Takeaway: The best eDiscovery applications have these 5 features to optimize time: (1) Text snippets, (2) labels, (3) the ‘advanced’ search, (4) production logs, and (5) in-house production sharing. Is your software missing these features? Consider getting one that has them.
HAVE YOU BEEN MISSING OUT ON ANY OF THESE EDISCOVERY FEATURES?
They’re not entirely obvious, yet they make your life a lot easier!
FEATURE #1: TEXT SNIPPETS – IDEAL FOR WHEN YOU’RE SKIMMING THROUGH DOCUMENT RECORDS.
The most recent age of eDiscovery applications makes it simple to go over the folders, subfolders, and documents for your case. Some applications additionally have a ‘content snippets’ included. Here, alongside the document’s name is a snippet of content from the document, so you get the significance of what each one is about at a glance. Your application will likewise give you the choice of sorting documents – and their snippets – by their dates (earlier to later, or the other way around) or their sizes (biggest to smallest, or the other way around).
FEATURE #2: TAG REPORTS – SO YOU CAN GROUP THEM, WHICH MAKES EDISCOVERY REVIEW A LOT SIMPLER.
As you filter through your documents, you start to see that a lot of them have related data. What’s more, you’ll need to aggregate these documents. How? One choice is to move them into a shared folder. Yet, a more astute route is to leave them where they are, and ‘tag’ them. Tags are virtual ‘sticky notes’ that you join to an archive, making it simpler to discover. What’s more, when you’ve tagged a lot of records, you can pull them up by tapping on their tag, as opposed to setting off to rearrange them. You can likewise add a note to the tag, to give you context for later on. (tip: If you aren’t yet certain you need to tag records, you can utilize a temporary filter to review them.) Based on the filter you use, your eDiscovery application will display you appropriate results (e.g., all Word reports in your case, documents with the same dates in them, or records sharing a custodian or source.)
FEATURE #3: THE ‘ ADVANCED’ SEARCH – TO NARROW YOUR SEARCH’S FOCUS.
We’re all aware of how to run a simple eDiscovery search. You enter a keyword, and your application pulls up all records with that word. For example, if you looked for John Anderson, you’d get the majority of John’s messages, and the documents wherein his name showed up. Have you tried other searches with your application’s search system? It could be entering many keywords or specific phrases, to get your eDiscovery software to run a focused search for a few files. Such a cutting edge search system can make your platform, “Show all messages to John Anderson from Sally Nedry, that mention the Frazer meeting that were sent after 2016.”
FEATURE #4: PRODUCTION LOGS – TO MONITOR RECORDS AFTER THEY’VE BEEN BATES STEPPED.
You’ve most likely noticed that you can produce your documents in an assortment of configurations. When you need a uniform production, you produce documents as PDFs. Or to preserve file metadata, you produce them in their ‘native’ format – i.e., Word documents remain as Word documents, emails as emails, and so on. Do you have access to production logs though? When you produce documents, your platform replaces record names with Bates numbers. Documents lose their names and are referred to by numbers. A ‘production log’ takes care of this issue. It records the original document names so you can locate the record you need regardless of whether it is currently named as a Bates number.
FEATURE #5: PRODUCTION SHARING – TO KEEP YOUR PRODUCTIONS SECURE.
To share productions, you most likely download them, then email them. Or you transfer them to a document sharing system. In both cases, your information isn’t encrypted, and this makes it effectively hackable. A production-sharing system helps here. Rather than sending out the production, it leaves it where it is and sends a connect to the intended recipients. Furthermore, they can either download the production or – in the event that they use the same platform as you – load it as another case. This spares time (no transferring or downloading needed), and is a lot more secure. Since the document remains inside your encoded system, you can even invalidate the sharing on the off chance that you erroneously send it to an inappropriate individual. Likewise, since you’re sharing the finished, produced versions (and not the original records) there’s no threat of anybody seeing redacted or privileged information.