Electronic briefs or ebriefs are gaining legal industry acceptance as the heir apparent to paper court filings. A2L Consulting is leading the ebrief market by having created one of the first ebriefs almost 20 years ago and, in just the last year, creating both the largest ebrief in the history of the legal industry and the first Apple iPad compatible ebrief.
A2L Consulting announces a first in efficient electronic legal document filing and exchange. A2L has produced and delivered what we believe to be the first
hyperlinked electronic brief (“e-brief”) designed specifically for reading on Apple's iPad.
To date, ebriefs have been built primarily for reading on a laptop computer or desktop PC, and this Apple iPad compatible e-brief is believed to be the first of its kind used in a court filing. Though A2L developed this iPad-compatible technology in 2010, it was only recently that a progressive law firm required that the iPad format be provided along with traditionally used PDF filings.
E-briefs are electronic versions of traditional paper court
filings (e.g. motions, briefs, complaints, etc.) where cited information (e.g. cases, documents, exhibits, etc.) is hyperlinked from the main document instead of being provided in voluminous paper form. Since court filings produced the old fashioned way, in paper form, number in hundreds if not thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pages
and are reproduced over and over – creating an unwieldy and non-environmental friendly result – they are increasingly being looked down upon by courts.
Before A2L released its iPad-compatible
e-brief, the delivery formats typically used were DVD or USB thumb drives. While these formats historically suited most purposes, evolving technology has opened up the opportunity to use this new electronic medium – further increasing the reader’s ability to quickly, accurately and efficiently review the brief’s contents.
Said Ken Lopez, CEO of A2L Consulting, “In a climate where accessing information in a user friendly, well organized manner is paramount for understanding the important points of any case, smart companies and their counsel are looking to use the best and most accessible formats available in filing their information.” To that end, when a large company had an important legal document to file, they and their litigation counsel made the decision to make the information viewable on an iPad for a judge who preferred it.
When their outside counsel surveyed potential suppliers throughout the United States – they found only one vendor that could demonstrate the capability of providing an e-brief on an iPad, and that company was A2L Consulting.
Just as one size does not fit all, neither does one technology fit all reader’s preferences in reviewing content. “In this intensely mobile society that we operate in, judges and their clerks need content to be easy to view and references readily accessible”, stated Theresa Villanueva, Senior Litigation Consultant for A2L Consulting. Ms. Villanueva went on to say, “we leverage portable technology to access data and service our clients wherever we are - 24x7x365, and thus it makes good sense to offer convenient access to court documents so that reviewing the content is seamless and highly accurate wherever the reader chooses to review it.”
The outcome of this collaboration between consultant, law firm and retailer was a high quality, highly accurate electronic brief that made reviewing documentation easy and iPad accessible. In doing so, these firms have set a new standard for
electronic brief filing and paved the way for information access methods to come.
About A2L Consulting
A2L Consulting offers
litigation consulting services to law firms and corporations worldwide. The firm's services include
jury consulting, the consultative design of
litigation graphics and deployment of
pre-trial technology, courtroom electronics and the personnel to support that technology. A2L headquarters is in Washington, DC and it has personnel or a presence in New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The firm's work routinely takes it to those cities plus Boston, Newark, New Jersey, Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia, Virginia, Maryland, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix and London, England. Since 1995, A2L Consulting has worked with litigators from 100% of top law firms on more than 10,000 cases with trillions of dollars cumulatively at stake.
*iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc.