Hello, fellow COVID-19 haters! Like you, I can’t wait to slam the door on 2020. The year was a disaster for so many of us, both professionally and personally. To say the pandemic was difficult would be a ridiculous understatement. Magna LS would not have survived 2020 without our dedicated staff and network of kick-ass court reporters. Both groups have made taking virtual depos second nature. Lastly, I would like to extend a HUGE “Muchas Gracias” to all of our clients! Together, we found new and old litigation support tools to expedite our recovery and get our respective businesses back online. So, bye-bye 2020!  Here is what you can expect to see from us in 2021:

1. The same “No Charge” commitment we made in 2020 for our virtual depo platform will continue in full force in cities and states that are still struggling to reopen during the pandemic. Click HERE to schedule a virtual deposition.

2. More COVID-19 juror impact studies and complimentary “Results” roundtables. To learn more about our juror studies, contact me or your account rep at 866-624-6221. 

3. Two new brick-and-mortar offices. When the dust settles, visit our office space in Downtown LA and Fort Lauderdale, FL. More conference rooms with all the AV bells and whistles! Click HERE for a full list of Magna office locations.

4. My fingers are crossed and I’m knocking on wood in hopes that our mock trial fundraiser for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, “Chopped for CHOP”, will finally return on June 2^nd and 3^rd and I am super confident we will be doing some awesome unconventional conventioning with our “Battle of the Experts” seminar on October 6^th and 7^th at The W Hotel in South Beach, Miami! Click HERE to see our conference schedule.

5. Oh, yeah…. more webinars, both big and small. More CE & CLE courses. Click HERE to stay up to date on our webinars.

6. Lastly, our team is locked and loaded for travel as soon as the COVID coast is clear. So…. we will be seeing you in the flesh in 2021.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Kwanza and Happy New Year! I hate COVID-19!

— Peter Hecht, Partner & Executive Vice President of Sales, Magna Legal Services

We are excited to announce that although we have been able to seamlessly transition to 100% virtual platforms for our end-to-end litigation services, we are beginning to reopen our offices across the United States in accordance with local and federal orders.

In accordance with local and federal guidelines, the following main Magna offices will be reopening on the following dates:

COVID PRECAUTIONS

In order to follow the sanitizing procedures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), we are taking the following precautions:

• Magna will the maintain minimum necessary staff in each office to further prevent the spread of COVID-19. Any staff member who is not essential to office operations will continue to work from home.
• A Magna staff member will be placed at each entrance with a thermometer to test all visitors. Any visitor or staff member exhibiting COVID-19 like symptoms will be barred from entering Magna offices.
• All visitors and Magna staff must wear masks.
• All visitors and Magna staff are required to take appropriate measures to wash and sanitize their hands. Magna offices will be outfitted with numerous motion-detected hand sanitizers.
• All Magna conference rooms will be equipped with sanitizing wipes for easy visitor use.
• All visitors and staff are required to maintain six feet of social distancing at all times.
• Magna will also be providing glass dividers in every conference room to lessen the spread of any germs between attendees of depositions.
• Beverage service such as coffee and soda will continue, as well as “grab and go” food items which are individually wrapped. Magna will not be providing the usual breakfast and lunch service during this time.
• All conference rooms will be sanitized following the conclusion of every deposition.
• Additional cleaning at Magna offices will be provided throughout the day with a deep clean nightly by a professional cleaning service.

VIRTUAL DEPOSITIONS

All of our virtual depositions are still available via Magna Legal Vision (MLV). To schedule, click here or contact our scheduling department at [email protected].

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.

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.

On November 6-7, 2019, three-time mock trial winners Susan Metcalfe and Ted Schaer went head-to-head in a battle of the champions at Chopped for CHOP. This seventh annual convention was held in Atlantic City, NJ. After a panel workshop and reception to kick off the event, these two top attorneys presented their cases to win up to $20,000 to be donated to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

Who broke the tie and emerged as the grand champion this year? Read on to find out, and to learn more about this incredible two-day event.

Day One

On the first day, Magna’s own Dr. Rachel York Colangelo moderated panels of attorneys and industry executives who took part in a workshop exploring effective deposition tactics. Teams of attorneys and industry executives took part in role plays and demonstrated effective skills in deposing difficult witnesses. A panel discussion was also led by Caryn Siebert, Vice President in the carrier practice team at Gallagher Bassett, along with fellow industry experts, that focused on strategies that can be used early in a case to improve outcomes. The panel discussed examples and case studies with the attendees, taking a closer look at preparing witnesses, researching the jury, and more. 

Following the panel, attendees enjoyed a dinner reception at Indoor Pool at The Water Club before getting a good night’s rest in anticipation of the next day’s mock trial.

Day Two

The mock trial is the highlight of Chopped for CHOP, and in past years there have been numerous attorneys competing for the win. This year, Susan Metcalfe and Ted Schaer, each of whom have won this competition three times, competed alone against each other in a tie-breaking battle of the champions.

They presented their best case to a panel of judges made of claims executives and corporate counsel. Richard Fabian of the RiverStone Group generously donated his time to develop the topics and script and moderate the event. There was a lot at stake for our competing attorneys: bragging rights and $20,000 to be donated in their firm’s name to CHOP.

Competition

In the Chopped for CHOP mock trial, both attorneys received the facts of the case and presented their opening statements. They then had the opportunity to cross-examine a plaintiff and a defendant before presenting their closing arguments. After each round, the judges and the mock jurors, who were recruited and selected from the actual Atlantic City trial venue each cast a secret vote for the attorney they believed to have won the round. The judges also offered helpful feedback. 

Of course, a jury trial is unpredictable and never easy, and we made sure to throw our competing attorneys a few twists and turns. Via instant feedback technology, our audience members voted on which distractions and difficulties they wanted the attorneys to face during the mock trial. For example, a new fact emerged during the trial that had not been available in the case information prior to the event, and a pizza delivery person wandered into the courtroom to deliver a large pie to the judge. 

As expected, the attorneys handled it all with professionalism and grace, and when the competition ended, we were proud to announce the winner: Susan Metcalfe! She’s now a four-time Chopped for CHOP mock trial champion.

Chopped for CHOP is one of the many unique, interactive events we produce for attorneys, corporate counsel, and claims professionals. Among a variety of other services, from court reporting to language interpretation and document translation, we offer programs that aim to entertain and educate. We create memorable experiences and connect professionals with the opportunity to share best practices and learn from each other.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about our conferences or to schedule a deposition.