Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
Several calendars have to line up and only one belongs to the firm. Dates get proposed by email, a witness moves, and the notice has to go out with a date certain anyway. Around it sit the reporter booking, the remote platform, an interpreter where the witness needs one and a subpoena with the witness fee for anyone who is not a party. What is worth automating is the chase and the record of it, because the certificate of non-appearance is only good if the notice and the confirmations are on file.
The same client name is typed into the conflicts database, the practice management system, the document management system and the ledger, and a conflict is only found later if two people spelled it the same way.
A firm organises everything by matter, and the matter record is created by hand from an intake form. That single re-keying step seeds four systems, and because there is no shared identifier between them, every later reconciliation is a name match against human typing.
- Outlook
- Clio
- Twilio
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the calendar problem is internal. Where the friction is one assistant booking rooms for one attorney, this is heavier than the task deserves. It pays off in a litigation practice where dates are negotiated with people who do not answer quickly.
The constraint that shapes it
The conduct rules decide what may be automated here, and they are adopted state by state rather than nationally, so specifics have to be checked against your own jurisdiction. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- Clearing the HERS verification that holds a permit final
- Working an aging replacement proposal before it goes stale
- Turning uncategorised transactions into one question list
- How do I get deposition dates out of opposing counsel?
- What has to be in a notice of deposition for a non party?
- Do I need a certificate of non appearance if the witness skips?
- How do firms book a court reporter and videographer together?
- Who pays the witness fee on a deposition subpoena?
Back to law firms, or see how this is priced and scoped.