Electronic transcripts that can be captured from real-time court reporters are an accepted part of practice today. There is no need to wait for court transcription services to send over paper copies; all you need is the file on your computer, which you can examine at any time even before the final, signed version is approved and distributed.
Aside from being able to read testimony on a 5-pound laptop rather than a five-ounce stack of paper, what are the benefits of electronic transcripts as you prepare for trial? How would you like to be able to keyword search, issue code, and digest all of your electronic testimony? You may already have the tools. Here are some examples of commonly-used software that helps with transcript review:
• CT Summation iBlaze®
• LexisNexis Concordance®
• LexisNexis CaseMap® and TextMap®
• West LiveNote™
In the next few blog entries, I’ll discuss how you can get more from your electronic transcripts with these tools. In fact, we reviewed Searching Transcripts in Concordance in our previous blog entry. Concordance® can import transcripts in ASCII Text, LiveNote™ Portable Transcript Format (PTF) or LiveNote™ Portable Case Format (PCF). The transcript page and line formatting will be maintained in each import; PTF format brings in a transcript and its LiveNote™ annotations (QuickMarks, Issue Codes, Notes), while PCF format brings in a whole case package. I’ll note here that Concordance® cannot handle video directly; you can hot-link a video file as an attachment when creating a note, and view it using Windows Media Player or any other utility capable of handling MPEG or AVI files.
NEXT TIME: West LiveNote
by Andy Kass
Director, Technical Services
Concordance Certified Software Trainer, LiveNote Certified Trainer
