We created this free template for legal schedules with flexibility in mind. Therefore, you can just as easily use it in a commercial trial, construction trial, personal injury trial, intellectual property litigation or liability lawsuit to anchor the timing of the most important facts in the mind of the jury. As you develop a deeper understanding, establish additional relevant facts and chronological events – even those that are not part of the chronology of events, such as assumptions, assumptions, disputed facts, facts from relevant authorities and research, and those that require further investigation. These become the building blocks of your case. Creating a “timeline” gives you the opportunity to organize your thoughts and present them in a coherent and logical way, which provides us with a factual resource you can refer to throughout the case. We often use the timeline when preparing a draft complaint to be submitted to the court and when preparing answers to questions asked by the defendant at discovery. Remember that it is important to be as comprehensive as possible – strengths and weaknesses – so that we can provide you with the most effective presentation possible. Depending on the type of case you`re working on, you may only find some or all of these elements on the legal timeline of events. With our legal timeline template, you can use the shapes and colors of milestones to code specific types of items to paint a clearer and more intuitive picture for the jury.
Speaking of images, it`s worth remembering that people are visual learners in most cases, and a well-crafted legal timeline of events may be the best way to move the narrative forward. Create a problematic keyword for any issues, including legal issues, that need to be resolved or that may affect the outcome of your case or investigation. In a tort case, the elements of the claims may be, for example, problems of causation or adverse acts. However, problem and topic keywords allow you to create any logical structure and grouping you need, even if they are not elements of claims or are not related to them. For example, if there are multiple locations relevant to your case, such as branch offices, you can create common problem/topic keywords for each of them in a category called “Locations.” Resist the usual temptation to cut out annoying things that happened before things really got warm. Most people, when talking about stressful events, focus on the things that seem most annoying (the day a spouse left the kids unattended, the prospect`s check bounced, or the neighbor put up the “no trespassing” signs). But the context of any of these events is at least as important and, in many cases, legally more important than the fireworks that followed. So start with the first context: meet your spouse, decide to start the business that ultimately went wrong, the first time you heard about the property you wish you had not bought by now.
In this first step of creating a legal timeline, add all actors (witnesses, lawyers, experts, organizations, etc.) as reader keywords. Indicate who wrote a document or who is relevant to a fact. Don`t worry if you run out of them because you can always add them later, but starting with a good list will speed up the loading and classification of documents and evidence considerably. You can optionally add roles to add relevance and context. The first step in using CaseFleet is to cause problems. Each number serves as a category or tag for the facts you`ll add later. You can optionally add a description for each issue, but all a problem needs is a name. In the screenshot below, we`ve added examples of issues for a criminal case, such as “Causation,” “Adverse Action,” and “Functions.” We`ve also added handy outputs called “Key Data” and “Context.” Even if these last questions are not elements of claims, they are very useful for grouping the facts into your case chronology. As you can see, issues can be related to a claim or remain separate. Clarity, a strong logical link between the elements and a coherent narrative are the cornerstones of an effective legal affairs calendar.
To do this, we recommend the following: Press a button and this timeline will be converted into a beautifully designed timeline slide in PowerPoint. Once created, it`s easy to control and format the timeline, allowing presenters to test different ways to highlight important events. It frees litigators from the need to design and gives them an effective way to convince. The lack of an effective strategy to turn all relevant evidence, facts and information into coherent advocacy increases the workload of the litigant tenfold. In addition, it can be difficult to convince jurors, even if the details of the case are not obscure and the testimony is not contradictory. With the model for legal calendars, we want to make these issues a thing of the past. To get the most out of CaseFleet, it`s important to understand some basic concepts to create a legal timeline. The concepts are mostly intuitive, but there are a few things we`ve added to increase the power of CaseFleet that also add a bit to the complexity. Don`t worry, it`s still very easy to use! PowerPoint is the gold standard for creating powerful and effective presentations. But since PowerPoint is a blank slate, a law student or new lawyer may not have time to create a superior litigation calendar from scratch — or even learn how. With Office Timeline, you can use templates designed to create a clear timeline—that is, meaningful evidence in litigation. Linked evidence is any file related to your case: legal documents, transcripts, emails, PDFs or graphics – any type of file.
As with facts, you can enter a description and other notes in the summary field of a document. Important aspects of a document`s metadata (exact date, type, author, custodian, etc.) are automatically referenced when you link evidence, making it easier to determine what you need to support each fact. In the age of electronics, computers and email, it is important that you thoroughly search all computer databases to which you have lawful and reasonable access to ensure that you have printed or copied all relevant documents. If you have sent or received emails from your work email address, it is very likely that the employer will be able to access and print all of these emails before or during a dispute. It is better for you to have them copied and checked in advance and provide them to the lawyer rather than being surprised by something later in the dispute. Make sure you are thorough and inclusive. We learn that many of our users see a similar application of the time visualization platform in the legal field. Research on the subject led me to this page. Thank you in advance for any consideration to learn more about www.whenhub.com.
We are a start-up in Silicon Valley. This timeline template was created as a native PowerPoint slide, so you can easily embed it in a presentation or turn it into a visual and use it in your legal documentation. Also, check out our tutorial on how to create a timeline from scratch using various software tools. Before we look at how to create a legal calendar, let`s take a brief look at why you need it. Each case naturally contains a chronology of cases and a chronology of disputes: who said what, when – and why.