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PLC Labor & Employment: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an online resource for employment law needs (see article below), a desktop search utility, software for making image-only documents searchable, an extranet add-on for Time Matters, and an iOS reading app. Don't miss the next issue.

Add a Team of Employment Lawyers to Your Firm With One Click

If your law firm represents businesses, you probably field lots of questions about employment law even if that's not your primary specialty. In the old days, a client would call you up, ask about an employment law issue, and gladly pay to have your firm research the answer. Or draft an agreement. Etc. Nowadays, they still ask such questions, but don't want to pay for time spent on ramp-up research or drafting a document from scratch. Small firms have it especially tough as they don't have the resources to write off research and lack a large library of "routine" model documents.

PLCLabor & Employment … in One Sentence
Practical Law Company's PLCLabor & Employment is an online service that provides employment law practice guides, model documents, state surveys, and more.

The Killer Feature
No request makes lawyers feel as conflicted as the multi-state survey. They're lucrative but involve a lot of mind-numbing research. And as noted above, clients no longer want to pay law firms to invent a wheel that they feel must already exist.

And in this case the wheel does indeed exist in the form of PLCLabor & Employment's State Q&A Tool. This database summarizes state laws on various topics such as anti-discrimination laws, background check laws, drug testing laws, hiring requirements, leave laws, non-compete laws, wage and hour laws, etc.

"PLC's State Q&A Tool, like all of our other resources, helps lawyers work efficiently so that they can focus more time on the higher-level advising that clients value most," Practical Law Company CEO Jeroen Plink told us.

Other Notable Features
PLCLabor & Employment also includes downloadable model documents in Microsoft Word format. You'll also find Practice Notes, which are how-to guides written in plain English. Think of them as roadmaps for practice. Topics include corporate transactions and bankruptcy, cross-border and immigration and employee data, and monitoring and privacy among others.

The service also saves you time on executive employment agreements with its What's Market tool that consists of data culled from agreements filed with the SEC. You can create custom trend reports using filters such as industry, market capitalization, and governing law. You can also browse agreements and compare provisions within agreements (280G, clawback, base salary, etc.).

What Else Should You Know?
A team of lawyers who previously worked at employment law powerhouses such as Jackson Lewis and Littler Mendelson create these materials. They also serve as your reference librarians. Tell them what you're working on and they will email you links to the applicable resources. You can try PLCLabor & Employment for free. The annual subscription provides unlimited use. Learn more about PLCLabor & Employment.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Automation/Document Assembly/Macros | Legal Research | TL NewsWire | Transactional Practice Areas

KnowledgeTree: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a document management system (see article below), an iPad mind-mapping app, an iPhone projector, an iPhone car mount, and an iOS flight-tracking app. Don't miss the next issue.

A Smart Document Management System

An industry insider recently expressed surprise that document management is the most popular topic among TechnoLawyer members given the large number of law firms without a document management system. However, where she sees cognitive dissonance, I see normal market behavior. Think about buying a car. During your research phase, you notice every car you see. But unless you're a car enthusiast, once you drive off the lot in your new car your interest fades. Of course, most people don't search for a car for 10 years. Perhaps law firms have held back because of insufficient choice in the marketplace. One new entrant certainly hopes so.

KnowledgeTree … in One Sentence
KnowledgeTree is a cloud document management system.

The Killer Feature
Released last week, KnowledgeTree ExplorerCP is a desktop client through which you can access the documents you store in your KnowledgeTree account. ExplorerCP works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Because ExplorerCP runs on your computer, the company claims you can manage and edit documents faster. For example, the preferences enable you to select a default application for a file format such as DOC, PDF, etc.

Other Notable Features
In addition to the new desktop client, KnowledgeTree also offers smartphone apps and a Microsoft Office plugin. And of course, KnowledgeTree works in a web browser as well.

KnowledgeTree has built a number of "smart" branded tools into its service. Smart Processes enable you to create document workflows, Smart Alerts notify you of activity on documents, Smart Tags provides more flexibility than the standard client/matter and document numbers of traditional systems, and Smart Search puts a friendly face on Boolean-style searches (i.e., you need not know the syntax to create and save complex searches).

Other features include the ability to share files for specified periods of time, document templates, and audit trails. Each document has a Facebook-style "Like" button to make model documents easier to find.

What Else Should You Know?
KnowledgeTree offers three plans — Teams ($14/user/month), Company ($20/user/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing). The plans differ by features with Enterprise offering tools such as Active Directory and Single-Sign-On. Learn more about KnowledgeTree.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Document Management | Online/Cloud | TL NewsWire

Doxie Go: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Monday, November 7, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a portable scanner (see article below), a multiuser cloud storage service, a document management system, a multifunctional power charger for iOS devices, and an HTML coding service. Don't miss the next issue.

Scan Without Cables

The more mobile our lives become, the more annoyed we become when we have to bring a wire with us — electrical cords, headphones, and worst of all — USB cables, which probably outnumber people by 10 to one at this point. Until now, if you wanted to scan documents on the go, you needed a USB cable not to mention a laptop. A new scanner eliminates the need for both — and you don't need a power cord either.

Doxie Go … in One Sentence
Apparent Corporation's Doxie Go is a portable color document and photo scanner.

The Killer Feature
Thanks to a rechargeable battery and an SD card slot, Doxie Go enables you to scan without any cables or a connection to a computer.

Other Notable Features
Doxie Go measures 10.5 x 1.7 x 2.2 inches and weighs just under a pound. It scans at 8 seconds per page at 300 dpi (you can scan at 600 dpi for higher quality). It outputs scans in PDF, JPG, or PNG format.

When you finish scanning, you can move your scans to a Mac or PC via a USB cable, or to an iPad or iPhone via the optional iPhone/iPad Sync Kit or Apple's similar Camera Connection Kit.

The included Doxie Go 2.0 software automatically cleans, rotates, and straightens your scans. Because the scanner lacks an ADF, the software can stitch together related pages into a single document. You can send your files to any local application as well as to cloud applications such as Evernote, Google Docs, and Dropbox. Also included is ABBYY OCR software for creating searchable PDF files.

What Else Should You Know?
Doxie Go costs $199, including a carrying case, SD memory card, and USB cable (which also charges the scanner). The iPhone/iPad Sync Kit costs $39 and the Doxie Go Kit (a universal wall charger and extra USB cable) costs $19. Learn more about Doxie Go.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Copiers/Scanners/Printers | TL NewsWire

Credenza Pro: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a billing and practice management system (see article below), a remote access gadget, a pen that records what you write, an Android and iOS PDF app, and an intelligent Internet-connected thermostat. Don't miss the next issue.

Outlook as a Billing and Practice Management System

You could build the world's tallest skyscraper on a farm in Montana, but it would not attract as much attention as if you built it in a large city. Location matters not only in real estate but software too. If Microsoft Outlook were a plot of land, can you imagine its value? And what if you built a legal billing and practice management system on top of it that connected everyone in your firm? You'd have a tool that everyone in your firm would use since everyone already uses Outlook. Guess what? We're not talking architectural blueprints here. This product already exists.

Credenza Pro … in One Sentence
Credenza Software's Credenza Pro is a multiuser billing and practice management system that runs within Microsoft Outlook.

The Killer Feature
Because Credenza Pro resides in Outlook, once you create or approve a bill you can email it to a client immediately and share that message with other colleagues. The email integration goes even further. For example, you can batch send invoices and reminders for overdue invoices, again without having to go through some sort of export procedure since you're right in Outlook.

Before you get to the point of sending a bill, you'll find a number of legal-specific billing features. Credenza Pro enables you to track your time and expenses, review work in progress, and manage retainer and trust accounts. An assistant or bookkeeper can even enter time for the lawyers in your firm.

"The beauty of Credenza Pro's integrated billing and practice management capabilities is that it's all done from Outlook," Credenza Software President Ron Collins told us. "Since Outlook is so widely used, its transformation into a billing tool is a valuable asset for law firms that require a cost-effective integrated solution."

Other Notable Features
Credenza Pro works in any size law firm. Each user can choose which information to keep private and which information to share and with whom. For shared client files, Credenza Pro displays to those granted access activity, appointments, bills, contacts, documents, email, events, tasks, and all other associated information.

Unlike most practice management systems in which you must choose between traditional software or the cloud, Credenza Pro uses a hybrid approach. It runs fast because the software is local, but your data is securely synced via a SQL database hosted on Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud platform. If you don't have Internet access such as on a flight, you can still use Credenza Pro. Any changes you make will be synced and then shared with your colleagues when you again connect to the Internet.

Other features include document management, full-text searching, notes and task management, and telephone messages.

What Else Should You Know?
Credenza Pro costs $24.95 per user per month. The company also offers for free Credenza Basic, which lacks the billing and Teams features. Both versions work with Outlook 2003 and later. Learn more about Credenza Pro.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Accounting/Billing/Time Capture | Email/Messaging/Telephony | Practice Management/Calendars | TL NewsWire

Galaxy Nexus: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a large and "pure" Android smartphone (see article below), an iOS printing and scanning app, a cloud-based practice management system, a backup service for Google Apps, and a new mobile weather app. Don't miss the next issue.

The Purest Ice Cream Sandwich This Side of the Galaxy

If it's human nature to seek purity, why do so many products seem impure? For example, the ingredient list on a bag of Doritos reads like a chemistry experiment. In the technology world, many have criticized Android-based smartphones of impurities — skins that impede usability, apps installed by carriers that you can't remove, the inability to update to the latest version of the operating system, etc. However, every year, Google in conjunction with one of its hardware partners ships a pure Android smartphone. By and large these smartphones garner the best reviews though not the best sales because salespeople push products with the highest backdoor commissions. As a TL NewsWire subscriber, you know better than to take advice from a salesperson.

Galaxy Nexus … in One Sentence
Announced last night (in Hong Kong), Samsung and Google's Galaxy Nexus is an Android smartphone.

The Killer Feature
The Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone that will run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the new version of Google's mobile operating system.

New features include Face Unlock (your smartphone unlocks only when it sees your face in its camera), Android Beam for wirelessly transferring data such as your contact information to another person's NFC-equipped smartphone, improved speech recognition for entering text into any application, Google+ integration (including 9-person video-conferencing), app folders, a customizable favorites tray, and improved camera software.

Other Notable Features
The 5 megapixel camera on the back camera has a flash. It shoots 1080p video and can snap panoramic photographs by stitching together photos you snap as you move around in a circle. Samsung claims "zero shutter lag," and "top notch low-light performance." There's also a 1.3 megapixel front camera for video-conferencing.

The display is massive by smartphone standards — 4.65 inches — and uses AMOLED technology at a resolution of 1280x720 pixels (essentially the same as a 720p television) and a pixel density of 315 ppi (the sharpness — second only to the iPhone 4S).

Other specifications include a 1 GB of memory, 16 or 32 GB of storage, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi, and perhaps most importantly a width of 0.35 inches (thinner than the iPhone 4S) and a weight of 4.76 ounces.

What Else Should You Know?
Carriers and prices remain unknowns at the moment, but rumor has it that Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus, and that it will work on its next-generation LTE network. Learn more about Galaxy Nexus.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Laptops/Smartphones/Tablets | TL NewsWire

Sohodox: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Thursday, October 13, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a Windows-based document management system (see article below), a SharePoint alternative, a cloud-based document and knowledge management system, a secure video-conferencing app for iPad and Android tablets, and a dual monitor utility. Don't miss the next issue.

Document Management Software for Small Law Firms

In school, your science teacher told you that perpetual motion machines don't exist. Clearly, your science teacher didn't understand the media. Lately, the media has beaten into your heads the concept of consumerization of technology. They speak the truth, but they speak it too often. There's a more important, unreported trend occurring in the legal industry (and probably others too). Software companies have begun offering big iron products to small law firms and even sole practitioners. No better example of this trend exists than document management for an obvious reason — even solos accumulate and create ever increasing amounts of documents (including email).

Sohodox … in One Sentence
Itaz Technologies' Sohodox is a document management system for 1-20 users.

The Killer Feature
You say tomato. I say tomato. Well, that doesn't quite work in the written realm, but you get the idea. Different strokes for different law firms.

With Sohodox, you can organize your documents in two ways — using files and folders and/or keyword tags. These two tools enable you to create a customized organizational system. For example, you might create folders for each client and subfolders for each matter, and use tags for document type, document ID number, author, version, etc.

Other Notable Features
Sohodox works primarily via drag and drop, including attachments from Outlook. It doesn't force you to place a new document into the system. However, it can automatically import any document placed in designated folders as well as automatically import email from specified accounts. Sohodox can also batch import documents and integrate with TWAIN scanners.

Sohodox offers full-text searching, and includes optical character recognition for any scanned documents you store. The Quick Search box appears at the top of each screen, but there's also an Advanced Search tool for Boolean queries, and searching by date, tags, etc. Search results display document thumbnails plus you can view Word and Excel files without opening them.

When using Sohodox with multiple users, you can apply security settings to documents and folders. Other features include annotations, document linking, and a backup/restore utility.

What Else Should You Know?
Sohodox runs on Windows (it uses Microsoft Access as its database). Pricing starts at $199 for a single user. The company also offers 2-packs, 3-packs, 4-packs, 5-packs, 10-packs, and 20-packs at increasing discounts per additional user. Learn more about Sohodox.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Document Management | TL NewsWire

Chrometa for Teams: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a centralized tool for passive time capture (see article below), a new iPhone, a new Bluetooth headset, a portable label printer, and a new client relationship management program. Don't miss the next issue.

Centralized Automatic Time Capture for Law Firms

Sometimes it seems like there are more consultants preaching alternative fee arrangements than law firms actually using them. These experts argue that abandoning the billable hour will take you from a BMW to a Maybach. However, most lawyers like their bimmers just fine, and worry that a new business model could backfire, putting them behind the wheel of a Kia. Instead, lawyers seem more interested in technology that improves time capture so that they can earn more money with a proven business model. Even firms that bite the AFA bullet need to track time to make sure they don't lose their monogramed shirt.

Chrometa for Teams … in One Sentence
Launching today, Chrometa for Teams passively captures billable time in a centralized manner.

The Killer Feature
Chrometa wasn't the first company to offer automatic time capture of computer work and telephone calls, but it has iterated its product faster than its forebears.

With Chrometa, timekeepers assign their captured time to clients and matters, and exports or posts these time entries to their firm's accounting system.

Chrometa for Teams gives the "Team Leader" (managing partners and others in management) more centralized control over this process. As Team Leader, you can create uniform clients and matters and keyword filters for everyone to use, review all time by client, matter, and/or timekeeper, reduce or write off time, and approve time entries for posting.

"Whether a firm bills hourly or on a fixed fee basis, they need to know where every minute goes," Chrometa CEO and Co-Founder Brett Owens told us. "Chrometa for Teams takes passive time capture to the next level by enabling managing partners to monitor everyone's work and generate bills faster and more efficiently."

Other Notable Features
Chrometa for Teams offers the same feature set as Chrometa. It captures activities on both Macs and Windows PCs, generate bills, and integrates with a growing number of popular billing systems such as QuickBooks, PCLaw, and Timeslips.

Everyone can securely review their captured time in a web browser from any computer. The Team Leader's dashboard has more advanced analytical tools for slicing and dicing everyone's time records.

What Else Should You Know?
Chrometa for Teams starts at $19 per month with a minimum of five timekeepers. Learn more about Chrometa for Teams.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Accounting/Billing/Time Capture | Online/Cloud | TL NewsWire

Kindle Fire: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a new tablet (see article below), software for running Windows on a Mac, an electronic signature service, a legal human resources database, and a knowledge management system. Don't miss the next issue.

Burn Through Some Books and the Web

The consumer electronics industry is both predictable and perplexing. For example, every few years Apple releases a new class of product (e.g., iPad). The rest of the industry then rushes copycat products to market, but fails to understand what makes the Apple product resonate. That's the predictable aspect. The perplexing aspect — why ship a me-too product only to have it panned by critics? Innovation requires deep thought, which requires time. Also, rushing into a new product category often results in ignoring your cash cow. Can anyone explain why RIM sells a tablet running QNX but won't offer QNX smartphones until 2012? Of course, there is one company that took (a little) more time. This company unveiled its latest and greatest gizmo here in Manhattan today.

Kindle Fire … in One Sentence
Available for pre-order now and shipping in November, Amazon's Kindle Fire is a color touchscreen tablet.

The Killer Feature
The most important app on a smartphone is email, but the most important app on a tablet is the web browser. Amazon's previous e-ink Kindles were great for reading books, but not for using the Web.

Enter Silk, the web browser on the Kindle Fire. Silk makes extensive use of Amazon's cloud storage technologies to speed up web browsing. It not only caches images and other files associated with a web site, but it also stores information about web usage patterns so it can anticipate where you're likely to go next. Thus, it can begin delivering a web page to your Kindle Fire before you click on the link to that page.

Other Notable Features
The Kindle Fire costs $199, features a 7-inch color touchscreen, and weighs just shy of one pound. It includes 8 GB of storage and unlimited cloud storage. You don't need a computer to use the Kindle Fire, but you'll need a WiFi network. The battery will run for 7.5 hours of video playback — longer for less intensive activities. It has a headphone jack and a USB port.

As you would expect, the Kindle Fire includes an app for reading ebooks and PDF files as well as apps for email, magazines, music, and videos. And you can of course buy digital media from Amazon directly on the Kindle Fire. You can also use some Android apps since the Kindle Fire runs on a variant of Android (this feature should enable you to download an ereader such as Aldiko that supports EPUB). Amazon Prime, which costs $79 per year, entitles you to a growing library of streaming movies and TV shows (similar to Netflix).

What Else Should You Know?
Amazon also released three e-ink Kindles today — an old school Kindle sans keyboard ($79), and a Kindle touch ($99) and a Kindle touch 3G ($149). Learn more about Kindle Fire.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Entertainment/Hobbies/Recreation | Laptops/Smartphones/Tablets | TL NewsWire

ActionStep: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Monday, September 26, 2011

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a workflow-centric practice management system (see article below), a new social network, free federal rules ebooks, a service for improving the bio and contact pages on your web page, and a free iPad app for business news videos. Don't miss the next issue.

A Money-Making Action

Regardless of the size of your law firm, your personnel fall more or less into two categories — stars and proteges. Your clients pay for the legal prowess of your stars. If we were talking about products, you would cease production of your proteges, and increase production of your stars. But we're talking about people. Even stars have to eat and sleep once in a while. But you can leverage your stars. The secret lies in transforming their legal expertise into repeatable workflows, enabling them to oversee the delivery of legal services rather than performing such services from scratch each time.

ActionStep … in One Sentence
ActionStep is a workflow-centric practice management system for law firms

The Killer Feature
Most practice management systems capture information such as court deadlines and time billed, but they don't capture your workflows. By contrast, ActionStep has placed a workflow engine at its core.

ActionStep enables you to create a series of steps for your staff to follow for any type of matter — bankruptcy filings, creation of a corporation, immigration applications, real estate closings, etc. For each step, you can configure ActionStep to automatically assign tasks to various staff members, send automatic email messages, require entry of specific information, make selected document templates available, and more.

Your staff cannot move a matter to the next step until the mandatory requirements have been met, thereby providing you with the peace of mind of knowing that your client requests are handled in a consistent manner using the workflow you conceived.

"Firms using ActionStep generally experience a 20% increase in productivity," ActionStep CEO Ted Jordan told us. "In real terms that means you could free one day per week per employee."

Other Notable Features
ActionStep is a secure cloud application so you can use it in any web browser. Given its emphasis on workflows, ActionStep includes document assembly technology that enables you to instantly generate documents using your matter data. It's even smart enough to use the correct pronouns (he/she) based on the gender of your client and others mentioned in a document.

ActionStep includes everything else you would expect from a practice management solution — time tracking and billing, budgets, file notes, contacts, calendar, email, and full accounting functionality. It also offers sales pipeline tools for managing your marketing initiatives and an intranet for internal knowledge management.

What Else Should You Know?
ActionStep costs $60 per user per month with no minimum term and includes technical support. You can purchase initial system configuration, data import, and training on a contract or hourly basis. Learn more about ActionStep.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Litigation/Discovery/Trials | TL NewsWire

LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Neil J. Squillante | Thursday, September 15, 2011

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an ediscovery culling and collection tool (see article below), a new flight search engine, an Autonomy Worksite add-on, a mobile web browser, and a dual-display laptop. Don't miss the next issue.

Cull Electronic Documents Where They Reside

In every disaster movie, the hero always asks the same question when he gets involved: What are we dealing with here? Litigators ask the same question about each new case. Because document discovery is the most costly component of complex litigation, it's especially important to get a sense of its scope as early as possible. However, even custodians may not have a good understanding of their own documents and email, which means that you as in-house or outside counsel have to guesstimate. Talk about a dicey situation that would benefit from software.

LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer … in One Sentence
LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer is a data assessment tool that enables litigation teams to understand the scope of discoverable documents, and reduce the amount of data they need to store, process, and review.

The Killer Feature
LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer aims to simplify the complex task of data assessment. It enables you to filter, search, and index data at the original source location — on network servers, computer hard drives, etc. This capability eliminates the need to spend money copying the files and moving them to a separate storage space for processing. Essentially, you can identify and process relevant data at its source in a defensible manner (it does not change document metadata or otherwise cause spoliation).

"LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer is another major step forward in our strategy of providing robust litigation workflow products to our clients," LexisNexis' Vice President of Litigation Tools, Services & Hosting Deborah Jillson told us. "Initial users report that it keeps their ediscovery costs in proportion to the size of the case. Just as importantly, this offering allows litigators to feel confident they have their hands on the most relevant electronic documents." LexisNexis claims that Early Data Analyzer can save up to 80% of the time and costs typically involved in ediscovery.

Other Notable Features
Early Data Analyzer doesn't just give you a sense of the scope of relevant documents, it also enables you to cull on the fly (eliminate irrelevant and duplicate documents using various filters such as date, file type, metadata, etc.). The software can process, on average, between 15 to 20 GB per hour per core depending on an organization's hardware.

LexisNexis does not charge per gigabyte. Various reports in Early Data Analyzer enable you to predict the costs and risks of a case so that you can decide how to proceed long before any pretrial conferences take place.

What Else Should You Know?
Early Data Analyzer integrates with LAW PreDiscovery, the latter of which you can use to combine electronic files with scanned documents to create a load file for your document review software. Learn more about LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Litigation/Discovery/Trials | TL NewsWire
 
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