Briefs filed on CD-ROMs? Don't laugh, it's coming.

If you thought tiling a court brief on a computer floppy disk was the height of technological legerdemain, Boca Raton attorney Joel Rothman has a thought for you.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

The lawyer, whose firm handles trial and appellate work, has formed a new company called Court CD to help lawyers reach the next level of technical wizardry -- filing the briefs on CD-ROMs.

And the process is much more than just a technological gimmick, Rothinan said.

"There's no way we're going to be able to avoid using this technology to streamline the judicial process," he said. "There are too many cases and too many appeals. It's only a matter of time before courts and judges insist on this, because it makes their life easier, and it isn't that much extra work for the attorney."

Currently, the 11th and First U.S. circuit courts of appeals allow filings on CD-ROM, as does the federal appellate court that handles patent cases. Rothinan said he expects more courts, both state and federal, to shortly allow CD-ROM filings.

The advantage is the extra storage capacity of a CD-ROM over a floppy disk, about 450 times as much information.

That means not only can a brief be put on the CD-ROM, but also every case cited in brief, Rothman said, And the brief can be hyperlinked to the cited cases, so that when the reader clicks on the cited case, it automatically is called up. The lawyer can even highlight the pertinent portion of the case, he said.

If the source is on an Internet site (such as the online version of Florida Statutes), the brief can be linked to that so the reader is automatically taken there, Rothman said. One potential glitch with that, he noted, is the site may change its web address without notice, invalidating that link.

Saving clerks and judges time in looking up the cites is only one advantage Court CD offers, Rothman said. The program can display a table of contents down the side of the computer screen, allowing the reader to jump quickly from one part of the brief to another. And the reader can set bookmarks to find key points and arguments.

Court CD also incorporates the popular Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Rothman said that system produces the document that appears exactly like the paper original, and also offers several advantages.

"There are security features within Acrobat that make the brief protectable and verifiable," he said. "No one can take your brief and mark it up and change it the way they could with a floppy disk. You can lock the brief down so it can't be tampered with."

The program is also compatible with new technologies allowing electronic signatures, which means a lawyer can sign his or her CD brief as a way to vouch for its accuracy and authenticity, Rothman said.

He's also reached an agreement with WestLaw to allow inclusion of West headnotes and key number information on West cases included in the cites.

Rothman sees an increasing market and use for Court CD, especially since federal courts seem to be moving toward using the Acrobat PDF format and to accepting briefs on CDs.

"We're going to start to see it's going to be necessary for folks if they want to keep up with the times at federal court," Rothman said. "We use Acrobat to its fullest potential and we do it in a way that creates a very powerful litigation tool for your audience, which is judges and law clerks."

He also said while Court CD won't make anyone a better lawyer, it can help someone present an argument more effectively.

"It's still the attorney's work product; it's your brief. The CD is just the electronic expression of that," Rothman said. "Putting it in the electronic form creates a far more powerful litigation tool than you would get with just a brief on paper."

The idea for creating the Court CD company came when Rothman was handling an appeal at the U.S. 11th Circuit, representing the defendant in a legal malpractice case. He knew the court would accept a brief on CD, but couldn't find a company to do the work.

(In fact, the brief and cited cases used on the company's sample CD is from that appeal.)

"I have a background in technology, so it wasn't a stretch to do this. And an associate at the firm has an LL.M. in computer technology law," he said. "We understand the technology and how to use it. We went out and we purchased some equipment and some software.

"In creating this company, we saw there was a need and could fill it, and we found ways to streamline the process and speed it up using the software," Rothman added. "We can very quickly turn around an electronic brief, even if we are working under a tight deadline."