Law firm simplifies e-discovery

The e-discovery process at law firms can be plagued by inefficient and expensive redundancies. The Chicago-based law firm of Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg wanted to streamline workloads and reduce the risks and expense associated with e-discovery. After an evaluation period, the firm decided to deploy the Clearwell E-Discovery Platform from Clearwell Systems to analyze and review electronically stored information (ESI).

According to Clearwell, the law firm did a hands-on evaluation of a large data set related to a case, and found it achieved a 70 percent reduction in ESI deemed relevant, resulting in much quicker process times and significant cost savings.

"Once the results of our evaluation were in, there wasn't a single person at our firm who was not completely convinced of the ROI we and our clients would gain from the technology," says John Jelderks, IT director at the law firm. "The Clearwell E-Discovery Platform is an extremely efficient and powerful solution, especially given the significance of electronic evidence to litigation today. By allocating less time determining whether a piece of information is relevant, and spending more time analyzing how a message can make or break a case, the solution plays a critical role in the lives of our practitioners and the outcome for our clients."

Among the features that attracted the law firm to the solution were its advanced analytics and de-duplicating capabilities. Clearwell reports that after a data set has been culled, the software enables users to view data in discussion threads and classify documents into relevant categories, further speeding the document analysis and review process, and allowing attorneys to work collaboratively on a case.

Another factor in the deployment was the system's intuitive user interface. Clearwell says it gives lawyers and paralegals autonomy from IT to rapidly analyze documents, follow an e-mail discussion to pinpoint exactly who knew what and when, and quickly tag and export relevant documents to litigation support databases.