Month: April 2020

Judicial Modernization: Introducing Magna LegalVision

Posted on | by Peter Hecht

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that industries all over the world have had to operate, and the legal field is no exception. Judicial practice and the interpretation of law must continue regardless of the Coronavirus or any other emergency factor. 

In response, law firms and legal entities must now pivot their focus from traditional methods to the latest in technological advancements in order to get the job done. That’s where Magna Legal Service’s LegalVision (MLV) online deposition platform comes into play. 

Magna is offering free video services, technical support, and custom virtual backgrounds for all April and May depositions, using Magna LegalVision.

What is Magna LegalVision?

With social distancing and widespread quarantines in effect across the country, law firms have had to get creative in order to carry out their duties. Fortunately, there is a virtual option available for conducting online witness depositions.  

Magna LegalVision is a virtual solution that allows law professionals to conduct online witness depositions remotely. The LegalVision platform allows legal professionals to engage in real-time hearings, mediations, and depositions using nothing more than a laptop, PC, tablet, or even a mobile phone.

How Does LegalVision Work?

Magna’s LegalVision platform allows you to conduct your firm’s necessary business while keeping you and your clients safe and in compliance with state rules regarding social distancing. Our full suite of features helps your team work confidently and with peace of mind by employing safe and secure technology.  

Our platform’s suite of features includes secure, fully-encrypted video streaming to assure your information stays confidential. 

We take care of all the necessary staffing for your deposition. With Magna LegalVision, we can provide:

  • A remote court reporter
  • An online legal videographer with the ability to swear in witnesses
  • Online interpreters
  • A deposition manager, who will present your exhibits and demonstratives, manage annotations, and manage breakout rooms (moving people in between rooms, controlling room access and overseeing confidentiality)

Our tech support team will be with you throughout your entire hearing. Our platform provides a completely customizable experience where you can use a virtual background and dictate how the participants are displayed on screen. Our platform even allows you to chat securely and privately with other participants even while key witnesses are speaking.

Our tech services can also help to display evidence exhibits remotely and in real time. Your evidence is displayed in a format with legal professionals in mind. Using LegalVision’s powerful tools, participants are able to annotate and otherwise mark up evidence as it is presented and share those annotations with other participants securely using our in-app messenger function. Our IT services can build a database of your evidence and package it into an easy-to-decipher presentation format for those involved. We can even use the software platform to record the deposition for you and your client(s) to review. 

With the included court reporter service, you’ll experience a near-instantaneous stream of your transcript even as testimony is happening. Our on-demand service provides your legal team with an indexed, searchable version of the transcript giving you powerful, remote tools that provide you with the leverage you need. You can rely on Magna Legal Services to keep your online deposition running smoothly and efficiently throughout the process.

Modernizing Your Law Firm

These are trying times for everyone. Businesses that fail to adapt to the changing climate, with its unique demands and difficult social constraints, run the risk of losing out. Your firm needs to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. The Magna LegalVision online deposition platform is the point of differentiation that you need to rise above your competition. 

We invite you to take advantage of Magna’s online deposition solutions with MagnaLegalVision. Schedule a remote video deposition via email or the website today.

Remote Depositions, Except with Magna

Posted on | by admin

We make remote working a little more personal.

Magna LitigationVision (MLV) provides clients with real-time access to depositions, meetings, hearings and mediations.

  • Connect using computers, tablets or even smartphones
  • Use a custom virtual background
  • Record entire session (mp4 format)
  • Display and annotate your exhibits
  • Schedule a court reporter, interpreter, or certified legal videographer to join remotely

The Magna Difference

We take care of our clients— you’ll feel the difference. We’re here for you 24/7, 365 days a year with client-focused customer service. When scheduling, you’ll get a confirmation of your event right away with all of the event details. We’ll provide the dial-in information to each participant and offer everyone training on how to use the Magna LitigationVision platform.

Unparalleled Tech Support

You can be confident in hosting your event remotely— Magna’s tech support will test each parties’ equipment before the session. A MLV technician will introduce himself at the beginning of the session and will be available from start to finish.

Help is always just a click away. You could use MLV’s chat feature to ask tech support any questions you have, and get immediate help.

Certified Legal Videography: CLV is available for all MLV depositions. The videographer will provide you with an official copy of the event, for both on and off record.

Equipment Rental: Don’t have the equipment? No problem! Magna offers a state-of-the-art flight pack system: iPad & stand, bluetooth speaker, conference phone, hotspot & extension cable. We ship these flight packs hundreds of times per year, often to last-minute depositions.

Complete Deposition Management

Magna LitigationVision Plus (MLV+) will provide you with full deposition management powered by one of Magna’s award-winning trial technicians. Combining years of courtroom tech experience with Magna’s virtual platform, our deposition managers are able to provide seamless support throughout the duration of your event. The deposition manager will handle:

  • Presenting exhibits, demonstratives and videos
  • Real-time management of annotations, zooming, blow-ups, highlights and markings
  • Creating and managing break-out rooms (moving people in between rooms, controlling room access and overseeing confidentiality)

Virtual Backgrounds

Put your best face forward. Magna’s team of talented designers will create custom virtual backgrounds tailored to your firm’s branding. Choose a design, and we’ll customize it with your firm’s logo and colors.

Learn More about Magna LitigationVision
Schedule a Deposition

Witness Preparation for Virtual Depositions

Posted on | by admin

Witness Communication Training

Jurors consider themselves experts on people, so the impressions made by a witness can strongly influence a jury’s decision making.  This is especially true when such impressions are negative.

Witness communication training helps witnesses develop a deeper understanding of the themes, context, and purpose of their testimony.

In-person or online, witness preparation:

  • Reduces or eliminates witness anxiety
  • Clarifies the deponent’s role in the case
  • Helps deponents stay on message
  • Assists in developing a credible conversational tone
  • Identifies and mitigates any non-verbal issues, such as tics, fidgeting or eye-rolling
  • Provides techniques for effectively handling documents and exhibits

Consultants will also explain to witnesses jurors’ expectations for their testimony, and correct behaviors that get in the way of jurors’ positive perceptions.

Magna’s jury consultants help witnesses feel more in control of their testimony while adhering to the rules of testimony and to avoid being “advocates” for their side of the case.  We develop “safe harbors” that give witnesses structure and tools to deal with tough cross-examination questions.  The use of videotape feedback during witness communication training can often help a witness identify what the jurors may perceive.  These tools will allow your witnesses the opportunity to learn and practice strategies in order to best respond to challenging questions and deliver the most effective message at trial.

We use videotape feedback to help witnesses identify what the jurors may perceive. These tools will allow your witnesses to practice strategies for responding to challenging questions and delivering the most effective message at trial.

Defending a Virtual Deposition?

Witness preparation eliminates the added layer of anxiety from the virtual setting by:

  • Practicing. Deponents can feel “alone” without counsel, so a practice session with the platform can help diminish this
  • Reviewing procedures for pauses, objections, and exhibits
  • Instructing deponents where to look for the most natural and effective presentation (particularly if being recorded)
  • Familiarizing participants with the remote platform’s features (chats, mute, viewing exhibits, etc.)
  • Coaching on attire and effective posture

Magna Legal Services has been facilitating remote depositions for over a decade. However, many people are just now taking and defending depositions for the first time in a virtual format. While the Magna LitigationVision (MLV) platform makes remote depositions easy, there are some tips and tricks to help witnesses and attorneys perform well.

Magna’s consultants are experts in preparing witnesses and attorneys for virtual depositions. They will share their practical tips and logistical considerations, explain how remote depositions work and the platform’s capabilities, and will provide advice to attorneys.

Magna consultants will work with your key witnesses and provide them with performance feedback in a non-threatening context making suggestions regarding style, language, and demeanor. .

Click to read “Virtual Depositions: Benefits & Tips to Succeed”

Witness Prep with a Magna Consultant

To book a witness prep session, or any of Magna’s services, you can contact us here, at 866.624.6221 or [email protected]

Magna is platform agnostic! Please let us know if you have a preference for Zoom, Cisco, Webex, etc.

Virtual Deposition: Magna Legal Services
Virtual Depositions & Court Reporting Services
Tips for Using Video Testimony at Trial
Virtual Depositions: Benefits & Tips to Succeed

Introducing Magna’s Newest Jury Research Platform: JuryConfirm 20/20

Posted on | by Peter Hecht

The “new normal” of COVID-19 has changed our daily life, but Magna Legal Services remains in full operation, ready to handle any of your jury research and support needs. This is a time to work on pending cases because once the court systems adapt, cases could move at a rapid pace. Online mock trial services and case valuation studies can provide reliable, up-to-date feedback regardless of your location. 

Magna is now introducing JuryConfirm 20/20 – the most powerful, efficient, cost-effective virtual jury research platform anywhere. It means jury research based on the most modern user interface, with cutting edge features: 

  • Redesigned immersive courtroom with unlimited research methodologies
  • Live attorney presentations
  • Unlimited research methodologies 
  • Limitless visual presentations with unrestricted video
  • More live jurors (up to 80)
  • Enhanced juror feedback with artificial intelligence-powered analytic tools
  • Live juror deliberations with more panels than ever available before (up to 6 panels of 12)
  • “Instant” reporting
  • Evidence analyzer – With smart logic and AI to automatically catalogue the highs and lows of presentations, always “taking notes” and “watching” jurors so you don’t have to

Magna is the nation’s expert in online jury research. Over the past decade we have conducted more online studies than anyone in the world – by far. We have run over 2,000 online jury research exercises, working with over 25,000 mock jurors.

JuryConfirm 20/20 not only allows us to run half-day exercises as before, but long-format 6.5 hour “plus” sessions as well. Our enhanced JuryConfirm 20/20+ platform is far more robust in capability and duration than ever before. It allows you to conduct extended focus groups in which everyone – presenters, observers, and jurors – participate remotely from their location. Lawyers present their cases for up to 60 minutes and jurors deliberate at length in our virtual courtroom, using the methodology as with in-person research. JuryConfirm 20/20+ solves the challenge of social distancing.

With an extended session of 6.5 hours, longer presentations and more deliberations than our traditional platform, this format bridges the gap between in-person research and online jury research. As with JuryConfirm, you will make presentations via webcam in real time, testing key themes and demonstratives. Our new 20/20+ platform offers: 

  • A longer research day, at 6.5 hours per session
  • Longer attorney presentations, at 60 minutes per side, plaintiff and defense
  • Longer deliberations – Jurors have more time to deliberate than in our standard JuryConfirm platform to mimic the amount of deliberation time in in-person studies
  • Juror rating system with real-time feedback that can be broken along demographic lines
  • Streamlined efficiency – By hosting research virtually, we save time by minimizing break lengths and juror down time. Managing the jurors more efficiently helps preserve the advantages of a full day’s research within the 6.5 hour time frame

Magna also offers a wide range of online legal services in addition to JuryConfirm 20/20 and 20/20+. Our online damages assessment tool, JuryEvaluator, provides you with an evaluation of potential damages by surrogate jurors. We also offer social media surveillance for plaintiffs / claimants (ClaimScout) and social media surveillance searches on prospective mock jurors (JuryScout). 

Looking to learn more about our full suite of online legal services? Give us a call at 866-624-6221 or schedule a virtual deposition today.