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How Han Solo helped end the paper chase for local lawyers

admin//November 11, 2016//

How Han Solo helped end the paper chase for local lawyers

admin//November 11, 2016//

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So over the last year or so, Kline has been ditching paper in favor of digital tools that promise to make complex legal arguments easier to digest – and, more importantly for juries, easier to recall.

“I use it even in client meetings,” said Kline, an attorney with York-based KBG Injury Law. “You can almost just see people follow along better as you’re showing them visuals than if you’re just a talking head.”

Indeed, studies show that people retain information better if it is presented visually, Kline said. The studies make sense if you consider the sources of information and entertainment that surround us.

“People today have been raised with screens everywhere,” Kline said. “TVs in every room, smartphones in their pockets, iPads at their breakfast tables, iPods in their ears.”

The courtroom may be free of distractions like Facebook and Youtube. But that doesn’t mean attorneys can count on the undivided attention of jury members.

It’s a challenge faced not just by lawyers, but by anyone who has long relied on analog tools to make a point.

Kline began testing out digital tools last year during the run-up to a trial stemming from a motorcycle accident. To gauge the impact of its arguments, his law firm had arranged a mock trial, a common practice in complex proceedings. The case involved thousands of documents.

“I was determined I was not going to have a counsel table drowning in paper,” Kline said. “I wanted everything digitized, all my exhibits digitized, and I was going to sit at a counsel table with a laptop and an iPad.”

The results convinced him to embrace legal technology, which includes a host of apps designed for attorneys, as well as mobile devices, laptops, video programs and other tools available to anyone.

The mock jurors, he said, “remembered almost every relevant fact of the case, which is typically unheard of.”

Other lawyers, leery of giving up time-tested ways and nervous about technical glitches, may need more persuasion. To kindle the interest of his peers, Kline and a few colleagues arranged for a trial of Han Solo, of “Star Wars” movie fame.

Who shot first?

Submitted

On a humid day in mid-October, about 50 people packed into President Judge Joseph Adams’ courtroom on the seventh floor of the York County courthouse.

Solo was facing charges in the murder of Greedo, a bounty hunter sent to capture him. Solo shot and killed Greedo in a scene from the original “Star Wars” movie released in 1977.

In the original version of the movie, Solo appeared to shoot first. But for the movie’s 1997 re-release, the scene was edited to show that Greedo may have been quicker on the draw. If you’re confused, Google the phrase “who shot first,” and you’ll be caught up in no time.

Kline represented the Galactic Empire, which was trying to convict Solo. Solo was represented by Edward Paskey, an attorney with the law firm FrancePaskey in Springettsbury Township. Judge Adams presided.

Each attorney relied on technology made available this year in York’s courthouse: an Apple TV system that provides a wireless connection to a courtroom screen. Lawyers can use apps and other programs to manipulate images as they speak: zooming in, zooming out and leading to a real-time interplay between oral arguments and visual evidence.

According to Adams, York County’s courthouse may be the first in the state to feature the technology, and he wants to see more attorneys using it, especially in jury trials. Kline and Paskey used the screen to show maps, videos, timelines, transcripts and Lego models, among other things, all choreographed to match their closing arguments.

The trial’s goal was to show other attorneys, in a humorous way, how the technology can work. They rehearsed several times to ensure there were no hiccups in the final show.

A fear of glitches is among the factors dissuading lawyers from trying something new in the courtroom: You don’t want to an error message to flash on the screen when you are trying to convince a jury to acquit your client.

But, Paskey said, “The days of relying on paper products and diagrams on easels are fast becoming antiquated.”

Paskey has used Apple TV in both civil and criminal trials. While he has not seen the tools used by opposing lawyers, he has noted their reactions. “I described the other side’s reaction as if I was using sorcery of some type,” he said.

As they become more familiar with the tools at their disposal, Adams is optimistic that more lawyers will pick them up.

“It is a bit of a frustration not seeing it used as much as it can be,” he said. “But I think we’ll get there.”

And when we do, will digital wizards have an edge over their counterparts in the courtroom?

“It’s not a new dynamic,” Adams said. “We read about some of the best advocates in past history, they were just very good with the spoken word. Now, I think, you need to be not only good with the spoken word, but you have to be very good with technology.”