Visual Timelines
Yesterday I had a hearing on a motion for summary judgment in a case that began in 2009. The opposing side had made some statements in their brief intended to confuse the events, which meant I had to be ready to show the precise timing of the most relevant activities. We put the information in the brief, of course, but while preparing for the argument, it was clear that the written timeline would not be effective. It was too complex.
There are probably many ways to create timelines. You can find apps, use project management Gantt charts, sketch it out on a whiteboard and take a picture of it, and so on. I found a template for PowerPoint that, with a little modification, did the job. The judge quickly understood that the other side had not presented an accurate picture, which gave me all kinds of credibility and I ultimately won.
The template is attached along with the template I put together for the hearing so you can see how I modified it. It wasn't perfect because I didn't need perfect and- perhaps more importantly - I didn't need to bill the client for perfection. But it definitely allowed me to share my screen on Zoom and make the point I needed to make.
Don't like this version? No problem. Open up PowerPoint. On the "home" screen, which should come up right away, look for the "more themes" choice, probably on the right side of the screen. Click that, then enter "timeline" in the search bar. You'll get a lot of options to choose from, all of them customizable.
What else can you use? If I had more time, I probably would have done something using one of these apps on the iPad:
- Graphio4
- Concepts
- Timeline Creator
- Timeline 3D (this thing is really cool if you can find a way to turn events into "photos")
- FriseChrono
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