This article touches upon what to expect when conducting a Superior Court trial where the documents are managed on Case Center by Thomson Reuters (formerly CaseLines).
Once familiar, Case Center can be a useful document management tool for the Court and parties at trial. It is worthwhile to confirm at any pre-trial conference or trial management conference the manner in which documents are expected to be managed at trial: paper-based or on Case Center. Bear in mind that the ultimate decision on how documents will be managed at trial rests with the Trial Judge and their preference for the orderly conduct of the trial.
Ideally, but not always, the Courtroom is equipped with monitors for the Judge, counsel/parties and witnesses. Ideally, but not always, the Courtroom has a reliable internet connection (an OPSGuest Wi-Fi account is recommended). As a precaution and where necessary, the documents on Case Center can be downloaded and saved on a computer and potentially printed as hard copies.
A tutorial on how to use Case Center is beyond the scope of this article, but needless to say it is important to be familiar with Case Center by watching any tutorials and navigating Case Center, including on motions, case conferences, pre-trial conferences, etc. Some familiarity with Case Center will assist in comprehending this article.
When reviewing evidence for a particular case, you’ll notice that there are multiple bundles set up for each case. One bundle may be “Trial Documents”. Another bundle may be “Trial Exhibits”. The names of the bundles can vary according to who sets them up and the names assigned.
The “Trial Documents” bundle can have plaintiff/applicant documents, defendant/respondent documents and perhaps jointly-submitted documents (subject to an agreement on the joint documents). Documents should be uploaded one by one, which means that each potential exhibit should be its own pdf file. This means you should not upload a brief/book of documents that combine several trial documents into a single pdf file. This is so the Registrar can mark a particular document as a trial exhibit (which is generally done on a file-by-file basis, unless an entire document brief is accepted as a trial document).
The “Trial Exhibit” bundle is where the Registrar will add documents from the “Trial Documents” bundle to become Exhibits (the document is electronically copied from the “Trial Documents” bundle to the “Trial Exhibit” bundle). Once a document is introduced into evidence, it will be marked in the top left hand corner with a yellow bubble that reads “EXHIBIT 001” for trial exhibit 1. Exhibits can also be lettered exhibits such as “EXHIBIT A” for the Court’s reference (lettered exhibits are not part of the trial evidence). The “Trial Exhibit” bundle will then have a complete folder of trial exhibits accessible by everyone and helps ensure everyone is on the same page, literally speaking.
After a document has been added to the “Trial Exhibit” bundle, the exhibit number will now appear in both the “Trial Exhibit” bundle and the “Trial Documents” bundle.
When it comes to presenting the case and examining witnesses, it can be helpful to know how to direct the Court and parties to the correct Case Center page number, for example “A175” (this is a master page number). If the document at “A175” is not yet an exhibit, then you need to be sure you are in the “Trial Documents” bundle to locate it. The find page function enables everyone to go to that particular page. A more advanced approach is to direct everyone to a page or enter presentation mode with everyone following the presenter.
Once a document is marked as an exhibit, you can locate it in the “Trial Documents” bundle or in the “Trial Exhibits” bundle. The document, which has a master page number, will also be given an exhibit page number. As a result, any given document could be at the following coordinates:
Plaintiffs trial document brief Tab 4, Case Center master page number A175, trial exhibit 4, trial exhibit page number 27.
It can therefore be useful to ensure everyone in the Courtroom is in the same bundle and using a more simple description of a document, for example, being in the “Trial Documents” bundle and referring to:
Case Center page number A175, which is trial exhibit 4
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