Filings/Trial Document category

ejzejz

One suggestion for what could be a relatively easy improvement. I currently use the Report item template to store legal filings like Complaints, Motions to Dismiss or Amicus briefs. It's not ideal and it would be very useful to be able to search and sort for legal filings specifically, as opposed to lumping it in with Reports. How about adding a category and new icon for legal briefs/filings even if it's just a duplicate of the Case or Report templates? Ideally it would include information that's currently in the Case template that would at least indicate the relevant court, since it's possible to have documents with the same name (E.g., motion to dismiss) for the same case (but, say, one is at the trial level and one is with an appellate court).

fbennett

Are you using Zotero or Jurism for these materials?

ejzejz

I used to use Juris-M, then switched back to Zotero a year or so ago, I think because there were some conversion/bibtex add ins that didn't work with Juris-M then. Happy to switch back if that will fix. (But appreciate advice on how to do so).

bwiernik

@fbennet How would filings be entered in Jurism?

ejzejz

As far as I've been able to tell, the same for both Jurism and Zotero - I use either case (adding information in the title for the docmument, like Smith v. Jones (Compaint) or Smith v. Jones (Plaintiff's Motion to Dismiss) or Report.

fbennett

I haven't worked directly with court documents in the wild, so my approach in Jurism is not proven, but the Case type has a field Document Name, which maps unimaginatively to a CSL-M variable document-name. It's intended for court filings: we can apply distinct formatting on legal_case items that have a value in that field.