|
|
One of MasterFile's most important and unique features is the ability to let you set out and substantiate your argument or thesis, point by point. Why? Because at its heart, making your case is about setting out and proving the facts related to each issue with concrete argument, substantiated by critical extracts from evidentiary documents.
This critical requirement has never before existed in litigation software and so in this article we'd like to share effective strategies, for organizing material and setting out the argument itself, we've learned, developed and refined from real cases argued with MasterFile.
If you're not familiar with MasterFile's concepts and MasterFile's doc-link technology, we suggest you first review the MasterFile Quick Start Concepts and Facts and Argument videos as well as this related article which discusses MasterFile's doc-link technology, to fully benefit from the strategies and techniques made here.
Here's what we'll cover in this article:
The Argument Toolkit
Lets first summarize what's needed to set out an argument, and then we'll focus on strategies to use these features effectively.
Developing and setting out argument is an "intellectual exercise" and therefore are no hard and fast rules. Nevertheless, in general setting out an argument requires methods to:
- collect all the evidence and facts related to an issue,
- to substantiate those facts from the evidence, and
- set out your position relying on the facts and evidence.
What are needed are "power tools" to assist us with these mechanical tasks -- analogous to power tools which assist us with physical tasks, such cutting, bending, etc. -- but without imposing a rigid "technology based solution" that would shackle creativity and our thought processes.
MasterFile's unique blend of features were specifically designed to let you accomplishing this one task, fluidly, effortlessly. For example:
- Doc-links let you reference key evidence and you can add doc-links to existing argument when you uncover evidence during your document review or when you're drafting argument and need to substantiate a point.
- Views let you instantly pinpoint specific documents or extracts of key evidence with just 2-3 clicks and these views are used while creating doc-links so the task of both locating substantiating evidence and creating a doc-link to is one operation.
- Unique text fields allow you to draft and format passages of your argument, just as you would in word-processor, but more importantly, they also allow you to insert the doc-links, point by point, to the supporting or corroborating evidence.
Using the toolkit -- there is no right way
Doc-links and facts work hand-in-hand to form the core of MasterFile's argument "power tools":
However, just has you use hammers, saws, pliers and other hand tools in the most appropriate way to get your work done efficiently, similarly there no hard and fast rules to how to use use doc-links and facts to draft an argument.
For example:
- If your case is relatively simple, you may just create a few fact profiles for the critical issues and then set out your entire case in one additional fact. MasterFile's fluid and efficient interface lets you quickly substantiate all your points directly with the relevant evidence, even for a small matter, faster than you can draft it in a word processor and enter the citations manually!
- You may find that you have one particular issue with a lot of evidence and therefore want to first collect it all for review before deciding on a position and associated argument. In this case you'll find it best to create an issue keyword, perhaps with some sub-topics, and tag the documents and relevant extracts as you uncover them during your document review. Once your review is done you can create one fact profile for the issue and set out your position, linking in the evidence as needed.
- For another issue, you may know your position in advance or there may only be a few items of evidence relevant to it. In this case you'll find it best to first create a fact profile for the issue, and not bother with tagging the evidence with an issue keyword. Once the fact has been created you then simply use the "Insert doc-link" button to link the relevant supporting evidence while drafting your position for that fact.
- After you've set out the basic arguments in your fact profiles, as you come across more relevant evidence, just use the "Add to Existing Fact" button to update your fact with the new evidence.
- Alternatively to all of the above, you may find that its faster to first create facts profiles for all the major issues and just keep using the "Add to Existing Fact" during document review, adding doc-links to the facts and then go back and draft your argument for each, now that all the supporting evidence has been linked to each fact.
- For some issues you may find that a particular matter your position is best explained as a "dissertation" rather than by dozens of separate fact profiles. In this case you'd just make one fact profile and set out the entire position that issue there. You may have a few critical facts and don't want them buried in the "dissertation" so you would separate those in their own facts profiles with their own supporting evidence and reference them in the "dissertation".
- The nature of the facts in your case may be such that several are used to substantiate many others and therefore they should properly be set out in separate fact profiles and referenced as needed and thereby avoid duplication.
- If you're dealing with a lengthy or complex a chronology, you may find it worth while to set out all the important individual events as their own fact profiles, and then create several fact profiles to set out whole sections of the overall chronology, that is, eras of the chronology -- much like a section of a history book might be drafted for a particular era. In this way rather than the chronology being just a list of events in a database view, the events of each era are set out as a coherent story, with relevant thoughts, notes etc.
Then, if you're using CaseSoft's TimeMap® to show the timeline graphically, you can make one TimeMap graphic per era, creating as many TimeMap event boxes as needed, all of which refer to the related fact profile in MasterFile which explains and substantiates the events of that era.
- As MasterFile allows you to create doc-links to documents, extracts and facts from other MasterFile databases, you may find that authorities or precedents used over and over again may best be kept in their own database to avoid duplication and also also easy reference. See our article "Innovative uses of MasterFile beyond the obvious" for more ideas along this line.
- In general the argument within fact profiles will be related to substantiating your position with respect to a fact or refuting the opposing side with respect to that fact, and this may require you to rely on other facts, as shown in the diagram above.
However, there comes a time once all the facts, related to a specific issue or for your case as a whole, need to be woven into a coherent picture that tells your story, in a fashion similar to a closing argument. There are two methods to handle this:
- Create a new fact profile for each issue and in the fact description add a descriptor such as "ARGUMENT FOR: ..." and fill in the relevant issue, as well as linking it to that issue. Then set out your argument as before. There are virtually no limits to how much you text you may compose in the argument field, and using text and paragraph formatting you're able to arrange and format the argument for clarity.
- Create a new document type such as "Miscellaneous\Argument" for example and create a new document profile for each issue, assigning it this document type. As for the fact method above, enter the relevant issue in the document of summary field of each profile and link the profiles to the relevant issues. Then in the "Full Text of Document" field, draft your argument, just as you would in a fact profile.
With this method your argument becomes a "document", or set of documents (one for each issue) which some users may find more natural and these "argument documents" appear in the document views under the document type used.
MasterFile document profiles do not require you to attach a scanned or other type of document file to them, and therefore can be used flexibly for "unorthodox", but logical, situations such as this.
We suggest you spend a few minutes to view the following two videos and see some of the above suggestions put into practice:
In summary, MasterFile provides the tools necessary to organize, set out and substantiate argument, and as you gain experience with the tools, understand their differing advantages and disadvantages as well as reflect on the nature of your case, you'll develop your own style and appropriate methods of organizing and setting out your cases with MasterFile, just as we develop our own approaches to organizing ourselves appropriately for other tasks we do.
Further information
|
