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Vancouver, BC - October 4, 2004 -- MasterFile Software North America Inc., today announced its breakthrough product, MasterFile. MasterFile is the affordable alternative to CaseMap®, Summation®, Concordance® and Worldox® that small and solo practices have been waiting for. By combining fact management, litigation support and document management in one system, MasterFile eliminates three systems reducing end-user complexity. MasterFile's fresh, new approach looks and feels just like using e-mail so users can be up and running within an hour. Its state-of-the-art, enterprise-class technology scales effortlessly to handle global firms and teams. Introductory pricing has been set at just US$395 for one user and US$995 for five, slashing litigation support and document management software costs by about 80% over the cost of integrating competitive products.
After seeing and reviewing MasterFile, David Bilinsky, Practice Management Advisor of the Law Society of British Columbia, past Co-Chair of the ABA TECHSHOW and current Chair of The Pacific Legal Technology Conference, said:
"MasterFile is an exciting new product that deserves a serious look if you're considering moving to electronic litigation evidence analysis and case strategy analysis. Scalable from small and solo firms to large enterprises, it is the first entrant in a new class of software that combines CaseMap, Concordance, Summation and document management akin to Worldox."
The new standard in easy to use fact management, litigation support and document management systems
"When we set out to design MasterFile we started with a clean slate. Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite for sound decision making and for the litigator the most important decision is the judge's decision," said Zainul Ebrahim, Vice President of Business Development at MasterFile. "Since the judge's decision flows from argument, it was clear that setting out and substantiating argument is what we had to focus on. Starting with argument and working backwards, we developed a broad suite of ground breaking innovations. We believe we've set the standard for ease of use in fact management, litigation support and document management systems and we've priced MasterFile affordably, specifically for the small or solo practitioner."
Breakthrough innovations -- exclusive to MasterFile:
- Three systems in one -- Document management, fact management and litigation support - puts all work product, evidentiary case documents and facts at the litigator's fingertips while eliminating the cost, support and training for multiple systems.
- Searching becomes browsing -- Unique evidence and work product views automatically keep documents categorized for ready reference by date, author, issue, document type, etc. Litigators, investigators and researchers can pinpoint any document -- evidentiary or work-product -- with literally just two or three mouse clicks.
- The industry's first Fact & Argument Drafting system -- A litigator or investigator can now actually set out and substantiate argument, directly referencing the evidence right down to the specific extract relied upon on, point by point.
- Risk assessment dashboard -- Unique colour-coded Fact Management views show at a glance how the case is shaping up, highlighting exposures and risk.
- Live, "by Issue" views -- See evidentiary documents, work product/work-in-progress, document extracts and facts all categorized by issue without printed reports.
- Powerful tools for exploring relationships -- Traverse the relationships and connections between facts, issues, players, places, etc. without the tedium of constantly opening and closing moded windows.
- Extract Repository -- A unique tool that goes beyond simple "notes" or "annotations" and lets the litigator or researcher see at a glance what's important in any transcript, document, authority, etc., saving hours of re-reading or reviewing "note by note".
- Doc-link technology -- One simple, easy to understand method to create live, descriptive references to documents, extracts and facts. Doc-links eliminate the chaos of rudimentary "evidence links" hidden and scattered throughout a database. Doc-links also eliminate e-mailing documents as file attachments which compromises confidentiality and clogs e-mail.
- Optional OCR/PDF Evidence Cruncher -- OCR document images and convert these or electronic documents into industry standard, image over text, PDF format. Stamp documents with Bates page numbers, even electronic documents converted to PDF, during production. Production format can be paper or electronic, as individual files or as a MasterFile briefcase, or in PDF or native format, with production history maintained.
- Express Load -- One innovative tool to bulk load evidentiary documents (in PDF format, native format or both) or bulk load existing work product documents, case by case, allowing incremental migration into document management and/or litigation support.
- On-line/off-line mobile support and full bi-directional synchronization -- MasterFile requires just one server to go mobile over the Internet, unlike integrating competitive products which can require upto six. MasterFile is the first solution that lets mobile/remote users, teams, offices, co-counsel or clients work on-line or off-line on the entire case without restrictions: facts, argument, work product, work in progress, evidentiary documents, transcripts, authorities -- everything. Automated, enterprise-class, server-to-server replication allows global scalability with near real-time data at remote offices.
- Security and encryption -- Unmatched, robust security using 128 bit private/public key for authentication, communication encryption, and automatic, on the fly, encryption of database information and documents -- even on notebooks. Important features for practitioners in shared offices, mobile users or global teams.
Mr. Ebrahim commented further on security, "We take counsels' client confidentiality commitments seriously and MasterFile delivers robust, easy to use, security. In fact, we were very surprised to discover some leading document management and litigation support products either have weak or non-existent security to keep individual documents confidential, let alone encrypt them."
When asked why Lotus Notes database technology was chosen for MasterFile, Mr. Ebrahim explained, "Notes is a unique technology specifically designed for qualitative information, like case knowledge. However, with over 145,000,000 e-mail users, it's not surprising most people think of Lotus Notes as an e-mail system and assume, incorrectly, that to use a Notes application you have to use Notes e-mail. You don't. We only use the Notes database technology and there's no need to change your e-mail system. MasterFile and Notes work just fine with Outlook like hundreds of other applications. Notes is affordable, easy to install, maintain, and use -- even for small organizations without IT staff. A flash video on our website even walks you through a server installation, step by step, in a few minutes. Notes is proven -- in fact there are actually more Notes e-mail users than Microsoft but most people don't realize this because it's rarely in the news suffering from security breaches."
MasterFile introductory pricing is just US$395 for single users and US$995 for 5 users
Introductory pricing for MasterFile has been set at just US$395 for single users and US$995 for 5, positioning MasterFile as the only affordable alternative to products such as CaseMap, Concordance, Summation or Worldox for small and solo practices. Lotus Notes is available in single user quantities, including server software if needed, for US$99 per user.
Comprehensive product tours and flash video presentations, white papers and articles, product information, as well as 30 day evaluation copies of MasterFile are all available from www.masterfile.biz.
Contact Information
Zainul Ebrahim
MasterFile Software North America Inc.
e-mail:
Phone: 1.604.331.0535
web: http://www.masterfile.biz
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