Tips for Using a Trial Outline to Your Advantage
I have been writing articles that talk about the five parts that make up every business in the world for over a year and a half. Yes, the practice of law is a profession, but it is also a business. If you do not operate your law practice professionally, you will be out of practice pretty quickly.
As you know, the five areas that make up every business in the world are as follows:
1. Clients or customers;
2. Administration;
3. Getting the work done;
4. Billing; and
5. Collecting.
We have covered the area of "clients or customers," and the area of "administration" and now we are talking about "tips" for "getting the work done." This week's "tip" deals with tools from the trial outline that we talked about in the area of "administration," that can be used to "get the work done" in matters no matter whether they are litigation or business matters.
Last week we talked about the first three parts of the trial outline that can help you, they were:
1. Table of Contents;
2. Directory; and
3. Things to do.
This week we are going to talk about FORM 4 - CASE RE-CAP/SETTLEMENT and FORM 16 - CHRONOLOGY. Form 4 looks like the following:
I believe that you can see from the form itself that most of the things in the form are self explanatory. The person who prepares the form places their initials on the form. You will remember that we use people's three initials in our office for ease of organization in terms of who is taking the lead on a particular matter.
The next part of the form will show the date that the matter was opened in your office and a short synopsis of the facts. The reason that you have these quick recaps is so that you can instantaneously read yourself back into a file that you may not have been able to pay attention to for sometime.
The next part of the form will have your defenses, which again would be applicable to both litigation and non-litigation cases.
The next part of the form is absolutely essential with regard to any kind of negotiation you are doing on any kind of a matter. You can put the initial demand or offer, regardless of which side it comes from, showing that it came from either the Plaintiff or Defendant, or from one party or another.
The last part of the form deals with the best offer before trial or the amount argued to a jury and only applies to a litigation matter. However, I can see a set of circumstances where you can make this applicable to a mediation setting, an arbitration or even in a negotiation whether it be a sit down or by letter. I think you can see from the form, that simply having a way to quickly get yourself back up to speed on a particular case could be incredibly helpful for you with regard to keeping on top of where you are in the handling of particular matters. These pages can simply be put on their own backboard in a file or in a three ring notebook or other suitable place for easy access and updating.
The next form I want to discuss is FORM 16- CHRONOLOGY. I discussed this form rather extensively when I talked about trial outlines in the area or "administration." I want to reiterate exactly how important this form can be in your law practice. First of all, having your client make out a chronology is incredibly therapeutic. They get to tell their story. They feel like they are helping you handle their case.
Secondarily, having the story set out for you in writing so that you can review it and see how everything fits together in a chronological fashion is incredibly helpful. As I previously stated, often times when you read the chronology, causes of action or defenses leap right off the page.
The format that we use for our chronology is as follows:
I previously stated in the area of "administration," that we always like to have as much accuracy as possible on dates, and where possible we like to have the month, day and year. If you do not have all three of those, try to at least put in the chronology as many of those that you have.
The happening or event section is to simply try to succinctly state exactly what it was that happened on that date. The next two columns are self explanatory with regard to anyone who could be a witness to that chronological event or anything that you have of any kind that could be an exhibit to that chronological event.
Often times, we will back up these chronologies with what we call "chron files." This is where we take the documents themselves, put the dates on the documents on the files and put the documents in the actual order in which they show up in the chronology. This makes a very quick system for reviewing a chronology and being able to instantly access a manilla folder with that particular document filed in it by date to allow you to look at pertinent parts of the document to verify information that you are looking for that is set out in the chronology.
I have used chronologies in business cases, personal injury cases, product liability cases, medical malpractice cases, family law cases, business disputes and almost every other kind of legal matter you can imagine. In short, I love chronologies.
I am amazed at the number of times that I go back to the chronology in order to remind myself about an important fact and the timing for it that I can usually only get from the chronology.
I hope that you are continuing to see a constant theme that I always try to address in these "tips." Any organizational system you can utilize that will allow you to easily store information that allows you to retrieve the information when you need it and to be able to quickly review it to bring yourself up to speed is golden. All of the systems I continually talk about are set up on a manual computer concept. I try to organize everything in either numerical or alphabetical order so that it can always be easily reviewed by anyone searching for something in a particular file. I always try to synopsize things into trial outline type forms and have that supercede what is in the file for ease of reference. I am always looking for ways to be able to stay on top of the many legal matters that I am handling in my office, and to be able to easily move from one matter to the next to keep each legal matter moving forward towards and alternate resolution. I utilize staff members to help me do this that bill the clients at lower hourly rates than I do. I often find that if I did it myself, I might be faster, but because of my higher hourly rate, I am more expensive. I use this concept as a marketing tool, and the clients seem to love it. Additionally, if you do everything yourself you are not going to be responsive to your client's needs. There is an old adage about a lawyer taking on a new matter and saying, "I'll get back to you on this matter in two weeks." We all know that "two weeks" often becomes a month or more. When you utilize staff in your office to help you get things done, you will more likely than not be able to supply your client what they need on a more timely basis
The next time you are having difficulty putting together information that quickly brings you up to speed on where a particular matter is at, try a three ring notebook with the forms in it that I am suggesting you use to keep you on top of the matter. Remember, so far we have talked about Form 1 - Table of Contents, Form 2 - Directory, Form 3 - Things to Do, Form 4 - Case Re-Cap Settlement and Form 16 - Chronology.
Next week we will talk about Form 17 - Witness Identification (Cast of Characters), Form 18- Exhibits (Documents) and Form 25 - Legal Memoranda. I think when you hear what I have to say about these additional forms, you will see how they are very helpful in keeping yourself organized no matter what legal matter it is that you are handling.
Talk to you next week.
FORM 4 - CASE RE-CAP/SETTLEMENT
A. DATE OPENED:
B. FACTS:
C. DAMAGES:
D. THEORIES OF LIABILITY: DEFENSES:
E. INITIAL DEMAND OR OFFER:
FORM 16 - CHRONOLOGY
Date Happening/Event Witness Exhibit
Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.