Hello, Harald.  I know the federal government used information
management software (designed by CACI and Oracle) to handle the enormous
class-action tobacco lawsuits.

According to CACI, the case would have likely been untenable without
the technology, as the evidenciary documentation reached millions of
pages.  Converting those documents (including 20-year old photocopies of
very poor quality) into a usable form required: combining rapid scanning
technology (to create digital image copies of each page); automated text
recognition (to convert images into machine readable text); and
development of fuzzy logic search tools which could account for
extremely noisy text recognition (accuracy on some documents was well
below 50%).

Once the government had the ability to meaningfully approach the
evidence, they used something like a rudimentary code-and-retrieve
system, where individual records could be coded/annotated by the
relevant counsel (the case involved hundreds of lawyers, over the course
of several years), for later review.

Again, according to CACI, the package worked well enough that
government counsel were able to search the database even as witnesses
were testifying, to identify supporting or contradictory evidence.  This
was tied to court room AV technology, which could display the images of
the original documents.  Nifty.

I'm presently working with Wayne McIntosh (U Maryland) on a review
paper of social scientist CAQDAS use for the 2004 ISA Conference in
Montreal.  Considering the fairly rigorous standards of evidence with
courtroom law, we also began investigation the use of CAQDAS by case
lawyers, which is how we came by the CACI project.

As we understand, the use of databases and annotation software is
common among large firms, but these systems are largely proprietary and
ideosyncratic.  Law schools are only beginning to realize that these
skills might be useful for their students - I know of research at Denver
University's Law Library which is attempting to get a better sense of
the scope of computer use in law.

FYI: Wayne and I (and Steve Simon, also U Maryland) recently submitted
an NSF application for a project which would apply network analysis
software to a database  of the (precedent) case history of the legal
concept of "regulatory takings."  We believe the network analysis will
help us to narrow down the case history to a smaller subset of "key"
cases, which we would then analyze using code-and-retrieve and
concordance software.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Ken Cousins
Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda
Department of Government and Politics
3114 C Tydings Hall
University of Maryland, College Park
T: (301) 405-4133
C:  (301) 758-4490
F:  (301) 314-7619
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
       Albert Einstein