Ride the Lightning

Engage the Jury: Presenting Electronic and Computer Forensics Evidence at Trial

February 23, 2010

The title of this post is also the title of an excellent article in Wisconsin Lawyer by noted litigator Bruce Olson. Along with John and I, Bruce is the co-author of The Electronic Evidence Handbook: Forms, Checklists and Guidelines (ABA 2006) as well as the founder and President of Onlaw Trial Technologies LLC. In this article, he notes that “most lawyers do not know how to effectively present electronic evidence to a jury – they risk confusing the jury with jargon, damaging their expert’s credibility, or putting the jury to sleep during their expert’s key testimony.”

We’ve seen exactly that happen all too often. This article offers a number of valuable tips for presenting such evidence to a jury. Keep this one handy.

Another recent article by Bruce (you've been mighty busy buddy!) is called Collaborative Computer Forensics which appeared in DFI News. Bruce had suspected for some time that he was missing investigative opportunities by not working more closely with his computer forensics technologist. Sure enough, on the very first case where he sat in the technologist's cubicle (and yes, that was here at Sensei), he uncovered valuable evidence. This approach, as Bruce notes, might not work with large cases, but it can be very effective in the smaller cases that are more often encountered by most attorneys. Our experience is much the same – when attorneys work closely with us, we often uncover more useful ESI when the attorneys are there to witness the myriad trails of the evidence.

At the end of the article, Bruce notes that he enjoyed this process so much that he has given up the active practice of law and is now doing computer forensics himself. Hey Bruce, when we taught you all the tricks of the trade, we didn't know we were going to wind up with a competitor!

Welcome to the party. 🙂

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