Cybercasts Pose Alternatives to Videoconferencing

Meetings are the bane of the legal profession. They are continually canceled and rescheduled, and their associated costs often are disproportionate to their value.

In a major case involving several law firms, the logistics of gathering the attorneys for face-to-face meetings may be impossible. Travel time and expense charges can multiply meeting costs. When such meetings conclude, moreover, the attorneys often do not have what they need most: an accurate transcript of the proceedings.

In recent years, costs and logistics have been forcing attorneys to seek alternatives to face-to-face meetings. Telephone conference calls can save money, but setting them up can be a nightmare, and participants still receive no printed transcripts or visual aids.

Videoconferences offer a more personal atmosphere, but participants must travel to special videoconference centers. The cost is high, especially if long-distance lines to multiple sites are required, and participants ordinarily wait days for transcripts.

Now, an advance in communications technology -- "cybercasting" -- promises attorneys the advantages of videoconferencing with more options, lower costs and an immediate printed text of what is said.

The economic benefits of cybercasting stem from its ability to reach people through personal computers via the Internet. Cybercast participants can hear and read the speaker's words. If they miss anything, they can scroll the text back for review, and can highlight specific points in the text.

Participants can type out and transmit questions to the speakers. Because the audio is one-way, they cannot engage in dialogue or interrupt the speakers. If a cybercast is archived, the entire communication, including transcript, audio and graphics, can be revisited.

An ordinary phone call links the speaker to a cybercasting service provider. The audience connects to the meeting through PC browsers, eliminating the need for special equipment and the expense of multiple long-distance phone hookups. To prevent eavesdropping, access can be limited to a list of authorized attendees.

Coordinating Counsel

For corporate counsel, cybercasting offers a means of communicating simultaneously with outside counsel in several cities, including attorneys on the road. For example, an insurance company involved in a case with many plaintiffs, such as an asbestos liability suit, is likely to have several law firms working on the same case, raising the potential for redundant work. By cybercasting, counsel can ensure that the various firms and individuals understand their responsibilities. Counsel can also use such meetings to make sure that information that should be shared is being shared.

Multi-office law firms can use cybercasting for anything from full-firm meetings to briefings on new office systems or changes in their 401(k) plans. A large firm occupying several floors of a building can cybercast in-house meetings via the firm's internal computer network.

Many large firms have inadequate meeting room capacity. To communicate with everyone, they may need to hold several small meetings or rent a large external space. By enabling attendees to participate in meetings via PCs, cybercasting simplifies logistics, cuts costs and encourages greater internal communication.

Rocket Scientist Not Needed

Cybercasting requires virtually no special equipment or user skills. The cybercasting provider ordinarily handles all of the logistics, and attendees need to know only how to access the 'Net.

Text and graphics appear in separate windows on users' monitors. One box scrolls real-time text of what is said, another makes a transcript available for immediate review, and a third displays graphics. A fourth enables participants to send questions directly to the host. These can be screened and reviewed before being forwarded to the speaker without interrupting the presentation.

To cybercast real-time text, the service provider needs only an audio feed-a phone line-from the speaker. No additional hardware is needed, and low-bandwidth Internet connections reduce data transmissions without the cost of compression-decompression, or codec, boards. Cybercasting software can run in Windows, Macintosh and Unix environments, requires no downloading and is not limited by proprietary systems or formats. It works over the Net, any TCP/IP network, CompuServe or America Online, via a 14.4KB/sec. or faster modem. It can also be set up to work through corporate firewalls that restrict outside interaction.

Adding audio requires RealAudio, an Internet sound system that users can download onto PCs. Many PCs already have audio capability, and audio players for PCs are available for Microsoft, Windows, NT, Apple and Unix platforms. Graphics must be furnished in advance to the cybercasting service provider, which can supply them to attendees and coordinate text and graphics as long as the text is fed through the provider's delivery system.

Cybercasting's real-time text capability relies on the same court reporting technology used in computer integrated courtrooms and that enables closed-captioning for television.

Since its introduction in 1995, a variety of organizations have used cybercasting with real-time text for communication, conferencing and training meetings. One attorney who has used cybercasting prominently is President Clinton, whose second inaugural address and most recent State of the Union message were cybercast.