Yearly Archives: 2018

A Day in the Life of an Ipro Trainer/Consultant

Ipro Trainers

Ipro’s Trainers and Consultants are a division of the Professional Services group. Our team is comprised of professionals from a variety of backgrounds in the legal industry. Together, we’ve worked in just about every space within the legal, Litigation Support, and eDiscovery business including law firms, corporate legal departments, service providers, independent business owners and trial consultants. Every member of the team brings their expertise and insight to assist you. You’ll find that we’re a talented group who share a common passion for problem-solving and a deep commitment to client satisfaction.

Day to day, we’re tackling any number of tasks that could include creating customized workflows for specific clients, troubleshooting, building templates, conducting deployment and training sessions, administering certification exams, advising our users of best practices for taking advantage of our software and working with our product development team to deliver feedback on new products and features.

Of course, collaborating with our clients is priority number one. However, we also work on a variety of projects that range from the design of training and deployment agendas to software testing for our product development team to development and documentation of workflow solutions. And we especially love to get our hands ‘dirty’ and assist clients with software implementations as well as data and server migrations. Our software is very powerful and can be utilized in many different ways. Our job is to ensure our clients understand the best workflows to help them win their cases!

We take great pride in the fact that we are often advocates for you, our clients. We know the challenges you face because we’ve been in your shoes and have the tools to research and provide customized solutions using Ipro products.

To learn more about our services and products, visit our website.

3 Tips to Hold the Audience’s Attention During Your Next Trial Presentation- Part 3

Ipro tips

In the previous installment, we reviewed the power of repetition to capture the jury’s attention. If you missed it, be sure to check it out. In this next and final post in the series, we’ll touch on a few more powerful techniques you can use in the courtroom to take your presentation to the next level and be the attorney the jury remembers.

Use Attention Getters
They’re called attention getters for a reason. You don’t want to bore your audience by talking for a long time, especially with a heavy topic, so try changing things up throughout your time in front of them.
When working with a jury, litigators cannot interact with their audience like presenters in normal presentations can, but the attention and focus strategies for other presentation types can still apply. Just tailor them for trial.
Use the following presentation mechanisms to put a little variety and spice into your presentations and examinations.
• Tell an engaging story
• Use a rhetorical question that makes them think more critically about the case
• State a shocking or interesting fact the audience may not be familiar with
• Use a quote from a prominent figure or even something from your case that illustrates your point and sets the mood
• Show an enthralling clip from a video testimony
• Use a prop or creative visual aid that you can hold or use to demonstrate what you’re talking about

Conclusion
Think about what you would want a presenter to do to keep you engaged during trial. What techniques would work best to not only maintain your attention but help you understand the many moving parts of a given case?

Fortunately, the days of file boxes of boring paper exhibits are gone (almost). It’s now possible to use technology combined with compelling storytelling techniques to present your argument to the jury in a way that connects in this modern world. Now, who doesn’t want that?

Learn more about TrialDirector 360 and how it can help you by visiting our website.

3 Tips to Hold the Jury’s Attention During Your Next Trial Presentation- Part 2

In the previous installment, we discussed the initial approach to capturing the jury’s attention. If you missed it, be sure to check it out.

In this next post, we’ll go over a few more important aspects for not only engaging the jury, but best practices to ensure they understand and remember the critical pieces of your argument so when it comes to deliberation, the outcome is in your client’s favor.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
In any presentation, if you want your audience to remember what you’re talking about, one of the best tools in your arsenal is to say and show the thing you want them to remember several times.
There’s quite a bit of science to back up the power of repetition. Basically, every time you let your audience see, hear and, best of all, feel what you want, you strengthen the synapses firing in their brain around that thing.
You should know what you want your audience to focus on well before trial starts. In fact, you should decide what that thing is very near to the case outset and then build your strategy around it. Doing this not only helps with knowing what you want your jury to focus on, but it can also help with an organized and efficient trial prep process.

Don’t forget the tools that help you with repetition. With trial presentation software, you can quickly display items you want to keep fresh in the jury’s mind any time you want. No digging through folders and paper to try to find the right document or image. Imagine simply typing a number into your laptop and up pops an important document, image, or video you want the jury to see.

Then, remember you can leave the document or image up. Think about how valuable it is having an image on a large screen for a long period of time as you’re relaying the critical parts of your argument. As you speak, the jury can look and see exactly what you’re talking about. You can zoom in on the image, mark it to focus the jury’s eyes on where you want them to go, and even have the image show side by side with something else that you want to show. You can harness the power of video tools to make an impact on the jury. Impeaching a witness? Imagine the jury’s reaction when you question the witness about signing a document, who then answers ambiguously, but then you produce a video clip of their deposition where they contradict the answer they just provided. Pair that up with the Tear out feature of their signature on the document in question. The jury won’t forget what they saw or you.

Later, if you find the need or wish to drive your point even further, all you need to do is type in that number you assigned again, and the document or image appears just like it did the first time. We cannot overstate how powerful it is using video tools, document management and trial presentation software to supplement your presentations.

Found these tips helpful? Tune in next week for the final tip in this series.

If you’re ready to take your trial presentation to the next level, read more about TrialDirector 360 here.

3 Tips to Hold the Jury’s Attention During Your Next Trial Presentation- Part 1

With the internet at our fingertips, it seems like people, in general, can’t hold their attention as long as they used to. Most can’t go a few seconds without pulling out their phone to check the latest updates, pics, or videos. The short attention span reality doesn’t change when someone is selected for jury duty, so it’s the attorney’s job to be as engaging as those phone notifications waiting for them when court is over. As courtroom jurors called on to decide fate, where they’re expected to sit in a jury box and listen to hours of presentation and testimony, holding their attention to key facts, is critical. And let’s be real, it’s rare any of them to want to be there, let alone take the initiative to focus on the task at hand for an extended period.

Of course, any given case is important to the people involved with it directly, but to the people coming in on the jury, it’s not really part of their world. Jurors have their own worries and life issues that don’t stop just because they were selected to be part of a case. So how do you get and keep a jury hanging on your words? General presentation tips are out there, but we want to talk about things that work particularly well when in the courtroom, especially when using trial presentation software.

Put Yourself in the Jury’s Shoes
Yes, the jury has a civic duty to listen to the facts of the case and issue a decision on the outcome, but that doesn’t mean you automatically have their undivided attention. So, what can you do to deliver the information you need the jury to hear, understand, and absorb to persuade them to agree with your argument?

Trial is all about persuasion, but it’s also a balancing act of maintaining legalities, stating the facts, not irritating the judge, and ultimately crafting a passionate compelling presentation that intricately and definitively proves your argument.

One tactic to crafting this compelling presentation is understanding where your jury is coming from in terms of the case. Representing a pharmaceutical case where the testimonies and information shared will be heavily science based may lead you to be a teacher to your jury. How do you help them understand the importance of the details and jargon without zoning out? How do you keep them engaged, informed, and interested? How do you ensure they understand without being condescending?

If you are covering a criminal case involving an accident, perhaps using a technique to engage the jury’s emotional core is the way to go. Help them relate to how the situation would impact their lives if it happened to them or a loved one. This works regardless of whether you’re prosecuting or defending.

Likeability is important. Remember jurors will start forming an opinion on you from their first interaction, so wooing them begins in the jury selection process. From the beginning, jurors will gravitate to who the better storyteller is. They will engage with who speaks their language best. They will believe who best presents the facts of the case in a way they understand. Wow them with visuals, videos, and dynamic presentations. Entertain while educating. An entertained audience is an engaged once.

Found these tips helpful? Tune in next week for the second tip in this series.
If you’re ready to take your trial presentation to the next level, read more about TrialDirector 360 here.

How to Get the Most Out of Product Training

Ipro Training and Certification

You or your company just purchased a new software product, and it’s now your task to learn how to use it. To tackle the training, first decide which one of these learning styles are you?

The button pusher: I don’t have time for training, so I just jump in, push buttons and see what happens, clicking around until hopefully, I get the desired result.

Instructions exist for a reason: Everything I need to know is in this fifty-page manual, so I’ll spend the next several days (or weeks!) reading every page and hope by the end it all makes sense.

Sign me up! I want the visuals and ability to ask my questions from an expert, so an in-person or web-delivered training class is my speed.

Hope for the best: Ignore the new software and hope no one asks me how to use it.

Now, depending on what you’re doing, any of those (except the last one, let’s be honest) could be an effective method, but when it comes to discovery and trial software, is it really a time saver to guess your way through a new product? Or spends hours plowing through manuals with no applicable knowledge? Are you maximizing the technology’s full capabilities? Is it more frustrating than helpful?

Of course, not all software providers offer training, but here at Ipro, we want our customers to be efficient, confident, and satisfied, to get the most out of their product investment.

If you want to be the Sign me up! person (and you should), here are a few tips to getting the most out of your product training session.

Come prepared to learn. Sounds obvious, but very often it can be challenging to tune out the work waiting for us and clear the mental space to absorb new information. Time to turn off those email notifications for a few hours.

Share your knowledge and business usage. Being able to discuss how you use or will use the software in your business can help the trainer ensure you get the information you need. As an added bonus, you may be helping someone else in the room think about their own application of the product. Win-win.

Consider how you learn best. At Ipro, we offer several methods to get the training you need from our online Ipro Community to webinars to in-person training both at our location or yours. Take a moment to assess the best way for you to get the training. Maybe it’s coming to an Ipro location to remove office distractions. Or maybe it’s better to schedule training at your location to include more key players. Maybe you learn well using online tools and a webinar would suit your needs. Setting yourself up on the right platform is one sure way to succeed.

Take notes. In addition to the material a trainer may provide, be sure you are taking specific notes on how the product or solution works in your environment. Keep track during the training to be sure to ask how a section may be applicable to your work. Never be afraid to ask questions. That’s what training is all about.

Following these simple but important tips can help ensure you get the most out of your time investment when attending product training.

To find the right Ipro product training for you, including the all-new TrialDirector 360, click here.

Dean Brown Named CEO of Ipro Tech

TEMPE, AZ., July 18, 2018 – ParkerGale Capital announced today that it has appointed Dean Brown as Chief Executive Officer of Ipro Tech, a legal software company focused on providing customers with industry-leading software and services solutions ranging from discovery to trial. ParkerGale, a technology-focused private equity firm based in Chicago, IL, acquired Ipro Tech in 2017.

Mr. Brown is an accomplished leader with a 25-year track record of working with high-growth software and service companies. He brings a collaborative leadership style, emphasizing both operational experience and a passion for customer-care. Most recently, Mr. Brown served as the Chief Product and Technology Officer for Open Education, a leading international education technology company. Prior to Open Education, Mr. Brown co-founded and led a technology startup, NextU, leading it to a successful acquisition by Open Education. Previously, Mr. Brown held senior leadership roles with Pearson and Thomson, focusing on technology and growth.

“We conducted an exhaustive search to ensure we could find someone to take the helm as well as grow the company to the next stage,” said Ryan Milligan, Partner at ParkerGale Capital. “We are confident Dean is a great fit and are excited about his executing our shared vision for Ipro.”

Mr. Brown is motivated by a few key things, including building and developing strong teams, delivering world-class software solutions to customers and thoughtful execution.

“I’m incredibly excited to join the Ipro team,” said Mr. Brown. “Ipro has an almost 30-year reputation for outstanding focus on the customer and for providing high-quality discovery and trial software that drives a tremendous ROI for customers. The company has been investing heavily in the next generation of products, and I’m thrilled to join at a time when Ipro can bring such value to our customers.”

ABOUT IPRO TECH, LLC
Founded in 1989, Ipro is a global leader in the development of advanced eDiscovery and legal analytics software solutions. With the addition of the industry leader in trial presentation, TrialDirector 360, Ipro provides solutions from discovery to trial.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Pausing Jobs and How This Could Affect Deduplication in eCapture

Here’s a common situation that could cause problems when pausing jobs and a tip to prevent it.

When it comes to pausing jobs you should know the possible impact this could create with deduplication. In general, pausing a job will not impact anything with the job, but this can change depending on other jobs that are running or will be run. Here is an example of something that can happen:

We start a job called Job A. Then we pause Job A and start another job (Job B) in the same custodian.

We are de-duplicating at the custodian level.

Let’s say Job A has processed 10 files before it was paused, one of those files was found in Job B > Job B will list the item as a duplicate of the item in Job A.

Let’s let Job B finish and unpause Job A and let it finish

The last item in Job A was a duplicate of an item in Job B > Job A will deduplicate it out, keeping the item from Job B

In this case, both jobs have an item that was deduplicated from the other. Whichever job discovers the item first will be the reference, and all other jobs will mark their items as duplicates, even if one job finishes before the other or if a job is paused.

Starting jobs

 

Let’s go over another scenario:

Let’s start Job A and let it get through the same 10 documents again, then pause it

Now we will start Job B and let it finish. One of Job B’s items is a duplicate of one of the items in Job A that is done with processing and gets deduplicated

Now we delete Job A. What happens to the item in Job B? It still is marked as a duplicate, and will still be deduplicated.

Now we are in a problem where an item is getting marked as a duplicate despite the original job being deleted. Normally if we delete Job A before starting Job B, this wouldn’t cause a problem, but because the jobs were active at the same time, the jobs are now “linked” by their duplicate items, and deleting one job means potentially re-running the other.

Knowing this ahead of time in the event you need to pause a job will ensure nothing important to your review gets missed.

For more tips be sure to check out the Ipro Community page or visit Iprotech.com.

No “Bull” in the Courtroom with TrialDirector 360

A high profile wealthy man is found shot to death in his home. The scene appears suspiciously staged to investigating police and in short time, the victim’s wife, a woman not known for her warmth and kindness, is immediately charged with his murder. Her alibi is slippery, and the evidence is stacking up. Her only hope is securing the best defense team possible.

Enter Dr. Jason Bull, the founder of Trial Analysis Corporation on the fictional courtroom drama, Bull. He and his team of experts employ psychology, human intuition, and high tech to influence trial outcomes in favor of their clients. His process starts with jury selection and the ability to assess if the potential jurors will lean his way. He does this in the typical way, through attorney questioning, but also using a mirror jury with palm sensors to gauge response and shift the narrative during trial. Impressive use of technology, albeit, tech that either doesn’t exist or would be extremely expensive to utilize, but that’s not the point of this post.

The typical Bull episode begins with Dr. Bull and his team being hired by a client and deciding based on the facts if they should accept. The premise of the previously referenced episode was about proving the wife’s innocence when public opinion had already convicted her. Dr. Bull goes through his usual jury manipulations, but what stood out during the episode was with all the technology he uses in the initial process to develop a strategy, once they got to the courtroom, technology disappeared.

When it came time for the defense attorney to stun the courtroom with the proof of his client’s innocence, he lifted a simple clipped stack of papers and told the jurors what it contained. Papers? Really? Is this 2018 or an episode of Perry Mason? Where’s the fancy graphics? Where’s the video? For a show so heavily focused on technology, it was a strange dichotomy. Let’s look at how impactful that trial argument could have been with the use of stellar trial presentation software like TrialDirector 360.

Lawyer showing evidence to the jury

First up: the accused provides a false alibi to the police the night of the murder because she fears her true whereabouts would be more incriminating. When she’s deposed, she lies again, until Dr. Bull and his team confront her and learn she was really seeing a divorce attorney that night. During trial, she’s asked about it, as is the police officer who took her statement, but how much more powerful for the prosecution could that have been with a deposition transcript replay for the juror’s ears. With TrialDirector 360’s video and transcript management, the exact piece of the interview could be played back for the jury’s consideration. Granted, it may have worked out initially in the prosecution’s favor until the defense had an opportunity to explain.

The smoking gun (spoiler alert!) of this episode was the discovery of a website and paper trail that showed the husband sought out a hitman via the dark web and planned and paid for his own execution. The motive? He had gambled away his family’s fortune and knew that suicide would prevent the payout of the 25 million dollar life insurance policy. This information was verbally relayed to the wife during her testimony rather than bringing it up on a screen to show the jury the proof and evidence of the existence of this website. Using TrialDirector 360’s tear out feature, the defense could highlight the exact information proving their client’s innocence. Dun dun dun! It’s hard to argue with something that’s right in front of your face.

In another powerful moment, the prosecution played a recording the deceased left for his wife, seemingly pleading for his life, the prosecution contending that he knew she wanted him dead. The defense, however, after learning the events that really took place, explained to the court how it was actually a suicide note, but never took the opportunity to play the recording again, reframing it with the newfound facts to sway the jury closer to the truth. Imagine the impact to the jury to visually see the website, the paper trail and the voice recording securing beyond a shadow of a doubt the wife’s innocence.

The outcomes always work out in Dr. Bull’s favor as many fictional shows do, but in a real courtroom, it’s critical to maximize the impact of your argument, and ultimately obtain the desired verdict, by implementing trial technology that actually does exist.

Want to take your trial presentation to the next level?

Click here to request a demo.

TrialDirector 360 is here!

Trial Director 360

Tempe, Ariz., June 25, 2018 — Ipro Tech, LLC, a worldwide leader in eDiscovery solutions, announced today the release of the all-new TrialDirector 360, the most widely-used trial presentation application available. TrialDirector 360 streamlines the trial presentation process with powerful tools to professionally present case evidence in court.

“We’ve made an already proven and robust product even better while keeping the features our clients love about TrialDirector” said Derek Miller, VP of Product Management.

In addition to the powerful and well-known presentation features, the new TrialDirector 360 includes:

• New database structure to increase reliability and performance

• Updated user interface with customized layouts to fit your workflow

• Ability to share your case and collaborate with others during your trial preparation

• Transcript Management tool with advanced video editing options, including redactions

• Bulk update exhibits in minutes with dynamic labels and resequencing options

• Easily compare designations by party with options to edit video clips on-the-fly

TrialDirector 360 is loaded with new features that simplify the entire trial prep workflow for legal teams. Visit our TrialDirector 360 page to learn more or email [email protected]

Attending ILTACON 18? Click here to schedule a private demo of TrialDirector 360 or any Ipro product.

About Ipro Tech, LLC

Founded in 1989, Ipro is a global leader in the development of advanced eDiscovery software solutions. With the addition of the industry leader in trial presentation, TrialDirector 360, Ipro provides solutions from discovery to trial.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Moving your Authorization Server

Today’s Tech Tip comes from a most asked question received on our Ipro Community.

Moving your Authorization Server

From time to time we get requests on assisting with moving an authorization server. There are many reasons why someone might want to do this, but if you forget to do some small steps, it will result in having to call Ipro Support to clear everything for you before you can reauthorize. This also affects moving serial numbers for Classic products between machines as well. So to help make things easier the next time you need to move your authorization, here is how to do it without needing to call in.

Online Authorizations
On the ORIGINAL authorization machine, open the Ipro Auth Manager. Note for eScan-IT and Copy+ this can be accessed manually by going to the install location
Click on Authorization Management > Remote Management > Deactivate
Install the Ipro Auth Manager on your NEW authorization machine and input your ClientID and Serial number from the other machine.
If it is already installed, click on Authorization Management > Remote Management > Activate
Ensure you get a Valid status in your Auth Manager

Offline Authorizations
Install the Ipro Auth Manager on your NEW authorization machine and input your ClientID and Serial number from the other machine.
Open the Ipro Auth Manager on the NEW machine
Click on Authorization Management > DAT Management > Export
Save the DAT file somewhere on your computer
Email [email protected] with that DAT file and request for it to be authorized. You should receive a new DAT file from them
Go back to the Ipro Auth Manager and click Authorization Management > DAT Management > Import
Select the new DAT file you received from [email protected]
Ensure you see the Valid status in your Auth Manager

For dongle users, the only thing to remember is to move the dongle from the old machine to the new machine. If you for whatever reason can no longer access the Ipro Auth Manager from the ORIGINAL machine and you are using an online authorization, please contact Ipro Technical Support to have us clear your account manually on our end so you can reauthorize on the new machine.

For more tips, be sure to join our Ipro Community.