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Make your case with a digital brief: an electronic brief can provide a clear, time-saving map of your case - a more user-friendly option than an old-fashioned paper copy. Here's how to make the most of this technology.

Article Excerpt
As digital technology has become more common and less expensive, the use of digital briefs is growing. Unlike paper briefs, they can include any type of exhibit that can be saved on a CD-ROM, such as photographs, audio files, or clips from videotaped depositions--all in one neat package. Because a digital brief can encompass all these separate elements, it may be more persuasive than its paper-bound counterpart.

The technology that makes digital briefs especially useful is the hyperlink. One of the most basic elements of the Internet, hyperlinks allow the viewer to move easily from one site to another, or from one part of an electronic document to another. It was only a matter of time before computer-savvy litigators started putting them to use. You can make it easier for judges to review and navigate through your briefs by using hyperlinks to highlight specific pages, quotations, and exhibits.

Hyperlinked briefs are quickly becoming popular in appellate cases, and they offer exciting new prospects for pretrial practice, settlement conferences, mediations, arbitrations, and other aspects of litigation. Making the most of this technology is surprisingly simple and affordable.

In their most basic form, electronic briefs are digital versions of pleadings that have been converted from word processing programs to portable document format (PDF), readable with Adobe Reader, which can be downloaded from the Internet for free. Federal courts and many state courts increasingly require a PDF copy of every brief. PDF conversion is easy and inexpensive. All you need is Adobe Acrobat or another software program that converts certain file types to PDF.

Even simple PDFs offer advantages over paper briefs, beginning with size. A single CD-ROM can hold several thousand PDF pages, making it much easier for a judge to carry your brief, attached exhibits, and relevant cases from place to place. A PDF that is converted from a word-processing program also is easily searchable for phrases or citations, unlike paper briefs.

Simple e-briefs can be uploaded over the Internet; federal courts allow electronic filing through the PACER system. But digital briefs with hyperlinks should be burned onto a CD-ROM instead, because it is difficult to keep the hyperlinks intact when transmitting them over the Internet. Most courts will accept a CD-ROM in addition to the hard copy of the brief.

Digital briefs with hyperlinks are somewhat more complicated--and much more useful--than those without them. A judge can simply click on a hyperlink to review the supporting exhibits and case law. A hyperlink can make the relevant information more accessible than a simple reference to an attached exhibit or a cited case, because it can open a document at a specific page and even highlight specific sections of that page.

If your brief includes a video segment, you can include only the portion of a videotaped deposition that you cite, so the judge does not have to fast-forward through it to find the important part.

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