Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers multiuser discovery software (see article below), a document management system, a service for scheduling meetings, an Android-based watch, and a law firm video directory. Don't miss the next issue.
Turning the Ediscovery Challenge Into an Opportunity
Litigators view ediscovery as a black box — an expensive one that's not going away. Now that state courts have begun creating ediscovery rules, even those of you who don't practice in federal court need to get up to speed. But fear not. You've gone down this road before. Back in the days of paper, a managing partner somewhere must have received a bill for photocopying and thought, "We should buy our own copiers!" And voila — a new source of law firm revenue was born. Similarly, a growing number of law firms see ediscovery as challenge they can transform into a business opportunity — with the help of some software.
Digital WarRoom WorkGroup … in One Sentence
GGO's Digital WarRoom WorkGroup (DWR WorkGroup) is a multiuser ediscovery application that enables you to process and index collected data, and then analyze, review, annotate, and produce it.
The Killer Feature
Most litigation teams don't see discovery documents until after a service provider has processed them. Processing software typically requires specialized training. DWR WorkGroup eliminates the need for such training.
You'll still want an expert to collect data from hard drives to prevent spoliation. Once you have the data, however, you can process it yourself by literally dragging the collected files into your case database in DWR WorkGroup.
DWR WorkGroup automatically extracts email messages and documents, removes system files (de-NISTing), removes duplicates (de-duplication), and indexes the content to make it searchable. The software recognizes more than 500 file formats. The built-in OCR technology even enables you to search text extracted from image files.
"High quality ediscovery solutions have traditionally been too expensive for all but the larger, complex matters," GGO managing director Bill Gallivan told us. "We created DWR WorkGroup to give law firms an affordable, easy-to-use ediscovery system for all their cases. Ediscovery is becoming a profitable practice area for enterprising law firms."
Other Notable Features
Once you finish processing, you can start analyzing and reviewing. Regarding the former, DWR WorkGroup includes a number of early case assessment technologies. For example, "Who to Whom" and other graphical views of the document set reveal patterns of conversation, relationships, and events that can inform case strategy.
For document review, you'll find Boolean, keyword, and fuzzy search, as well as filtering by file type, mark, issue codes, and metadata fields. Conversation threads and date histograms also facilitate finding relevant and privileged documents. You can annotate and redact documents, and automatically generate a privilege log.
DWR WorkGroup captures everyone's activity in a control log that, along with a number of other reports, enables you to monitor progress and defend your review if challenged by opposing counsel.
Case data is portable in several senses. DWR WorkGroup offers review features as noted above, but if you prefer you can review the documents you process in Summation. Or you can move your case database from DWR WorkGroup to GGO's hosted platform if you need assistance from the company's consultants. When your team completes its review, you can create load files in many formats (e.g., Concordance, Summation, iPRO) if requested by opposing counsel.
What Else Should You Know?
DWR WorkGroup costs $3,895 for a perpetual server software license, and $600 per reviewer per year. Installation and one day of training, which is optional, costs $1,600. Learn more about Digital WarRoom WorkGroup.
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