A New Era for Early Case Assessment
In this era of unprecedented data growth, using advanced analytics in early case assessment has never been more compelling. By applying "concept-aware analytics" at the outset of a case, legal teams can immediately focus on insights and evaluation without concern for consolidation of the information.
Concept-aware analytics enables users to cluster and organize large pools of information into useful subsets without eliminating it during the entry stages of the litigation lifecycle. Unlike keyword-based analytics technology approaches, concept-aware analytics requires no dictionaries, thesauri, keyword libraries or complex Boolean statements—and is language-agnostic. The technology uses mathematical algorithms to define related concepts and group conceptually similar content together—regardless of misspellings, synonyms, abbreviations and even code words.
In the initial stages of early case assessment (ECA), teams must organize documents first and review second in an effort to provide correct information to the appropriate experts. This organizational shift is transforming the entire discovery process.
Organizing electronically stored information (ESI) for ECA using concept-aware analytics reduces costs and enables practitioners to make better judgments with a larger pool of information during the early stages of a matter. Applying concept-aware analytics in ECA also permits legal teams to efficiently reapply earlier decisions and document prior designations to streamline their evaluation of a particular matter. By organizing ESI through example-based categorization to quickly separate material used in a previous case, lawyers and executives can develop a far more effective case strategy.
For instance, a trial attorney can use concept-aware analytics technology to find prior art in a patent matter by assessing the entire universe of material for conceptually similar content. Similarly, counsel can also reveal hidden meanings in coded conversations between employees, presenting evidence of malfeasance.
Of course, one must collaborate with experts familiar with the case concepts and partner with a technology vendor that can maximize the talent of the legal team. It is essential to use a concept-aware analytics engine in tandem with domain experts needed to interpret the findings presented by the analytics.
Applying Critical Details to ECA
Applying concept-aware analytics early helps counsel plan for the initial meet and confer conference, as well as identify key search terms. In fact, there is an expectation that each individual attending the meeting will have a specific understanding of how the discovery process is likely to proceed. Today there is little tolerance for uncertainty from either adversaries or the courts, which have become much more familiar with e-discovery over the past few years.
It is the ability to identify hidden details that make concept-aware analytics so powerful and so important in the current era of high-stakes disputes. While the contents of a particular group of files once provided some type of revelation on the veracity of any given allegations, it is now the patterns in those records or the gaps in their sequencing that typically presents the most useful clues.
Although there are many factors that affect the success of an early case assessment protocol, filtering the universe of data is frequently one of the highest priorities. In order to do so, analysts must leverage concept-aware analytics to capture key conceptual details faster.
Proven techniques for classifying data help legal teams formulate their plans faster, more dynamically, and in greater detail than ever before. Automatically clustering unfamiliar data, for instance, helps practitioners understand the general landscape and broadly identify the key issues associated with a matter.
While traditional Boolean searching or keyword-based document tagging are effective once a prospective reviewer is familiar with a data set, the volume of information in current matters makes this a very random and inefficient process. To reposition this effort to an earlier stage, savvy teams are supplementing keyword search strategies with concept-aware analytics to move beyond the limitations of keyword searches and uncover hidden insights. Using concept-aware analytics, advanced software can help lawyers maximize their time analyzing critical findings, rather than worry about finding essential material to analyze.
Speed And Efficiency Keep Costs at Bay
From near de-duplication technology that compares and groups similar records—e.g., weekly status updates that use identical formats, but feature variations in key statistics—to email threading techniques, which group messages that share subjects, forwarding details, or attachments—there is a variety of practices that accelerate review without sacrificing a team's ability to uncover critical information. By engaging in this process at the outset, non-responsive material is less likely to populate later search results, significantly reducing litigation costs downstream.
They must also recognize that context, not always content, is king. It is therefore essential for legal teams to determine where a particular document fits within the broader data environment. By comparing latent semantic analysis (analyzing connections between sets of documents and their terms by producing a set of related concepts), probabilistic analysis (gauging the probability that certain words and phrases will appear in a given set of documents), and lexical techniques (identifying patterns in language and tone), one can select a method that is ideal for a given matter. While each method has certain advantages, they all serve as valuable weapons in the early stages of an investigation or litigation.
Concept-Aware Analytics Empowers ECA
Despite the variety of options available, concept-aware analytics is considered one of the most advanced analytics strategies when applied given the computations used to assess key linguistic associations and its similarity to human reasoning. Supplementing professional judgment with technological advancements in this fashion is naturally accelerating the early case assessment process.
While legal teams have always been proficient in conveying assessments based on a limited review of cursory information, they are now empowered with the ability to apply a broad view of a vast pool of information to draw conclusions, rather than make inferences. ECA tools using concept-aware analytics permit them to identify details about document types and topics in an effort to form a holistic picture of the ultimate task. When they combine these preliminary characteristics with a key set of conceptually relevant documents to match across the document spectrum, they can make recommendations faster, with more confidence and greater accuracy.
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