LAW STUDENTS LEARN TO USE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

For Immediate Release Aug. 7, 2002   

Contact: Fred Galves 916-739-7117 or Tim Piganelli 480-753-4365

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The use of computers is transforming legal practice – a profession that has long been associated with stacks of books and boxes of paper. In what is cited as the first of its kind, a course is being offered to law students to teach them how to manage legal documents and present cases without a paper trail.

Students will attend class in the federal courthouse on Friday to learn how to present computer-generated exhibits in an actual courtroom. They will also view the trial of a billion-dollar case being presented with the technology they have learned to use (courtroom 5, Judge Shubb).

Law professor Fred Galves teamed up with the owner of Legal Technology Consulting of Phoenix, Arizona, Tim Piganelli, to teach the two-credit, hands-on summer course at University of Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law. The course ends this Friday, August 9.

“It is important that law students graduate ready to practice law in the age of technology,” said Galves, who uses power point slides with animation and sound to teach Evidence and Civil Procedure.

Piganelli has assisted lawyers with the use of computers in over 70 trials throughout the nation. “Computer technology is absolutely necessary for efficient document management and for clear trial presentations,” he said.

Students in the class are learning how to use programs to store and organize legal documents in a way that makes them easily retrievable and able to be searched. For example, students are learning that instead of having to search through boxes of documents, the computer can instantly retrieve and display all documents related to a certain subject.

For students who want to become trial lawyers, knowing how to use digitized photos, documents, and animations in court will give them the edge in getting employed at the top firms.

Galves and Piganelli hope to make the course available to all students at McGeorge who wish to take it, and also to expand it to other law schools.