As with any computer tool, GIGO (“Garbage In, Garbage Out”) is the rule. In order for legal case information to be useful it must be organized early on into rational cubbyholes that allow it to be vetted over time as more information confirms or denies the facts, and sorted under legal rubrics (issues of fact, law, procedure, evidence, etc.) so that case analysis and management can be optimized from the start.
Tinderbox allows us to simply jot notes down and figure them out later (a very useful feature for case file information that we cannot categorize on its face). But lawyers are trained and conditioned to quickly recognize issues of fact and law presented by a fact pattern such as Romero, and immediately begin the process of organizing relevant information in ways that will determine how the case is managed, what actions must be taken, their priority, and deadlines for performing them.
Summary Judgment (SJ) allows us to have the best of both worlds. The SJ outline provides a natural road map of how an experienced lawyer would likely sort the facts and information, from initial case intake straight through to case completion.
At the same time, SJ offers the flexibility of Tinderbox, allowing a lawyer to tailor the case management outline as needed, and to store information that is not readily categorized (e.g., simply in “Notes to File” or “Work Product”) until the lawyer understands the information better and can determine where it properly fits in the case.
In the next post we’ll see how SJ works in the Romero case.
[N.B. I recommend to my readers that they follow the parallel Romero case blog of Mark Bernstein (Eastgate Systems, Inc.), the developer of Tinderbox. The focus of Mark's blog is on the mapping features and uses of Tinderbox (which are incorporated in Summary Judgment™) for analyzing complex fact patterns that are unfolding over time.]
Copyright © 2009 Stephen M. Winnick, Esq. All rights reserved.
