Case evaluation is the process of gathering and analyzing case information to infer the relative strength and weakness of a case. Its purpose is to help to inform strategy and to manage risk. There are many ways to perform case analysis. This topic highlights tools and workflows for case analysis that CaseMap provides.
When evaluating a CaseMap case, the first place to start is the Issues spreadsheet.
| 1. | Under CASE SHORTCUTS, select the Issues spreadsheet.
This is where the legal issues represented in the case are outlined. Facts and other case information may be linked to issues. In this way, issues provide a structure for analyzing your case and for identifying its strengths and any weakness. |
| 2. | Start by asking these questions: |
| • | Have issues been added? Adding issues is a best practice because it enables the case analysis and evaluation features of CaseMap. |
| • | f issues have been added, do they seem to reflect what the case is about? Issues may be edited any time. If the issues for a case do not map to current legal practices or to the case specifics, they may be edited. |
| • | How well are the issues organized? Issues be organized as a flat list or if they may form a hierarchy. Open the Hawkins example case to see an example of a hierarchical list. To open the case, on the FILE tab, click Open Case, and then click Hawkins v. Anstar. |
| • | Have any issues been marked as Important? Cases are often composed of a mix of important issues and less important ones. For this reason, an issue can be marked as Important when you want it to become visible in CaseMap's assessment tools, especially in the CaseMap Fact Dashboard. |
For more information on working with issues, see: About issues.
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After you have made sure the case issues fit the case and that at least some are marked as Important, it is time to check some basic case metrics.
| 1. | On the HOME tab, click Facts Dashboard. |
| 2. | Review the basic statistics at the bottom of the dashboard.
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| • | WINNING ISSUES. Are there any problematic Shepard's Signals listed under WINNING ISSUES? Signals are generated automatically for research cited in the Research spreadsheets. Ideally, the count for green issues should be relatively high and the counts for other colors should be zero. If the dashboard is showing counts for any non-green signals, you should check their sources by opening the Research spreadsheets. More research may be necessary to replace citations with negative Shepard's Signals.
To open the Research spreadsheets, in the CASE SHORTCUTS area, expand All Shortcuts, expand Research, then click on the spreadsheet links.
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| • | WINNING FACTS. This metric is composed of two numbers. The upper number tells you how many winning facts the case contains. A winning fact is one that has been marked as substantiated, material, and undisputed. Compare this number against the lower number, which is the total number of facts in the case. This comparison can give you a clue as to whether more analysis needs to be done on the case, and if much good quality analysis is already completed, where the case may be headed. |
| • | TOTAL DOCUMENTS, TOTAL PEOPLE, and TOTAL QUESTIONS. Watch for numbers that seem low given the type of case and its complexity. Low numbers may simply mean the case is new, or they may suggest a case that is under-developed.
These are the most basic case statistics to check when first evaluating a case. For more information on using the Fact Dashboard see, Fact Dashboard. |
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Advanced case assessment is the practice of evaluating the strength of important issues in a case. Important issues may be evaluated by examining the quantity and quality of facts that are linked to them. CaseMap provides the Fact Dashboard with its donut and bar charts for this purpose. However, before using these tools, certain prerequisites in the form of case configuration and fact analysis is required:
Case configuration prerequisites:
| • | Issues are identified. Some are marked as Important. These steps are completed by using the Issues spreadsheet. For more information on creating and configuring issues, see: Entering issues. |
| • | One or more Evaluation fields have been added to the Facts spreadsheet. For more information on adding Evaluation fields, see: Evaluation fields. |
Fact analysis prerequisites:
| • | Facts are linked to important issues. |
In an ideal world, facts are identified in source documents, linked to important issues, and evaluated in the same operation. Although it is technically possible to link facts to issues and evaluate them when sending them to CaseMap, this is not always practical or desirable. Sometimes it may be preferable or necessary to separate fact generation from categorization and evaluation. Given this reality, the Fact Cards provides a way to easily find unevaluated and unlinked facts, and then to evaluate or categorize them as needed. For more information on using Fact Cards, see: Fact Cards for issues and evaluations.
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CaseMap provides tools for finding out who has worked on the case, how much work has been done, and how recently the case has been worked on.
For more information on finding out who has worked on the case, see: Reviewing use history.
For more information on finding out how much recent work has been done on a case, see: Fact Dashboard.
| • | To run a report on what new in the past two weeks, on the REPORTS tab, click ReportBooks, click What's New in the Last 14 Days, and then click Preview. |
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