Perform litigation tricks with Adobe Acrobat.

Most lawyers are still seeking the "Holy Grail" of software that will allow a firm to handle both case management and litigation support needs. If you have a high-volume practice, you must already have a case management program to handle all case-related information from the initial client interview through creating, filing, accessing, and sharing correspondence, pleadings, and discovery to scheduling appointments and keeping a calendar. But if you handle fewer cases, your needs are different and your focus may be on litigation support, presenting the information assembled in a case management process to opposing counsel, at pretrials, or to the judge and jury.

In some situations, products that are primarily transcript and document management tools such as Summation (http://www. summation.com) and CaseMap (http://www. casesoft.com) may be sufficient. But if you need to acquire, store, search, find, and analyze documents pertaining to a case, there is another option. Adobe Acrobat (http:// www.adobe.com) may be the "combo" software package you are looking for.

Do you ever need to share a Word document with a colleague who is using Word-Perfect or a Mac? Do you want to be able to publish documents on the Internet but worry that users with incompatible programs won't be able to view them?

Many people are familiar with the Adobe Acrobat Reader, the freely distributed software program that allows you to view and print files in portable document format (PDF) on all major computer platforms (Windows, Macintosh, Unix). This format, developed by Adobe, captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications. Users can create documents using whatever software they prefer, and the documents will appear on a recipient's screen or printer as they were intended. Documents in PDF look exactly like the originals, so they may be admissible into evidence.

By downloading the free Reader from the Adobe Web site, you can read documents on the Internet published in PDF, which more and more organizations are using. For example, the Internal Revenue Service publishes its tax return forms in PDF at http.//www.irs.treas.gov/forms_pubs/forms. html, and many courts are publishing their forms online in PDF format.

Acrobat tricks

Adobe Acrobat 4.0, available for $249, can be a complete solution for creating, enhancing, reviewing, editing, and sharing information in PDF. One great value of this product is full-text searching--within a document or an entire library of documents. PDF preserves the look of the document, but behind the image on screen is a full-text searchable complement that allows fast key-word searches.

Other key features of this product allow you to perform a variety of functions:

* View, navigate, search, print, and fill in forms.

* Review, mark up, and annotate documents.

* Use document security tools and digital signatures so you can tell if any document has been tampered with.

* Capture Web pages, which can be invaluable if information about a litigant is now on the Internet but will probably be removed once litigation begins.

* Extract tables and text (Windows version only).

* Create forms and save PDF forms dab

* Send electronic mail.

* Add bookmarks and Web links.

* Create thumbnail views of pages.

* Convert word-processed and graphic documents to PDF.

* Scan paper documents into PDF files.

Some of these features deserve further discussion. For example, the document review and mark-up feature allows reviewers to insert comments using electronic notes; highlight, underline, strike through, and circle text; and mark files as "Approved" or "Confidential" with handy clip-art stamps--all directly in the PDF file.

When a marked-up PDF file is returned, you can automatically generate a summary of reviewers' comments organized by author. You can use the Document Compare feature to view pre- and post-review versions of the document. And you can search annotations by key word.

For attorneys who must read hundreds of documents for a case, using review and mark-up tools will help organize the documents for trial and make it easy later on to find pertinent information within them.

If you are worried about keeping documents secure when you share them with others, you can password-protect them to control access. The program also allows you to apply specific restrictions. For example, you can prevent recipients from printing or modifying files, selecting text and images, or creating and modifying electronic notes and form fields.

Acrobat 4.0 supports digital signatures, which you can use to authenticate authorship, track alterations, and verify approvals of documents. The program comes with built-in signatures for moderate security needs and contains links to third-party partners that offer high-security identification. Secured documents can be distributed in any medium. You can attach PDF files to e-mail messages or publish files on your intranet, Web site, network server, or CD-ROM.

With these features, attorneys who share information, such as those who participate in ATLA litigation groups, need not buy expensive, custom-made products to share documents.

Adobe offers other products that work with Acrobat, such as Web Capture, which allows the user to convert Web pages or entire sites to PDF files that can be saved to the desktop for offline viewing, printing, and storage. With high-speed scanners and Web Capture, high-volume needs are met. Web Capture costs from $699 for the single-user (personal) version and from $7,000 for the high-volume (cluster) version.

When good products come to market, other vendors create products to work with them, such as digital signature programs from Entrust, PenOpp, and Verisign. If you are using Adobe and do a lot of scanning, you may want to Bates-stamp each page. Digital Applications, Inc. (http://www. digapp.com), is a third-party vendor that provides a plug-in program, StampPDF, which lets you add permanent text, such as watermarks or page numbers, to any PDF document. The information you stamp in the PDF document becomes part of the document and is present when it's displayed and printed.

Litigation support

To prepare for any case, you must review every document at least once. With the Acrobat products, you can scan documents into a full-text searchable format; put them on your in-house or Internet-based server; summarize and annotate them; and even share them with other lawyers, experts, and the client via the Internet. This is the most litigation support many will need.

Any new product is a bear to learn; however, if you have used the Acrobat Reader to navigate documents created in Acrobat, you are well on your way to using the full-blown Acrobat 4.0 product. You will still need some basic training, but two hours should get you up and running.

Finally, too many of us have suffered when software vendors have gone out of business. This is not a likely scenario for Adobe Systems. Although as of this writing many Internet-based company values on the stock exchanges have tumbled or just about fallen off the charts, Adobe--which trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol ADBE--remains a strong company. And, with a hat full of tricks, Acrobat is a great litigation support product.

Paul Bernstein is an attorney and law office automation consultant in Chicago. He can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].

The views expressed in this column are the author's and do not constitute an endorsement of any product by TRIAL or ATLA.