Clarity Legal Software - Customer Spotlight
Julie Kiernan - Paralegal
Kiernan Personal Injury Attorneys PA
1630 Anderson Avenue Suite 400
P.O.Box 433
Buffalo, MN 55313

Julie, what kind of practice do you have?
We are a small, solo law firm.

What size is your practice and how many employees do you have?
I am the Business Manager & Paralegal. We also have a Administrative Assistant. At times we have a law clerk.

What technical setup do you have at your office (number of machines, etc)?
We have 3 mac-minis for desktops; one mini as a server, 24' iMac, Macbook and PBG4. iPhone, iPods, ScanSnap, projector, screen, and portable printers for printing.

What suggestions do you have for people using technology in their practice?
Get a Mac!

What bag of tricks or software do you use the most in your practice? Is there a special feature in any of the packages that you like the most?
We switched from PC/Timematters to Macs/Daylite; iLife, MS Office 2004 for Mac, DepoSmart and TrialSmart. We also use Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Pro, Quickbooks Pro (Windows), and Keynote.

Our firm spends alot of time using technology for trial presentation and organization of exhibits for trial. When we went solo in 1999, we decided to really invest in technology first and it has minimized our staffing needs. We have used legal case management from the start. We do miss Timematters, but we needed to switch to all Macs. Prior to that, we used Mac notebooks in trial.

Are there any special features in any of the packages listed above that you like the most?
I like Keynote for closing. It easily incorporates video clips, PDF exhibits and photos. I also do a lot with video depositions and photos within iLife and Quicktime Pro. DepoSmart works great for transcript organization and searches.

What advantages do you have over your competition as a result of the way you employ technology in your practice?
We are completely portable and have access to file information whenever we need it. We can quickly find anything either with Spotlight, DepoSmart, Adobe Acrobat, and DayLite. All trial exhibits are all scanned to pdf and bate stamped and indexed. This method works great at trial and really cuts down on the paper and files. All witness direct and cross examinations are on the computer. We can easily then take a copy of our client file from the server and scan anything else we need at the courthouse. Presentations are very professional looking.

What trends do you see in legal technology?
Hopefully more and better trial presentations. The jury likes multimedia presentations. PC users have been very slow to adapt and use technology in the courtroom or worse have had their presentations stall and not work. I believe the Mac and TrialSmart provides for a much more reliable presentation. Hopefully the courtrooms will adapt and provide better technology for us to connect to such that we do not have to bring everything ourselves (screen, projector, speaker etc) I would love to have a Smartboard or flat screen I could plug into. I also think the iPhone and the ability to sync everything will change the way we conduct business.

What technical challenges to do you face in your practice?
Legal case management software. None of the PC software is available on the Mac. Quickbooks Pro for Mac is supposedly not the same as Quickbooks Pro for Windows. I would like to convert accounting to the Mac, but have not for this reason.

What Clarity Legal Software products do you use?
Deposmart and TrialSmart.

What Clarity Legal Software product feature do you like best?
There are so many features in DepoSmart and TrialSmart. We have used Deposmart to import transcripts since the product was available. I simply ask the court reporter to email me .txt file and import it. The word index and search capabilities in DepoSmart are great! Tom appreciates the ability to quickly find deposition testimony for impeachment at trial. It is also a whole lot more convenient than the paper transcripts. We can sit at the table with our MacBooks and a legal pad.

What Clarity Legal Software product feature do you like best?
We like DepoSmart the best. I really appreciate the prompt and helpful customer service that Clarity Legal provides. Because their staff actually does trial presentation work, they know what we need and how to improve upon what is available. Of course, I love that the software was created to maximize and utilize all of the Macs capabilities but it's wonderful that is available for Windows and Linux also.