With a prestigious career spanning nearly 50 years and counting, certified appellate specialist Alan Charles “Chuck” Dell’Ario has witnessed many changes in the legal field and the growing presence of technology in traditional legal practices.
Going solo
Not one to shy away from a challenge, Dell’Ario saw the need to integrate technology into his California-based practice after becoming a solo practitioner and continuing to take on multiple high-level appellate cases each year.
Lacking the staff that comes with working in a firm, Dell’Ario knew that his time was more valuable than ever and was in search of tools to streamline his workload and minimize time-consuming tasks. Passing the savings to his clients through fewer billed hours was his ultimate goal.
Fast, accurate, compliant brief formatting
Dell’Ario had been without a formal, staffed office for three years when he discovered TypeLaw in 2014. He was instantly drawn to the ability to create digital briefs that included formatting and tables specific to the court jurisdiction. Tables and appendices that could take hours to format and edit could now be done in less than an hour with TypeLaw. Tables were more accurate as TypeLaw automatically updated them as he would edit a brief.
The TypeLaw team was standing by and able to help Dell’Ario with time-sensitive requests and questions, a benefit that was extremely valuable to a lawyer working without support staff. By 2016, Dell’Ario was using TypeLaw for all of his briefs. In 2019 alone, he filed 10 appellate briefs using TypeLaw, encompassing 65,000 words and 3 oral arguments. He has several others in progress.
“TypeLaw’s court-specific table and appendix add-on features are huge time and cost savers when crafting briefs. Knowing that the tables are automatically updated and formatted to court standards helps me be sure that each brief complies with all court rules when filing.”
Chuck Dell’Ario
A winning approach to brief writing
One of the signature cases in Mr. Dell’Ario’s successful legal career was decided in favor of his client in 2018, Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Superior Court (Rosen) (2018) 4 Cal.5th 607. TypeLaw was used in 20 different briefs, petitions, and motions related to the opinions in the case. The case spent almost a decade in the courts below before the California Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 2018 that all colleges owe a duty to protect students from foreseeable violence on campus. Dell’Ario ultimately received a CLAY (California Lawyer Attorney of the Year) award for his work on the case.
Dell’Ario and TypeLaw also collaborated in T.H. vs. Novartis Pharm. Corp. (2017) 4 Cal.5th 145. He co-authored an amicus brief using TypeLaw on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California. In a win for consumers, the California Supreme Court found that brand-name drug manufacturers owe a duty of reasonable care to ensure that product labels warn of potentially adverse effects of their drugs, whether brand name or a generic equivalent, and were still liable after manufacture ceased if labels were not adequately updated. TypeLaw provided a seamless experience for Dell’Ario and his co-author to draft and edit the amicus brief with ease while located on opposite coasts.
No legal support staff, no problem
For a solo practitioner like Alan Charles Dell’Ario, becoming an early adopter of TypeLaw expanded his ability to take on multiple high profile cases and clients without the need for legal support staff. He credits TypeLaw for providing him with a comprehensive user experience to consistently meet client needs.