Legal Settlement Video Brochures
Settlement video presentations can often help win the case before you ever go to trial. Faced with a professionally produced settlement program that represents both “liability” and “loss” issues, your opponent may decide to avoid the risk of going to court. A settlement video is typically produced for negotiation agreements. The purpose of the settlement video or legal video presentation primarily has three goals or objectives.
Determine if the story or lawsuit concentrates more on negligence, damages, or both.
Produce a legal story using legal facts accumulated from settlement brochures, legal experts, doctors, economists, family and friends, witnesses, police, responding emergency technicians, and more.
Use professional voice-over narration with exhibits, documents, photos, depositions, testimony, video, graphics, and animation.
Since the main purpose of a legal settlement video is to outline your case to opposing counsel during mediation or settlement negotiations, special TV industry techniques can be applied to add more emotion to the production . . . which typically would not be allowed in a trial environment.
Legal Day-in-the-Life Videos
A day-in-the-life video is produced for use in court and should not be confused with a legal video photomontage. A legal videographer will arrive in the morning at the location of an injured party (typically an amputee, quadriplegic, or paraplegic) and document on camera a day-in-the-life of an injured party which includes daily rituals of waking up, bathing, bowel care program, eating, wheelchair mobility, and day-to-day living. While documenting damages, the goal is to show a jury or attorney how the injury has affected the life of the injured party and their family. For admissibility purposes, a legal videographer should not use any special camera or editing techniques that degrade or enhances the video, and with a few exceptions, audio is typically not played in court.
Legal Video Photomontages
Similar and different to a wedding video photomontage, a legal montage is typically meant to highlight a person’s life before their death or major injury occurred. The goal is to show their happiness and to humanize them to opposing counsel. For example, a plaintiff attorney handling a personal injury death case might find it advantageous to make the defense attorneys watch a video photo montage of the deceased before discussing settlement amounts. Watching and feeling the pain that the family members experience (while at the mediation table) and feeling the loss of life from an emotional perspective, a defense attorney or team might feel more obligated to reach a better settlement agreement. A legal video photomontage might include family photos and video with music, and can also include professional narration that tells a story.
Security and Surveillance Video Copy & Editing
Many legal cases involve a CD or DVD that contains security camera footage or police body cam and car cam footage that can only be viewed with the proprietary software included on the discs. NJL can transfer this video from the discs to a more viewer-friendly format such as an MP4 file and can also narrow down specific times and zoom in to areas of interest.
On-site Videotaping
For legal documentation, preservation, and illustration, it might be advantageous to hire a legal videographer to videotape specific properties, premises, equipment, and operations. Videos provide a strong and defensible form of evidence that, most of the time, cannot be disputed in court.