Use cases
For the lawyer on their feet
The person examining a witness is doing three things at once: listening to the answer that was actually given, deciding what the next question is, and keeping the room with them. Any tool that asks for a fourth thing is taking from one of the first three. That is the honest test of exhibit software for an advocate, and most of what it implies is about subtraction.
In practice a lawyer's use of a document set is narrow and intense. You need one specific page immediately, you need it to look like nothing but the page, and you need the path from question to document to be short enough that the jury reads it as part of your question rather than as an interruption.
Preparing so the courtroom is easy
The preparation a lawyer should personally do, as distinct from what the team does, is the part that encodes your own thinking. Which page you will land on. What you want visible when you land there. What you will ask while it is up. Nobody else can put that into the set for you.
So do a pass through the exhibits yourself, even if a colleague built them. Rename anything whose name is not the phrase that will be in your head at the podium. Add the marks you want: a highlight on the sentence the witness will have to read, an arrow at the date they will say they do not remember. Write the page number into the description. Twenty minutes of this removes most of the reasons you would otherwise look down.
Workflow in Exhibit Room
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Walk your own set once, out loud
Open each exhibit you intend to use and say the question you will ask with it on screen. Anything that feels slow gets fixed now.
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Rename exhibits into your own language
The name is what you will type into the switcher under pressure. It should be the words you actually use for that document.
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Present, then examine from the keyboard
Enter the fullscreen view and stay in it. Arrow keys for pages, E and a few letters to change exhibit, W to make text readable.
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Follow the answer, not the outline
When testimony opens a door, jump to that exhibit directly rather than working back through a list. The point of learning the switcher is this moment.
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Mark the ruling before you sit down
Press Esc and set the status while the ruling is fresh. It takes two seconds and saves the argument about it on Thursday.
Whether to drive the screen yourself
There is a real trade-off and it depends on you. Driving yourself gives you exact timing: the document appears on the word you chose, which is worth a lot in cross. It also costs a small amount of attention, permanently, for the whole examination.
Handing the keyboard to a paralegal or second chair costs you precision and buys back attention, and it works well if you have rehearsed the cues. The fullscreen view cannot be edited, so the risk of a colleague at the keyboard is limited to showing the wrong page. Many advocates drive their own direct examinations and hand off during cross, when the listening matters most. Exhibit Room for paralegals covers the other side of that arrangement.
Questions from advocates
How long does it take to learn?
One rehearsal. The keys that matter are arrow keys, E, W and Esc, and the demo trial that ships with the app is there to practice on.
Can I see my notes on the same machine?
No. There is no second-screen presenter view, so notes belong on paper or a separate device. In practice that keeps them out of the shared display.
What if opposing counsel objects while a document is up?
Press Esc. You are back in the exhibit manager instantly and the room sees nothing of your set while the objection is argued.
Is this worth it for a bench trial?
Often more so, because a judge will ask you to jump between documents in a way a jury never does, and retrieval speed is exactly what that rewards.
Rehearse one examination this week
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