Litigators spend considerable time gathering, organizing and searching huge volumes of case information from multiple sources – discovery documents, legal research, evidence, transcripts and so on. At the same time, firms are under increasing pressure from clients to be more efficient in their work and demonstrate high value in their work product.

Part of the answer lies in new litigation tools that are tightly integrated, helping seamlessly incorporate that information into effective work product. In turn, litigators can spend less time on tedious tasks and more time working on the substance of the case.

After e-discovery document review is completed, litigators need to easily find and extract key excerpts. Advanced e-discovery tools such as Westlaw CaseLogistix can manage and review document productions and then move hot documents directly into case analysis tools with a single mouse click, placing key e-discovery documents at users’ fingertips.

Case analysis tools can then centralize the essential case information, including briefs, transcripts, pleadings, key facts, legal research and more. Many litigators, for example, leverage West Case Notebook to manage information, which can be quickly searched or sorted by issue, chronology or other attributes, and shared with other team members.

Integration comes into play again assembling information to create legal documents. Accessing legal research, discovery documents, deposition transcripts, case analysis, and a set of drafting tools, all in one place as users draft documents, can ease repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Westlaw Drafting Assistant is a solution that integrates case information with advanced drafting tools. Users can search and access all case-related information to quickly find and cite from a transcript, research or discovery document, without ever leaving their word processor. Paralegals can check the validity of cases cited, insert tables of authority and links to case law, and correctly format documents and citations to comply with jurisdictional rules, saving hours or even days. This translates into lower costs for the client, and frees up attorney and staff time to focus on more substantive matters in the case.

A major key to litigation efficiency is in finding, organizing and managing case-related information. Integrated tools can help litigators more quickly and easily weave a compelling case, in turn managing costs for clients and winning client loyalty.