'Often in litigation, I find it necessary to have a deponent or a witness draw a particular scene or object in order to adequately show the listener or jury in understanding what is being described. Most often, this occurs in either motor vehicle collisions or premises liability cases where the location of witnesses, my client, and other objects are important to the story. Of course, drawing on a piece of paper is one solution to the problem, however oftentimes it is difficult to understand markings as they are all made with the same color pen and are difficult for all participants to see as they are being drawn. There have been a number of solutions presented to attorneys in the past, ranging from smart white boards to expensive lcd televisions. While all of these solutions met the needs of attorneys in litigation, they failed to meet attorneys budgets. Enter Canson PaperShow.
PaperShow is similar to the LiveScribe pen in that it consists of a pen which has a micr-camera embedded in the pen which determines the position of the pen tip on a page of interactive paper. On this paper is an area for drawing as well as an area to change pen colors from a color pallet, a line width selection tool, tools to draw filled in and empty shapes as well as other options. As the user draws on the interactive paper, the pen wirelessly transmits what is being drawn on the paper to your computer and it is immediately displayed on your computer screen on a white background. As the user changes colors on the color pallet, the resulting lines being drawn on the interactive paper change to that color on the display. The best part is that no additional software is needed on the computer. The pen works with a USB key which handles the Bluetooth connection to the pen and houses the PaperShow software, so it truly is portable to any PC.
Even more interesting, it is possible to use looseleaf interactive paper supplied with the PaperShow kit to print an image so that the user may draw directly onto a pre-existing photograph. This is especially useful in a motor vehicle collision where an overhead image of the intersection has been printed and the deponent may then proceed to draw on the image, allowing the deponent to show on the screen exactly what they experienced during the collision.
PaperShow also has the option to save whatever is displayed on screen as a PDF file at any given time, thus allowing a sequence of events to be captured as a sequence of PDF files. This is particularly useful to save drawings as exhibits to attach to a deposition or to enter into evidence at trial.
I successfully used PaperShow during a deposition as well as a hearing in court and can tell you that it is as easy as drawn on a piece of paper. The software used to display what is being drawn is incredibly easy to use. It is simply matter of entering into presentation mode from the software.
Some of the downsides of Papershow is the distance between the PaperShow pen and computer can be no more than 6 m and the product is currently only capable of running on a PC. Additionally, the interactive paper must be purchased through Canson and cannot be printed on a color laser printer such as the LiveScribe Pen’s interactive paper.
Despite these minor shortcomings Canson’s PaperShow is an amazingly useful and affordable product for any lawyer in litigation. Priced at only $199 at CostCo and Staples, it is an affordable tool that any litigating attorney would be remiss to pass up.