The test for any piece of technology at trial is not what it can do. It is whether the jury notices it. An exhibit that appears instantly on the screen at the moment counsel refers to it is invisible; the technology has done its job. Thirty seconds of a lawyer clicking through folders while a witness waits is not a delay — it is a distraction that costs attention nobody gets back.
Almost everything worth knowing about courtroom technology follows from that.
Ask the court. Practices vary by courthouse, by courtroom and by judge — what may be brought in, what may connect to the court’s display system, whether devices may be used at counsel table, and what must be arranged in advance. This is a phone call to chambers or the clerk, made in the week before trial rather than the morning of.
Assume the room will not cooperate. The adapter will be the wrong one, the display will be the wrong aspect ratio, and the wireless will not work. Every one of these is survivable if anticipated and fatal to your rhythm if not.
Have a paper fallback for anything you must show. Not for everything — for the six exhibits the case turns on.
Most courtroom technology failures are exhibit failures, and they share a shape: the document exists, and it cannot be found or read in the moment it is needed.
Be able to reach any exhibit in one action. Numbered, ordered, and retrievable without navigating a file tree.
Design for the screen, not the page. A dense document displayed whole is unreadable. The passage that matters should be enlargeable — and prepared that way in advance, not zoomed live.
Know what has been admitted and what has not. A publication error is a real problem, and the pressure of trial is exactly when it happens.
Rehearse on the actual display. Contrast and legibility differ enormously between a laptop and a courtroom screen, and a highlight that is obvious on your monitor can be invisible on theirs.
The useful work happens before anyone enters the courtroom.
Instant retrieval from the record. Being able to find the page and line where a witness said something, during their testimony, changes what is possible in cross-examination. That capability is built in preparation — an indexed record — not improvised at counsel table. See how to review a deposition transcript.
Impeachment material ready to display. The prior inconsistent statement, cued to the exact line, ready to put on screen. The moment passes quickly.
Designation charts that reconcile. Page and line ranges that have been checked against the transcript rather than against your notes.
A shared, current view for the team. Everyone at counsel table looking at the same version of the exhibit list.
Anything unverified. A tool’s summary of testimony is a lead for you to check, never something to display or read aloud. In a courtroom the cost of being wrong is immediate and public.
Live AI queries during testimony. Beyond the practical risk, several courts now have views about the use of these tools in filings and proceedings, and a lawyer visibly consulting a model mid-examination invites a conversation you do not want to have. See AI certification in the District of Colorado.
Client material on a screen the jury can see. Trivial to do accidentally with a mirrored display.
That last point is worth its own sentence. The lawyer conducting the examination should not be the one operating the technology. Attention is the resource in short supply, and splitting it is how both jobs get done badly.
Courtroom technology should reduce the number of things a lawyer has to hold in their head at the moment of performance. Anything that adds to that load — however capable — is working against you, no matter how well it demonstrates.
Ours are preparation tools rather than courtroom ones, deliberately. Lawnova PDF indexes transcripts and exhibits so that any passage is addressable by page and line before you walk in, and VerdictPilot is for rehearsing the case beforehand. What happens in the room should be the part you have already practised.