Product reference
Trial: how it works
Open the source-filled direct or cross plan: recorded topics, admissions, opposing answers, impeachment and linked exhibits. Check recorded gaps, failed reads, motion limits and attendance, then prepare the order of proof.
On this page
Availability
- Supported work
- Prepare examinations from recorded witness topics, admissions, opposing answers and exhibits, then choose the sequence and order of proof.
- Start with
- The examination plan reads the registered witness’s topics, sponsored exhibits and prior admissions. Cross also carries recorded opposing discovery answers and party-matched impeachment conflicts. The plan also reads expert state, recorded element-gap tasks, motions in limine and service linkage.
- Key limit
- Trial preparation runs in three views. Instruction and motion scaffolds leave placeholders for the authority, which counsel supplies. These paths have not been tested on a live matter.
Some capabilities have their own availability or configuration requirements, shown below.
Before you start
- The examination plan reads the registered witness’s topics, sponsored exhibits and prior admissions. Cross also carries recorded opposing discovery answers and party-matched impeachment conflicts. The plan also reads expert state, recorded element-gap tasks, motions in limine and service linkage.
- The plan is assembled from recorded rows and standard question ladders, without a new model-authored prose outline. A generated deposition outline is a separate drafting path.
- Defined claim elements and recorded fact-to-element links support the trial notebook’s order-of-proof proposals. Confirmed exhibit tags and designation links close the corresponding trial gaps; missing or unread inputs are disclosed.
- A matter whose record already holds the material: documents, the evidence the matter cites, deposition transcripts and their designations, and the witnesses recorded on it. A witness nobody deposed and a document nobody uploaded cannot be proposed.
- Authority you supply. Instruction and motion scaffolds carry placeholders where the legal standard goes.
- For Second Chair at a deposition, glasses the firm supplies. See the Second Chair page.
How it works
Open a witness plan filled from recorded topics, prior admissions and linked exhibits. A cross plan also carries opposing discovery answers and matching impeachment conflicts, with their cautions. Review the sources, resolve missing support and choose the examination sequence. Trial preparation is still being built and these paths have not been tested on a live matter.
What establishes each reviewed element, through which witness and exhibit, and what foundation remains open?
The order of proof
Put the recorded answers beside the questions
Prior admissions become lock-in topics on direct or confrontation topics on cross. Cross also carries recorded opposing discovery responses and matching impeachment quotes. Objections, disputed-response status and attribution cautions travel with the answers: a party’s response is not automatically this witness’s sworn statement. Counsel decides whether confrontation is warranted.
Keep recorded gaps and failed reads visible
The plan lists missing links, failed source reads, motion limits and attendance. Existing element-gap tasks can be prioritized by overlap with recorded witness topics; that match does not establish legal sufficiency or close the gap.
An examination outline from the record
For each witness, BRON assembles an outline from what the matter already holds, starting with the topics your team recorded. No model writes it, so it holds no fact the record does not.
Three views of the trial
Trial preparation runs in three views: the order of proof, before trial, and an index of witnesses, exhibits and objections.
Reading the plan does not adopt it
Open and inspect the plan without changing the matter record. Adoption is a separate attorney act, recorded in the audit trail and projected into the matter’s knowledge graph. If that projection is unavailable, the result says so; adoption is not a finding that the testimony is true or the exhibit admissible.
A suggested witness's side starts as unknown
BRON suggests witnesses from the record, and leaves each one's side as unknown unless the record states it, as it does for a retained expert. Counsel sets it.
From theory to order of proof
Start with the reviewed requirement
The trial notebook reads the same defined elements and fact links used in matter intelligence. Supporting documents, proposed exhibits and testimony are organized against those requirements. A source-linked fact remains an account unless counsel establishes what it can prove; adverse evidence remains part of preparation.
Turn the notice dispute into examination work
For the notice question, place Garcia’s account, Smith’s account and the original email in the proof plan. Decide who can authenticate the email and what testimony or other evidence addresses receipt and reading. A sent timestamp alone leaves those questions open. Confirm exhibit tags and designation links rather than treating a record-chain proposal as completed trial proof.
Send the open foundation question back to the record
If a missing witness link or receipt question cannot be resolved from the record, prepare the next discovery or examination task. Carry the reviewed plan into rehearsal or Second Chair, while keeping simulated testimony separate from evidence and admissibility for counsel and the court.
Exhibits
Exhibits proposed from the record
BRON proposes exhibits from documents coded hot, documents the matter's evidence cites, and transcripts with designations. A privileged or work-product document is never proposed, and a candidate you decline does not come back.
Foundation from a fixed checklist
Each exhibit gets a foundation checklist drawn from the rules of evidence. A model can only point an item to records already on the matter. It cannot write the rule, check an item off, or treat a matching name as the sponsoring witness.
A marked exhibit keeps its number
Only a proposed exhibit can be renumbered, and renumbering is an attorney-confirmed act with its own audit record. Once an exhibit is marked, its number holds.
Before trial
Motion targets for counsel to review
BRON suggests motion in limine targets from contradictions in the record, documents coded hot for reasons such as prejudice or settlement, and the other side's exhibits. Each ground is left for the attorney to confirm.
Jury instructions as a checklist
From the matter's claims and elements, BRON lists the instructions a charge conference needs: burden of proof, the elements of each claim, and damages. Each carries a placeholder where the legal standard goes.
A corrected transcript flags designations
A corrected deposition transcript flags the designations it affects and proposes fact updates for attorney review.
Into the courtroom
The trial notebook is work product
The trial notebook exports as attorney work product prepared in anticipation of trial. It is not saved as a matter document, so it cannot reach the client portal.
A missing exhibit keeps its place in the binder
An exhibit whose file cannot be printed still gets a page in its place in the sequence, saying which exhibit is missing and why. The binder prints each exhibit's registered number as it stands.
Live depositions have their own page
AvailableSecond Chair, which follows a live deposition on glasses the firm supplies, is described on its own page.
What it reads from
- Discovery and the evidence the matter cites
- Depositions, designations and transcripts
- Witnesses and experts recorded on the matter
- Contradictions in the record
- The matter's claims and elements
Who can do what
- Recorded witness side and role determine direct or cross ordering. Counsel checks that classification, attribution, objections and exhibit linkage and adapts the questions. A party’s discovery response is not automatically this witness’s oath; verification and disputed-response cautions remain visible. Reading the plan does not adopt it. Separate attorney adoption records an audit entry and projects the plan into the knowledge graph, reporting if that projection is unavailable.
- Counsel chooses the witness and exhibit sequence, supplies applicable law, resolves foundation and decides what to offer. For the notice email, receipt and reading require their own evidentiary basis beyond its sent time.
- The attorney supplies instruction law and motion grounds, and decides admissibility. BRON leaves placeholders.
- Whose witness someone is, is the attorney's call. A suggested witness's side stays unknown until it is set.
- Renumbering exhibits is an attorney-confirmed act with its own audit record. Only a proposed exhibit can move.
- A privileged or work-product document is never proposed as an exhibit.
- The trial notebook is work product. It is not saved as a matter document and never reaches the client portal.
What it produces
- The pretrial disclosures
- The exhibit list and the binder
- The charge conference
- The objection log
- Drafting, where the citation check applies
Limits
- A foundation item marked as checked is counsel's assertion, not a court's ruling.
- Suggestions come from what the matter already holds. A witness nobody deposed or a document nobody uploaded cannot be proposed, and leaving it off a list does not mean it does not exist.
What BRON will not do
Write instruction law or a motion ground.
Both outlines leave placeholders for the attorney. An instruction that is filed goes through the citation check like any other document.
Propose a privileged document as a trial exhibit.
Marking one could waive the privilege, so that decision has to start with the attorney.
Renumber an exhibit that has been marked.
Its number is already on the sticker and in the court reporter's log. Changing it would rewrite the record of the trial.
Decide whose witness this is.
Questions written for a friendly witness read well until they are put to one who came to hurt the case.
Put a fact in an outline that the record does not hold.
An outline that invented one date or one prior answer would be worse than none, because counsel reads it in the courtroom.
When something goes wrong
- Missing topics, unlinked exhibits, unavailable testimony and failed source reads remain explicit. A plan does not establish that the record is complete.
- A witness-topic word match can prioritize an existing element-gap task; it is not a fresh legal-sufficiency analysis, a finding about the witness or proof that the gap is closed.
- A projected record chain is a proof proposal, not a certification of admission or success. These trial paths retain their development and live-matter qualification.
- An exhibit whose file will not open still takes a page in the binder, naming what is missing and why.
- A candidate exhibit you decline does not come back.
- A corrected deposition transcript flags the designations it affects and proposes fact updates for attorney review.
- A foundation item marked as checked is an attorney's assertion until a court rules.