Filters
Overview
Filters allow you to quickly search witnesses by categories such as Expert, Alignment, and Case Impact. You can also use filters before or after running a search, such as by a key word or phrase, to further refine the results.
Navigating search filters
On the Witness page, click the filter icon under the Timeline heading to open the Filters panel. Categories and subcategories organize the individual facets. Facets are the collection of terms and witness counts for an individual search attribute. You can quickly expand or collapse the categories for easy navigation. Alternatively, search for the name of a category or subcategory to quickly limit the filters panel.
Filtering for witnesses
Selecting a term will return witnesses matching the facet criteria. Selecting a term in one category or subcategory will update the counts displayed in other categories and subcategories. Selected terms are displayed in pills above the witness filters.
Search filter pills
For each selected facet, a pill is created. You can hover over the pill to see the full contents, which is helpful for complex search criteria. You can also click the pill to remove any specific term, or simply remove the entire pill from your search criteria:
Search Syntax
Overview
You can find facts and corresponding work product and metadata using the search bar, which operates much like its DISCO Ediscovery counterpart, legal research software (such as Westlaw or Lexis), or Google. Note that when you search on the Witness page, the search is limited to Witnesses and does not search through the Depositions or Annotations pages. However, you can search a data field directly tied to the witness (for example depoDate or depoCount in the search syntax below).
See Case Builder search manual for search basics, supported operators, and order of operations. You can always expand the search bar for a quick guide on commonly used syntax.
Fields
A search query that does not specify a field (i.e., “fieldless”) will search through the fact titles, details, and notes as well as the evidence title and details. Within the parentheses, you can use operators (such as & or quotation marks), and multiple fields can be searched simultaneously to narrow the results (such as date(1/1/2020) & witness(Ball) & “carbon scrubbers”).
Witness
Command | Description | Example |
witness | Name of the witness |
witness(Smith) — Witnesses with Smith as either the first or last name |
partyAlignment | User-provided party alignment of the witness |
partyAlignment(Plaintiff) — Any witness that has been identified as affiliated with the Plaintiff |
isExpert | User-provided; whether the witness is an expert in this case |
isExpert(yes) — Any witness that has been identified as an expert |
description | User-provided; optional description that can be provided about the witness |
description("employee") — Any witness in which the description contains "employee" |
caseImpact | User-provided; value that describes witness impact on case with range from critically harmful to critically helpful and a default value of neutral |
caseImpact(helpful) — Any witness given the case impact value of "helpful" to the case |
expertise | User-provided; optional description of witness expertise |
expertise("economic") — Any witness in which the expertise description contains "economic" |
note | User-provided; optional field containing notes about the witness and witness interactions |
note("need to contact") — Any witness in which the note field contains "need to contact" |
Deposition related
Command | Description | Example |
depoDate | Date of the deposition — returns results where all or some of the deposition dates associated with the witness falls within the date being searched for. |
depoDate(2020) — Any witness where all or some of an affiliated deposition may have occurred during the year 2020. Ex: 2020, 2019-2023; Mar 1, 2020 depoDate(1/2020) — Any witness where where all or some of the depositions may have occurred during Jan 2020. Ex: Jan 2020, Jan 28, 2020; Jan 3, 2020 11:00 AM; 2019-2023 depoDate(1/15/2020) — Any witness where all or some of the affiliated depositions may have occurred during Jan 15, 2020. Ex: 2020, 2019-2023; Jan 15, 2020; Jan 15, 2020 8:00 PM depoDate(1/15/2020T9:30:00) — Any witness where all or some of the affiliated depositions may have occurred at 9:30 A.M. on Jan 15, 2020 |
depoCount | The number of depositions associated with the given witness — returns witnesses with the specified number or number range of associated depositions |
depoCount(>3) — Any witness with the specified number or number range of associated depositions |
Timeline fact related
Command | Description | Example |
factCount | The number of facts associated with a given witness — returns witnesses with the specified number or number range of associated facts |
factCount(>3) — Any witness with the specified number or number range of associated facts
|
keyFact | Whether a fact is a key fact — returns all witnesses affiliated with a fact with a Key fact status or a Not a key fact status |
keyFact(true) or keyFact(yes) — Any witness affiliated with a fact with a Key fact status keyFact(false) or keyFact(no) — Any witness affiliated with a fact with a Not a key fact status |
factTitle | The title of a fact — returns all witnesses affiliated with a fact with the searched fact title |
factTitle("carbon scrubber") — Any witness affiliated with a fact with a fact title that includes "carbon scrubber" |
Sorting
Witness search results can be sorted by the following fields:
- First name
- Last name
- Party alignment
- Case impact
- Deposition count
- Fact count
Each field sort can be ordered descending or ascending, and witnesses matching the search are displayed in the results. Results can be expanded, in which case the entire selection is displayed and all actions are available, or collapsed, for quickly skimming the results.