Searching discovery

Search technology has helped a private law firm search and retrieve reams of documents in preparation for a three-month trial of complex commercial litigation in Las Vegas. The case involved close to 2 million documents produced in discovery and tens of thousands of documents marked as exhibits for trial.

According to its maker, Odyssey Development,the ISYS search engine software was said to be instrumental in helping bankruptcy litigation counsel at Lionel Sawyer & Collins of Las Vegas search and retrieve thousands of documents in record time. The software helped the firm dig through massive amounts of e-mail and documents produced after the close of discovery in conjunction with the three-month trial in which the firm defended a group of financial institutions.

Prior to trial and after the close of discovery, the attorneys at Lionel Sawyer & Collins received production of thousands of additional documents from the adverse party. Although the Bankruptcy Court granted the firm's motion to continue the trial based on the late production of the documents, the continued trial date was less than a month away. That left the firm with only two weeks to search through the documents and locate relevant information to prepare for the continued trial date.

The firm received 100 CDs full of data, which included a variety of Word documents, Adobe files, e-mails, attachments and more. With only three PCs, two paralegals and the search software, the staff searched and retrieved a substantial amount of evidence in a short time.

"Literally on the eve of the trial, we had the overwhelming task of searching more than 100,000 files for critical evidence that would support our clients' positions in the case," says Laurel E. Davis, a law firm partner and bankruptcy specialist.

"Not only did we require a search solution that could run queries across disparate data sources simultaneously, but we also needed software that could search e-mails and attachments that resided among hundreds of Outlook profiles. ISYS proved to be exactly what we needed and it enabled our paralegals to quickly process this data to find a significant amount of evidence that supported our clients' position in the case in time for trial."