But if you don’t mind working on tablets, this might be the most cost-effective way to go, and the cost of an iPad is far, far less than a full paid subscription to Westlaw Case Notebook. This is by far the best of the free options for getting the most of your e-Transcripts without a paid subscription, the only downside being that it is only offered on Apple mobile devices.
By going to the App Store and getting the Westlaw Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript app, you can easily import the e-Transcripts your court reporter sends you and immediately start annotating, highlighting, and organizing your notes using your touchscreen or Bluetooth keyboard or mouse.
Westlaw offers a free, full-functionality e-Transcript app for iPad and iPhone. Westlaw Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript app for iPad and iPhone.Download the free E-Transcript Bundle Viewer. Furthermore, if you are in a week of depositions or arbitration that requires rough drafts every night in order to prep for the next day, ask your court reporter to send you the rough drafts in e-Transcript format, and use this read-only viewer to expedite your searches and make the most of the limited hours you have to prep for the next day. While this will not unlock the ability to annotate, highlight and organize your notes, having a click-searchable word index at your fingertips will save you hours searching through lengthy transcripts for critical passages. By downloading this free, read-only viewer, you can take advantage of the hyperlink word index function of an e-Transcript. Download the free E-Transcript Bundle Viewer from Thomas Reuters Westlaw.3 Ways to Get the Most Out of E-Transcripts Without a Westlaw Subscription: There are a couple ways to get some or all functionality out of your e-Transcripts without any subscription whatsoever. Without a costly subscription to Westlaw’s Case Notebook software, you won’t be able to do any of these things with the e-Transcripts your court reporter sends you, and probably won’t even be able to open the file. Organize your notes and annotations in one convenient place and access your notes with a simple click.Ability to highlight and annotate within the body of the transcript.Hyperlinked word index to easily search through the entire transcript.Some of the most time-saving functions of an e-Transcript are:
Today, most court reporters and court reporting firms offer e-Transcripts (.ptx), and they are by far the most preferred format for successful, experienced litigators due to their unmatched functionality. The days of leafing through hundreds of pages of hardcopy transcripts are long gone, as are the days of having to cut and paste from an ASCII file into a Word document when preparing deposition summaries. Getting the right transcript format (and getting the most out of that format) can actually save you a significant amount of time, lowering the overall cost of litigation.
When you purchase trial or deposition transcripts from your court reporter, you are making an investment in your case and spending more of your clients’ money to assist you in preparing and presenting your best arguments.