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general use and desirable features of document control databases [PP70]
is discussed, usually in the context of civil litigation, in
Broderick (1990), Broderick and Adrian (1991), Levin (1992),
and the various papers in the ALSM Proceedings (1992), particularly those by
Rubenstein and Levin. Sources such as these provide valuable but non-
systematic suggestions as to desirable features and potential problems with
litigation support systems. Lodge (1990), Siemer and Land (1989) and Staudt
and Keane (1992) provide more systematic approaches.
Irrespective of the software used, substantial expertise must be used to
design a document control database appropriate to any major piece of
litigation, particularly in relation to the choice of field structures and the
choice of subject indexing methods and terms. Choices made at this stage will
affect the future utility of the database. For example, the database used in
the Chamberlain inquiry could not be used effectively to retrieve all
references to the smaller blanket in the tent because it was not anticipated
at the outset that there might be any need to distinguish between the
blankets: Crosbie (1988).
Although each piece of litigation requires a customised design, Staudt and
Keane (1992) analyse the content of document control databases according to
the following headings:
From the lawyer's perspective, the bibliographic data or objective
data that is most commonly encountered includes:
o Date (including estimated and imprecise dates);
o Names (author, meeting attendees, direct recipients, copy
recipients and persons or entities mentioned in the document); and
o Title (from RE: and SUBJECT: one liners to missing and
uninformative titles enhanced by the coders).
The objective data to maintain control and conduct basic inventories
of the document collection include:
o Page number(s);
o Document number(s);
o Attachment relationships;
o Source data, including who produced the document to whom;
o Document type;
o Condition of the document; and
o Coder and date coded.
Legal usage information traces the document's utilisation through the
entire case life cycle. Typical uses include:
o Responds to interrogatories, document demands or counts in a
complaint;
o Exhibit numbers (in depositions, hearing and trial); and
o Transcript cross-references (page and line numbers).
Subjective data ranges from a summary of the document and the
application of index terms to lawyer's notes and legal issue codes.
(Staudt and Keane (1992), Chapter 5).
The choices involved in determining field types and structures related to the
first three of these matters take the authors a Chapter to explain, and the
choices relating to 'subjective data' (taxonomies, thesauri, law or fact based
indexing, personnel etc) take a further Chapter (Staudt and Keane (1992)
Chapters 5 and 7).
The point of reciting these lists is to indicate that a high degree
of professionalism in the design and use of document control
databases is required before they are likely to be of
maximum utility. It is not simply a question of purchasing [PP71]
the most appropriate software, important though that is.
Evaluation criteria for software
The most comprehensive general evaluation criteria are the Draft Guidelines
for Litigation Support Software developed by the Litigation Support Working
Group of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center (Staudt and Keane (1992)
Appendix C). It is a checklist against which the ABA tests software 'to insure
that the products offered to its members are suitable, of high quality and
effective for law practice'. The Guidelines contain over 400 evaluation
criteria grouped into the following five broad categories:
(i) Data conversion (data entry; batch entry; data export/import; data
editing; data conversion performance);
(ii) Data structures (multiple databases; index structures; field types;
order of fields; data base design skills; data base creation; data
base re-build);
(iii) Queries (operators; proximity connectors; word manipulation; field
usage; searching transcripts; search formulation; search sets; save
search; search performance/response time ranges);
(iv) Output (user interface; ease of use; display);
(v) Reports (construct/modify formats; sorting; ease of use; performance).
Staudt and Keane (1992) also provide a draft Request for Proposal for
Litigation Support Consulting Services (Appendix D), a useful checklist of the
types of items which should go in any 'request for tender' for consultants to
provide litigation support.
Programs in use for document control
As with programs for handling transcript, we have found a very wide range of
programs used for creation of document control databases in Australia. We have
not attempted to evaluate the features of these programs against desired
features for document control. The information on usage provided here is not
systematic, being drawn from our own discussions with a limited range of users
of the software, and from information provided by only some of the suppliers
of software mentioned. In some cases, it is possible that the organisations
mentioned have purchased the software but do not make active use of it for
litigation support. Figures on the number of Australian installations claimed
for software are from LMCS (1992).
TITAN is used by the Rothwells Task Force as a document control system for the
retrieval of between 2 and 3 million pieces of paper associated with the
Rothwells corporate collapse. Approximately 300,000 documents have been
summarised at the individual level, whereas the rest have been summarised as
part of 15,000 to 20,000 files of documents. No documents were captured as
full text. TITAN's document control facilities will also be used in the
courtroom in the Rothwells trial to provide an interface to the imaging
system, as discussed below in 5.4, and will also be used to generate the
exhibit list.
LIS, the litigation support component of JURIS, used by the South
Australian courts, provides document control features which are
integrated with its transcript retrieval features. However,
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