from Discovery to Litigation and populate my Chronology?
Yes, Responsive issues in Discovery turn into issues in Litigation when transferred via Exchange - How can I create, edit, or delete Facts and People?
Facts and People are not available in the MORE > Settings, but can be created and edited at both the document-level and Chronology tab.- To create a fact, issue or person:
- At the document-level, navigate to the “Case Connections” section of the coding panel, select if you’d like to create a fact, issue or person, and within the drop-down, you will find the opportunity to “Create New’.
- In the Chronology tab, toggle to the fact, issue, or people grid and click the green “Create New” button at the top right.
- To edit a fact, issue, or person:
- At the document-level, click on the relevant fact, issue or person once it’s been applied to a document, make your changes in the pop-up modal, and click “Save Changes”.
- In the Chronology tab, toggle to the relevant grid, and click the relevant fact, issue or person’s name, make your changes in the pop-up modal, and click “Save Changes”.
- To delete a fact, issue, or person:
- In the Chronology tab, toggle to the relevant grid, and click the relevant fact, issue or person’s name. In the pop-up modal, you will see the opportunity to “Delete” the fact, issue or person and will be provided a confirmation pop-up before your action is final.
- To create a fact, issue or person:
- If you are creating a fact at document level, do you need to input date manually?
Yes, at this time you need to manually enter dates of facts. - What are the colors for Facts and People?
Facts and People can be assigned colors when created (much like Folders and Issues can be organized now). By default, a consistent gray tone will be assigned in the event you do not want to color code. - Can Facts, Issues, and People be locked down to prevent users from creating new or using to code?
No. However, only Advanced users can add, edit and delete facts, issues and people in a database. Additionally, only Advanced and Standard users can code document evidence with facts, issues, and people in Litigation.
BULK CODING & SEARCH
- Are Facts and People available in bulk actions?
In our initial release, Facts and People will not be available via the Bulk Actions modal in the document grid. We want to be sure this relevant coding is thoughtful and with intent. That said, we will be reaching out to our user community post-launch to better understand if this is a need. - Can I search for facts, issues and people?
Yes. The search syntaxes for each are as follows:- Fact:”fact name”
- Issue:”issue name”
- People:”person’s name” OR Person:”person’s name”
- People:”person’s name” AND Issue:”issue name”
- Are facts, issues and people in Advanced Search or Filters?
Issues are available in Advanced Search and Filters in your Litigation database.
Notably, Facts and People will not be added to Advanced search or Filters in our initial launch, but we will be reaching out to our user community post-launch to better understand if this is a need.
KEY DOCUMENTS
- Will the new default Key Document tag be added to Discovery as well?
Not immediately, but any Discovery database which has a “Key Document” custom field can have data exchanged to litigation and the Key Document tag will be mapped to the new Litigation functionality. - What I had a Key Document field before deploy?
On deploy, we will run a script to update all Key Document fields in existing Litigation databases to be our new default/built-in Key Document single checkbox field. - If I have a Hot Document checkbox field in Discovery, will that exchange over to Litigation and translate to the new Key Document checkbox?
- In order for any Hot Document checkbox field to exchange properly from Discovery to Litigation, you can take 1 of 2 routes
- The first, makes sure to rename your Hot Document field as "Key Document" before initiating your exchange from Discovery to Litigation
- The second option, and helpful if you've already exchanged your Hot Document field, is to filter or search for hot_document:* and complete a bulk action to update with the "Key Document" field.
- How do I search for Key Documents in Litigation?
- Key_document:true
- -Key_document:true
EXPORTS
- What’s included in the CSV exports from Facts, Issues, and People?
The fields which you see displayed in the fact, issue and people grids are what will be included in the CSV export(s) - What if I need a visual timeline of my case?
Every case, case team, story, data set, etc. are different and so we chose to not try and deliver a “one size fits all” timeline visualization in this first release. However, Nextpoint’s Trial Services Team has a wealth of experience in preparing impactful presentations and can support our users in turning your fact chronologies into visual timelines. - Why are my document ids exported in the fact chronology, issue report, and cast of characters report separated by a space?
Document ids are exported in a format so you can easily copy/paste as a search in your database formatted as id:(# # # #)
EVIDENCE DASHBOARD
- Which user permission levels in Litigation can access and utilize the Evidence dashboard?
Advanced and Standard users are able to access and utilize the Evidence Dashboard. We will speak with clients to further understand their needs post-release to see if we need to open up to Basic permissions. - Can I customize which cards are on the Evidence Dashboard and how they are organized?
Not at this time - What is an unsupported fact?
An unsupported fact is a fact which does not currently have any document evidence associated with it. This is typically an indication that the particular fact(s) need to have supporting evidence located and assigned. - Are "most viewed documents" in the Evidence Dashboard specific to an individual or database-wide?
The Most Viewed Documents card is specific to the database, not a particular user.
INFINITE SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPTS
- When will infinite scrolling transcripts be released?
We are currently scheduled to deploy scrolling transcripts on July 15, 2023. - Will users be able to highlight to the middle of lines with this release?
No. - Will my existing designation and issue markups be maintained upon release?
Yes.
View Full Support Articles:
Facts, Issues, and People
FAQ - Litigation Chron and Evidence Dashboard
The Litigation Chronology tab allows users to sort and filter their facts, issues, and people and export a CSV list of their case chronology. Here's how it works:
- Click on the "CHRONOLOGY" tab.
- Click on the tab to view your Facts, Key Documents, Issues, or People. This will pull up a grid view of set that you select.
- Inside that grid view, you can create a new fact/issue/person. You can also do this directly inside of a document you are reviewing (see the Facts, Issues, and People support article).
- To view all of the documents associated with a specific fact, issue, or person, click on the number hot link on the right side of that row.
Quick Tip
One of the greatest values of the Chronology Tab is that it can let you know, at a glance, which facts, people, or issues have a lot of document evidence, and which ones are lacking. Aside from being a link to each set, the number in the document column can serve as a guidepost for your team to determine where additional research may be required.
- You can also edit an existing Fact, Issue, or Person by clicking on the name of the one you want to change. This will generate a pop-out window.
When editing (or adding) a Fact, you can update its name, description, date, and color. The fact name should succinctly state the fact. The description can be longer, often using text evidence excerpts from the documents themselves. The date is important to add if possible as it will allow you to sort things in order by date. If you do not have an exact date and time associated with the fact, you can also flag it as "Approximate." Start and/or end dates are not required to create or save a fact. Changing a fact's color will change the color of the flag seen to the left of the fact name and can be used to organize and group facts.
When editing (or adding) an Issue, you can update its name, abbreviation, description, and color. The abbreviation will appear in grid view and make the issues identifiable at a glance. While the name of an issue is typically just a few words, the description can explain it and include context specific to the case. Just as with facts, the color of an issue will appear to the left of it's name in the grid view.
When editing (or adding) a Person, you can update their name, abbreviated name, role, type, email and color. The role and type fields allow you to repeat selections through the dropdown or "Add new" values for these fields. Like with facts and issues, the color of a person will appear to the left of it's name in the grid view. - Above the grid view in the Chronology Tab, you can sort or filter your Facts, Key Docs, Issues, and People by each of the fields that appear on the grid view. You can isolate date ranges or even filter Facts by key word.
- When you have a list of Facts, Issues, or People you want to view or report on outside of Nextpoint, you can select the rows you want to include with the checkboxes to the right and click the "Export as CSV" button at the bottom of the grid view to download a chart containing the information from the grid view.
- Case Connections (Coming October 3, 2023) - In the Facts, Issues, and People tabs, you can see your other case connections. For example, you can view which people and issues are associated with each fact and filter your fact list to view only specific issues or people.
Next Up - Evidence Dashboard
Litigation Chronology Tab
Your evidence dashboard allows you to visualize the various case elements to build out your case story. Like the Analytics Tab in a Discovery database, the Evidence Dashboard provides users a high level view of the components in their Litigation database and contains clickable links to those components. Additionally, the Evidence Dashboard is designed to allow you to see where your case is strong in terms of supporting document evidence and where the gaps may be that need to be filled by more research and analysis.
- Access the Evidence Dashboard by clicking on the "Evidence" tab.
- You can view the counts of the important components of your Litigation database across the top row of data. This links are clickable and will take you to the component described.
- The Fact Overview card shows you how many facts are supported by evidence (connected to specific documents) to help you find the strengths and gaps in your case. Both the supported and unsupported sections of the donut chart are clickable and will bring up those sets of facts.
- The Document Issues Card allows you to see the document counts related to each of your issues and can show which issues are associated with a lot of document evidence and which ones are lacking.
- The Top Tagged People Card allows you to view which people have been tagged with the most document evidence.
- The Document Overview timeline will allow you to see a histogram of all documents and/or key documents in your database. This will allow you to see the time periods for which you do have evidence and which time periods you do not yet have documents related.
- Case Notes allow you to maintain additional information about the case including scheduling information, links to court documents, and other information that could be useful to all users in the database.
- Your Favorite Folders are specific to each individual user - it allows a person to directly continue into a specific folder they regularly work in. You can add the "favorite" tag to a folder by clicking on the star icon next to it in the "Documents" tab. This list is individual to the specific folders added as favorites by the user.
- The Most Viewed Documents list shows the individual documents viewed the most by all users in a database. This is NOT an individual metric and will be the same across users in a database.
- The Deponents and Linked Exhibits card gives an overview of each deponent with a count of the number of exhibits linked to those depositions.
- The Search Bar allows you to run searches in your Litigation database.
Note
Using the search bar in the Evidence dashboard will take you directly to the search results in a grid view in "Documents" tab.
Next Up - FAQ - Litigation Chronology and Evidence Dashboard
Evidence Dashboard
The Nextpoint Litigation Suite offers you the ability to build your case story by linking the Facts, People and Issues to the various pieces of document evidence in your case directly in the app. When you assign dates to the facts, you can also view your case story in chronology format. This allows users to quickly and easily filter aspects of the story by a date range, the specific individuals, or the issues involved in the case for deposition and trial prep.
- Facts can be used to underscore the anatomy of a dispute, including important events, legal claims and defenses of each party.
- Issues are those vital questions of law on which the court must rule.
- People are important individuals or organizations in a matter.
Tagging Exhibits in the Document View
- While viewing a document, expand the “Case Connections” tab on the right.
- Select the “Facts”, “Issues”, or “People” section to add or create a new item for this document. You can also remove a fact, issue, or person by clicking on the red circle
next to an item. Clicking on a selected item at the document level will also allow you to edit that Fact/Issue/Person.
- Expand the drop down and select the item you would like to add to this document, or advanced users can select “Create New” to add a new item to this list directly from the Document View.
You can add any additional facts, issues, or people to each document as you review.
Key Documents
Nextpoint's "Key Documents" field appears at the top of each database's "Hot Fields" section by default and is a way for users to flag and identify important documents for later use. Simply click on the checkbox to tag a document and be sure to save your update.
To code multiple documents as "Key Documents" at once, select them from your grid view, and bulk code them under the "Fields" section.
Searching on Facts, Issues, and People
To search for facts, issues, or people in your database, type in the name of the field, a colon, and the value in quotation marks. The following examples would work as searches in your litigation database:
fact:"Enron admits to overstating 600M in profits since 1997"
issue:"Fraud"
people:"John Smith"
person:"John Smith"
You may also run searches for specific terms within each set (e.g. facts:"Enron") to identify facts, issues, or people that contain specific terms. Additionally, to search for "people" you can search on either "person:" or "people:" as seen in the examples above.
If you want to search for different case connection items within the same document with an "AND" search:
issue:"Fraud" AND person:"John Smith"
Note
Facts and People are currently not available in the Advanced Search tab or in the Document Filters at this time. But you can click on the document count in the Chronology tab for both Facts and People. For more information, view the support article on the Litigation Chronology Tab. Issues (formerly Document issues) have always been available in the Advanced Search tab and in Filters and will continue to be available there.
Next up - The Litigation Chronology Tab