When we ask you to imagine a live event, we’re guessing that most of you easily conjure up images of concerts, sporting events, awards shows, and corporate banquets. But, did any of you think about a courtroom? We’re guessing no. But, when you stop and think about it, what’s more “live event” than a trial? We asked our customer, Houston-based Legal Media, Inc. (LMI), if they would give us some evidence (sorry, we couldn’t help it) of how Flex helps in their legal work. And to stay on theme we decided to put Francesca Cerrato, Partner and Senior Designer at Legal Media, under questioning and do it deposition style.
Can you please tell us a little bit about Legal Media?
If you’ve served on a jury recently, or seen video from a court case, you may have noticed computer screens throughout the courtroom. Legal Media makes the “magic” happen on those screens.
Presentation in legal proceedings is the work of our trial consultants. Witnesses testifying by video come from our multimedia techs, and our designers create the graphics that are shown.
The products and services we offer help attorneys communicate effectively in all kinds of cases, in venues throughout the U.S.
Using specialized software to present documents, recording and editing video depositions, and designing visual aids to educate and persuade has been our work since the late 1990s. Then in 2023, we added A/V equipment rental to our suite of services.
Francesca Cerrato
Partner, Senior Designer
How did A/V rentals become part of your suite of services?
New courtrooms are constructed with technology built in, but older ones were not, and some matters, such as mock trials, mediations, and arbitrations, aren’t even held in courtrooms, and require custom A/V solutions. We sometimes struggled to find equipment vendors who could provide what we needed, when we needed it, for a reasonable fee.
Over time, we began to draw more and more on our own experience and in-house A/V technology. Developing our people and inventory has given us control over an important aspect of our work. We test everything we want to try on our own projects. Once we’re comfortable, it becomes part of the rental inventory.
Many of our clients are our fellow trial consultants. Rather than buy, store, maintain, ship, set-up, and support A/V equipment, they prefer to use an outside company. They’re free to focus on the aspects of the job they like, outsource the rest, and pass on the cost to their client.
©2023, Legal Media, Inc. Arbitration in Houston, TX
“Flex made it easy to build our customer database and get our rental inventory set up and organized.”
How did you manage this before becoming a Flex customer?
Before Flex, we were using Excel. The limitations were obvious, so we started looking for a platform that could help us manage inventory and serve as the foundation for a service we knew had the potential to grow.
Flex made it easy to build our customer database and get our rental inventory set up and organized. We are approaching one year with Flex, and getting more out of it as we go. It allows our team to focus on the job at hand – configuring and testing A/V systems and providing tech support. We’re able to generate quotes and pull sheets quickly, getting equipment checked out and delivered in a seamless, organized way. At the end of the process, we use it to generate invoices that are sent to QuickBooks.
How has your experience been to date with Flex?
Whenever we’ve had questions, Flex support has been excellent. The platform is robust and full of features, and we look forward to using more and more of its capabilities. We’re looking forward to some improvements on both phones and tablets, for the web and in the mobile app. It would make using Flex on the go easier.
With such a strong resource to build on, we are excited about what the future holds! Thank you and keep up the great work, Flex team!!
Flex is proud to have worked with Legal Media since 2023.
©2024, Legal Media, Inc.
