Clarity Legal Software - Customer Spotlight
Brad Seidel, Partner
Nix,Patterson, and Roach L.L.P.
205 Linda Drive
Daingerfield, Texas 75638
http://www.nixlawfirm.com

Darin, what kind of practice do you have?
Nix, Patterson, & Roach LLP represents plaintiffs across the country in personal injury, intellectual property, false claims act, securities fraud, class action and other complex litigation. My practice is devoted almost exclusively to securities fraud and other class action litigation.

What size is your practice and how many employees do you have?
NPR has 26 attorneys and over 50 support staff in six offices in three states.

What technical setup do you have at your office (number of machines, etc)?
All attorneys and staff have state of the art desktop computers or laptops. Our staff predominately operates Macs, while our attorneys use an even balance of Macs and PCs.

What suggestions do you have for people using technology in their practice?
Learn the capabilities of your hardware and software to maximize the efficiencies that can be achieved with the technology. Then, continue to explore new technologies as they become available. By properly leveraging your technology, you will save time, increase preparedness, and decrease demands on you and your staff.

What bag of tricks or software do you use the most in your practice?
The software packages we consistently use on a daily basis include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat. For litigation specific applications, we use DepoSmart and various web-based document (discovery) management systems. Of these applications, the feature I like the most is the DepoSmart realtime capabilities.

What advantages do you have over your competition as a result of the way you employ technology in your practice.
Our use of technology allows us to efficiently manage and master massive volumes of production and other information, which allows our attorneys to be consistently prepared for depositions, hearings, and trials.

What trends do you see in legal technology?
One trend that is beginning to catch on is the paperless office. A couple of years ago, this seemed like a foreign concept for a law office. However, with the broad implementation of electronic filing systems in state and federal courts, the idea of a paperless law office has become a reality.

What technical challenges to do you face in your practice?
Perhaps the biggest technical challenge I face in my practice is the limited offerings of legal software for Macs. It is refreshing to see that Clarity Legal is filling that gap with exceptional, well-supported products.

What Clarity Legal Software products do you use?
DepoSmart, Trial Smart, and Clarity SQL Server.

What Clarity Legal Software product feature do you like best?
If I had to pick just one feature of a Clarity Legal Software product that I liked best, I would chose DepoSmart’s realtime capabilities. Clarity Legal Software has made the realtime feature virtually effortless to use—I have found that I can consistently connect to a court reporter much easier and quicker than my peers who use programs such as LiveNote.