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Corporate Case Study
Villari, Brandes & Kline, P.C. Lawyers
Lawyers grab jurors’ attention with visual
evidence
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Personal injury lawyers Peter Villari
and Paul Brandes, of the Villari, Brandes & Kline law firm, have
tried everything to keep jurors’ attention in the courtroom – voice
inflection, moving around the courtroom and even dropping books on
the floor. “In our birth-trauma and general medical malpractice
litigation, we found an increasingly greater need to be visual with
the jury because, frankly, they fall asleep on you,” explains Peter
Villari. To make information more visual, Villari and Brandes tried
using basic blackboards, poster boards and slide presentations. “But
we kept thinking, ‘This just doesn’t seem to be doing what we want.
There must be something else out there’,” says Villari.
That’s when a company that makes trial-presentation software
introduced Villari and Brandes to the SMART BoardTM interactive
whiteboard.
“They brought one into our firm and showed us what it can do, and
we thought, ‘Whoa, this is terrific.’ We were surprised at how
reasonable it was to purchase, too. Initially, when we asked what
the cost was, we were ready to cringe. But it’s not expensive.”
That was five years ago, and Villari says since then they keep
finding more ways to integrate the product into their work. Now,
they bring a projector, a laptop, the SMART Board interactive
whiteboard and a printer whenever they are in the courtroom. |
“We started to use it because we liked that we and our experts could
interact with data right in front of a jury. You can take a volume of
evidence, put it on CD-ROMs and get at it instantly,” says Villari.
“We believe with the SMART Board interactive whiteboard we’ve
overcome the biggest challenge faced by lawyers,” says Villari. “Juries
are absolutely on the edge of their seats watching the information come
to life. Evidence is no longer just heard. It’s heard and seen.”
Recently, Villari and Brandes used the interactive whiteboard in a
malpractice trial involving a blood disorder doctors didn’t detect. The
defendant claimed not to have seen a particular type of broken blood
cell in a smear test. “But our experts said there were numerous cells of
this type on the slide. The big dispute was whether the cells were
there,” explains Villari.
At the trial, Villari and Brandes presented a photograph of the blood
smear slide on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.
| “We called the defendant to the witness
stand and started cross-examining him. Then we brought him from the
witness stand to the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, gave him a
pen and asked him to circle all of the broken red blood cells he
could see. He started circling and circling and circling. He circled
so many that he blurted out, ‘Wow, I never realized there were so
many of these cells.’ At that point, we had the defendant initial
the image on the screen. We printed it, marked it as an exhibit,
offered it into evidence and within five minutes we were in the
judge’s chambers settling the case.” The interactive whiteboard
also helps the pair focus on their roles in the courtroom. “Rather
than having co-counsel fumbling around with the laptop, the person
actually asking the questions can stand at the SMART Board
interactive whiteboard and bring up the documents that he wants.
Co-counsel sits at the table actively listening to questions,
writing notes and more effectively participating without being
distracted,” explains Brandes.
Outside the courtroom, the firm also uses the SMART Board
interactive whiteboard daily in their office. Primarily, they use a
software package called Needles that allows them to pull up cases
and instantly access case notes, documents, medical records and
expert reports. They use the SMART Board interactive whiteboard to
review cases and to prepare for trial. Often, they bring experts in
to review the evidence they will present on the interactive
whiteboard during trial.
Villari and Brandes say they continually find new applications to aid
them in their work and are always introducing the technology to new
people in the legal profession. “Juries need to be visual today to stay
alert and interested in a trial, and the SMART Board interactive
whiteboard makes that possible,” says Villari.
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