In most legal presentations, the lawyer is not only the narrator, but also plays the parts of the characters. An attorney trying to impeach the testimony of a witness, for example, will read the testimony given in a deposition to draw a contrast between what the witness said and what he’s saying at the trial.

This can be effective, or it can be like listening to someone act out all the parts in “A Christmas Carol.”

But that’s changing. With trial managing software, digital marking of depositions and video clips on demand for use in court, trial attorneys may someday have production values rivaling a David E. Kelley courtroom drama.

Digital technology for the courtroom is “becoming accessible and very easy to use,” says Bob Hocker, a business litigation specialist with Higgs, Fletcher & Mack.

One problem lawyers have in combing through hours of deposition is summarizing the key points. When lawyers are in trial, they must have access to summary information and also bring to light incriminating statements in response to specific questions.

Video not only allows the jury to see the witness’s deposition testimony, but video clips of the deposition can be tagged with a bar code. This allows the attorney to order the tagged video testimony clips on demand for courtroom viewing.

“It’s very convincing for the jury to see the witness contradicting himself,” Hocker says. “I’m not saying people mistrust lawyers, but whenever someone is summarizing something, they put their own spin on it and it’s just much more effective to have the witness say it.”

For video presentations, Hocker uses Trial Director software made by InData Corp (www.indata.com). For page-line summaries, he recommends Livenote (www.livenote.com), which prints out a page line summary by issues. “That probably saves 15 percent to 20 percent of the time,” Hocker says.

One of the lingering images of the Westerfield trial was Steven Feldman flipping through hand-lettered charts explaining bug expert testimony.

“With regard to the expert stuff, you need to have visuals with a jury,” Hocker says. “They not only need to hear what’s going on, they need to see it. You also need an outline for people, to tell them who the witnesses are and who they’re aligned for.”

Hocker says a recent case turned on whether the contract between the parties had to be written. It was a stock transaction, in which Hocker’s side wanted to argue no contract existed because the agreement hadn’t been signed.

In a video deposition clip, Hocker got an executive from the opposing party to admit that he didn’t consider his employee handbook binding, because he hadn’t signed it. “He pauses and says, ‘why else would there be a signature line?’” Hocker recalls.

John Gartman, managing director of the San Diego office of Fish & Richardson, says graphics and themes are important in persuading juries who may have a limited grasp of the intellectual property issues in complex litigation.

“It’s an art to represent technology to juries in a way that they ‘get it,’” he says. “We also create winning themes in cases that have some emotional gut appeal, if you will. If you have them on the emotional level, hopefully they’ll go your way, even if they don’t understand the technology, but we try to do both.”

— Richard Acello