Category: Technical People

What Do I Do with Jason and Why Is He in My Slack Export?

Slack is one of many collaboration tools that is disrupting email use as more employees choose to send quick messages and share files in a platform rich with social tools and application integration. Exporting Slack data for eDiscovery is essential where organizations need to preserve and produce relevant information for litigation, investigations, or regulatory compliance. Thus, converting Slack exports to a structured and analyzable format has become crucial. One such format is the RSMF (Relativity Short Message Format), which enables efficient data analysis, visualization, and integration with RelativityOne.  

RSMF files give users a realistic view of the conversation including inline graphics, reactions, deletions, and edits, which can be crucial metadata within a conversation. We commonly see Slack conversations converted to flat text files with just the date and time, username, and message. These text files, similar to the graphic below, are missing key features to filter, search, and view inline attachments and reactions. 

In order to take full advantage of this feature in Relativity, the Slack JSON export format needs to be optimized for conversion to RSMF files. 

1. Export: 

Depending on the license type an organization has, the Slack export options can vary. It is best to consult with a knowledgeable vendor to ensure you are getting what you need from your Slack exports. The recommended export format from Slack is the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. This is a structured data format that is machine-readable for archiving. The Slack export should include public and private channels, direct messages, multi-party chats, and links to files that were sent in the conversations. As seen in the below graphic, the export format follows a specific JSON schema and contains various data fields to represent different aspects of a Slack workspace.  

2. Conversion to RSMF:  

In the JSON export, conversations by default are one file per day per conversation. If you have a group chat that spans 50 days, there will be 50 RSMF files output when using the default. You may prefer to create larger conversations such as weekly, monthly, or even put an entire conversation thread into one RSMF for easier readability. Your vendor will also make recommendations based on best practices for the RSMF size with attachments and number of events. 

3. Visualizing, Reviewing and Filtering the RSMF: 

Once the RSMF files are processed in RelativityOne, you will be able to search the Slack data by participants, channel and group names, and conversation date. Within the viewer, the RSMF file can be further sliced by participant(s), dates, and times. 

Considerations to be Aware of: 

When working with RSMF files, the collection format is key to avoiding potential pitfalls, particularly when exporting to the text format. The text export is easy to use because it can be opened and read in any platform. It is easy to read because it shows the typical back and forth conversation with time stamp, user, and message body. However, when it needs to be used for litigation, it can’t be easily filtered by date range, and the conversation has to be cut and pasted manually. Also, if there is a shared file in the chat, there will be a file ID rather than a link. The files are exported and named by ID, and will need to be manually searched using the File ID found in the chat.     

Some Slack messages may also have links to files stored in other locations (I.e., OneDrive). To preserve the files, it is best to do the RSMF conversion soon after export to avoid changes or deletions. Check with your vendor to ensure they can download these files during the conversion. 

Summary 

While there are potential challenges to converting Slack exports to the RSMF format, this tool unlocks the potential for comprehensive data analysis and visualization. Working with a knowledgeable vendor will help you navigate the complicated JSON format so you can embrace RSMF to gain deeper insights into your Slack conversations. 

Streamlining Contract Analysis and Management with Relativity Contract

Relativity Contract is a powerful tool designed to optimize contract review/analysis, extraction, and management processes for legal professionals. By harnessing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, this application empowers users to automate tasks, extract key information from contracts, and gain valuable insights for informed decision-making through the entire contract life cycle.  

One significant advantage of Relativity Contract is its integration within the Relativity ecosystem. As contracts are already hosted within Relativity, this tool streamlines the processes if the same client later becomes the subject of litigation or investigation. Users gain the pole position in handling production requests and effectively managing reviews, including simultaneous reviews related to different matters. 

Relativity Contract also integrates with external systems relevant to contract management processes through Custom Connectors. With custom connectors, users can seamlessly import and export data from external systems or establish a real-time connection for synchronization and data updates. Some of the external systems include Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics and other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Document Management systems, such as SharePoint or Dropbox, can also be connected.  

Use Cases of Relativity Contract for Clients: 

  • Regulatory Compliance: For clients in highly regulated industries, particularly regarding data privacy compliance, this is a great tool. It allows compliance officers to manage and monitor contractual obligations related to data privacy regulations, such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). By quickly identifying contracts containing specific language or provisions pertaining to data privacy compliance, the application facilitates privacy impact assessments and ensures adherence to regulatory requirements. The tool makes discussion of necessary actions and compliance remediation steps collaborative and seamless. Automated workflows and reminders track key dates and contract renewals, addressing potential compliance gaps proactively. 
  • Insurance: After a natural or man-created disaster, insurance companies face a surge of property insurance claims. Relativity Contract can assist in efficiently organizing and analyzing the relevant insurance contract associated with each claim. The tool enables quick searching and retrieval of specific policies based on policyholder information, property addresses, or policy provisions. It expedites claim resolution by identifying clauses and provisions, facilitating communication, and improving efficiency during the claim handling process.  
  • Mergers & Acquisitions: Relativity Contract proves instrumental in managing the complexities of mergers and acquisitions. With numerous contracts involved, ranging from supplier agreements to customer contracts and employment agreements, the tool establishes a centralized and automated contract management process. It extracts and organizes key metadata, expediting due diligence by allowing quick search and retrieval of specific contracts based on various criteria. Machine learning algorithms identify crucial clauses and provisions, aiding the review and analysis of risks and obligations tied to the M&A deal. 

Relativity Contract holds potential beyond these scenarios. For debt collections and credit card companies, it aids in identifying relevant provisions, ensuring compliance, tracking important dates, and maintaining an audit trail of communications and actions during the debt collection process. The application’s document management capabilities enable effective organization and tracking, facilitating comprehensive views of collection efforts. 

If you would like to see a demo of Relativity Contract, please feel free to reach out to me at Robin.LeDonne@AcornLS.com. I am also happy to discuss how this technology may work for your case, or exchange thoughts on what other technology in the market may fit.  

About Robin:  

Robin averages 16 years of eDiscovery experience and is a licensed attorney in the state of California. She plays a key role in the planning and implementation of eDiscovery projects, consulting with clients, and providing direction and support to Acorn’s operations. In 2003, Robin began her career in civil litigation, most notably representing victims of sexual abuse. Dealing with vast amount of paper discovery, during a time when many firms were transitioning to become paper free, she was interested in how data itself would be organized in the future. Soon thereafter, in 2008, Robin transitioned to the eDiscovery industry, starting first as a document reviewer, then as a project manager. 

About Acorn:  

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.  

Use Cases of Relativity’s Text IQ Tool: First Look from Director of Advanced Analytics Josh Treat

Although the Text IQ tool has not officially been released by Relativity, this technology may be helpful for identifying hot spots in documents containing personal information that may need to be redacted. Its capabilities can also allow documents to be reviewed quickly after a large-scale data breach to estimate the scope of the breach and come up with a mitigation plan. It can potentially bypass a first-pass review.  

Text IQ Use Cases: 

The new Text IQ tool is supplemental to Relativity Redact. Whereas Relativity Redact searches for PII using regular expression searches, Text IQ contains 30 to 40 “out-of-the-box” detectors that are pre-determined using AI and natural language processing to identify common types of personal information. Regular expressions that can be found in Redact include contact information, credit card numbers, and personal identification numbers. Text IQ goes beyond this, detecting further information such as birth dates, addresses, PIN, social security numbers, employee ID’s, and financial account numbers. Information that you wouldn’t normally be able to catch can also be found, including information that is only partial or is misspelled or mis-formatted. You are also able to train the Text IQ model to search for certain keywords that wouldn’t usually be captured within the expressions when using Redact. 

Relativity views the major use cases for Text IQ as finding personal information, doing a privilege review, or responding to a data breach. Based on our team’s review of the technology and experience on these types of projects, we think it would best perform in the following circumstances: 

  • Personal Information – Typically, PII is subject to manual redactions and requires eyes on documents. It also requires a high level of defensibility, which most attorneys view as a regular expression search. Text IQ might be more challenging in those circumstances but has the benefit of speed, so this may be best for large volume quick turn projects like a Second Request. 
  • Privilege – In “hail Mary” situations, Text IQ can automate a first pass privilege review with Text IQ’s privilege scoring. I could see this being used more than the personal information feature. While Text IQ’s privilege scoring does appear to be promising, I would still want to have someone from the team review as well. This feature also overlaps with Redact but has filters such as account numbers built out with the option to add project-specific custom detectors, such as name of attorneys, law firms, etc. 
  • Data Breach – Text IQ identifies personal information that has been exposed in a data breach and provides summaries to assist with notifications and reporting. I can see this feature being the most useful if you have a strict deadline for a data breach with a large volume of unstructured data. This tool could quickly gauge the scope of the data breach and how many people were affected so that you can plan your incident response accordingly. 

What I Would Like to See Implemented in the Tech 

While the Text IQ technology looks very promising, it remains in the initial stages of testing and integration with the Relativity interface. It will still go through changes as users test the product and provide their feedback. There are a few additions to the Text IQ technology that I could see Relativity implementing in the future, such as: 

  • Including Larger File Sizes – There is currently an Excel file size limitation set at 75MB, however, we frequently deal with financial services clients who have documents including millions of rows and columns and would like to be sure that these files could be viewed within Text IQ.  
  • Including More Languages – Currently, this tool is English-only. However, in our view, this tool is best applied to large datasets and generally the larger a dataset is, the more likely it is multi-lingual. Specifically, I could see languages like Spanish, French, and German being added first as these countries have more regulations around data privacy. 
  • Eliminating Need to Convert to PDFs – The extra time needed to convert files to PDFs in Text IQ can create extra work for your team as this isn’t an automatic process in the tool. Converting to PDFs also creates incremental costs by further increasing data hosting sizes to host the PDF images of the documents. 
  • Integrating into RelativityOne – The initial release of Text IQ will be on an “advanced access” basis, which may result in bugs or issues within the tech. However, this application is integrated with Relativity’s Azure environment so data will never leave your Relativity tenant. 
  • Ensuring Tool Isn’t Overly-Inclusive – Similar to Relativity Active Learning, we’d like to see reporting capabilities to validate that the tool is not over-inclusive or under-inclusive. Ideally, we’d also like to see statistics from Relativity on that topic as well. 

If you would like to see a demo of Text IQ, please feel free to reach out to me at Josh.Treat@AcornLS.com. I am also happy to discuss how this technology may work for your case, or exchange thoughts on what other technology in the market may fit.  

About Josh:  

As a seasoned litigation support specialist with 15+ years of experience, Josh has saved millions of dollars in review costs through the development of proprietary assisted review workflows in a variety of platforms. Josh has been involved in numerous landmark cases that leverage Advanced Analytics. In addition, Josh leverages quantitative forecasting and rigorous, best-in-class project management tools for on-time, under-budget completion of complex litigation review. He speaks fluent geek, salesperson, trainer, and difficult client. As a result, Josh has a unique ability to help manage and navigate large complex projects with creative custom solutions to meet any budget or timeline requirements. Josh is a Certified Relativity Master and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Management Information Systems from Central Michigan University.  

About Acorn:  

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.  

Limitations of Relativity’s Sentiment Analysis Tool – First Impressions from Director of Advanced Analytics, Josh Treat

What is Sentiment Analysis and Why Does It Matter? 

Relativity’s newest tool, sentiment analysis, allows users to identify positive, negative, and other targeted emotions or “sentiments” across a data set. This AI-powered technology computes a score on a scale from 1 to 5 of the likelihood a document contains one or more of the targeted sentiments. In addition to the score, Relativity also offers visualizations and integration within the document viewer which allows users to see highlighted sentences to quickly understand the different sentiments identified within the context of the overall document. 

Detecting unusual or emotionally charged communications can be highly valuable in a variety of litigation and investigation contexts. Armed with this insight, users can look at the data from a new perspective to help identify potentially impactful conversations and/or participants more quickly. This type of analysis allows users to identify and prioritize these potential hot spots early on leading to more cost effective and strategic decisions around building a case strategy.  

Sentiment analysis provides users an easy-to-use tool that offers new insights and perspectives into document collections at no additional cost. Any tool that can add value to our clients while potentially reducing the cost of discovery and accelerating case strategy is an exciting development. 

Our initial test results are promising. The technology, when layered with some of Relativity’s other tools and features, has already led to some interesting conversations and creative new workflows. We believe it is a great first step for Relativity and we are excited about the development roadmap in the near future. Ultimately, if users are mindful that sentiment analysis provides predictions, not guarantees, and the final evaluation should always be up to the user, it can be a very beneficial tool. 

As with any new technology, it will take time for us to work with this tool and understand where it can be most useful. It will also take time for the technology company to continue to improve this feature as well. As a RelativityOne certified partner, the team at Acorn is confident that we will work alongside Relativity and our clients to make this tool as easy to use as possible. I want to also make sure that I share my view of the early applications and workflows where I think sentiment analysis would be most valuable. 

First Use Cases: 

Overall, this is a good tool to get the lay of the land of a small document set. It can be used to hone in on 50-100 key documents to review first as clients form their case strategy and understand the substance of the evidence repository. The reason this tool is best for small datasets is because there is currently a 50k document limit, so we want to balance the time investment in setting up the technology against the benefits of having the information from the sentiment index. 

  • Investigations – Sentiment analysis can be best used as an investigation tool for projects that are around 50k to 200k documents. It is beneficial to use as an early look at the documents of interest in the dataset and see where we can focus on high impact documents.  
  • Opposing Productions – This tool may also be useful for projects in the 50k to 200k document range to get a first impression on incoming productions on a rolling basis. 
  • Hail Mary Review Scenarios – Normally, I would not use this tool for a review unless there was a specific issue or timing constraint where you need to prioritize often or make a decision quickly. However, in these “Hail Mary” scenarios, I would use sentiment analysis to run searches for highly emotional documents to find any insights that can be gained, whether positive or negative. You could also layer this on top of a key word search to prioritize early review and gain insight when you’re just starting to get into the documents. Most of the time, though, I would recommend using a keyword search or batched review. 

My First Impressions – Potential for Future Improvements to Sentiment Analysis 

While the new sentiment analysis offering is a beneficial first step for Relativity and the early results have been very promising, I will be interested to see if Relativity broadens the applicability of the tool by removing some current limitations. 

  • English Only – Relativity’s sentiment analysis tool was designed only for use within English-language documents. Even if translated, foreign language documents may not produce accurate results, making sentiments from other languages unclear for users. I will be curious to see if they move to other Latin languages, or even CJK languages. 
  • Lack of Variety in Sentiments – Similar tools from other competitors offer a wider range of sentiments that can be detected and used within a data set such as Intent, Opportunity, Pressure, and Rationalization.  
  • Model Fidelity with Modern Communications (e.g., Emojis) – Language is constantly changing, especially with short messaging apps becoming more and more popular. Users are continually creating new abbreviations/acronyms, utilizing emojis, and/or using poor grammar and spelling. This level of variation and evolution can be difficult for algorithms and lead to unreliable results. 
  • Small Size of Data Sets –Relativity recommends running sentiment analysis on smaller, more focused data sets under 50,000 documents. Moreover, the tool is also currently unavailable in ECA workspaces. Using the tool to identify key communications and participants as early as possible across larger sets could be very beneficial especially in an early case assessment workflow. 

What I Would Like to See Implemented in the Tech 

In addition, as we work with the tool more and more, I can already start to see a few avenues to improve users’ experience with sentiment analysis by: 

  • Refining the Model – Because of some of concerns mentioned above, it would beneficial if users could interact with the model to optimize against a specific data set. Even the most advanced AI-driven sentiment analysis tools will require human intervention in order to maintain consistency and accuracy in analysis. Providing statistics around validating the model is key for defensibility and has been a large part of my work in TAR so far. 
  • Adding Integrated Dashboards – Current integrations in Relativity’s document viewer are very valuable for users to quickly assess sentiment predictions on a document. What is missing is better integrations and visualizations via pre-configured Relativity dashboards. The ability to better interact with data visualizations to uncover important concepts, relationships and patterns will provide users greater insight into the overall data set earlier and easier. 
  • Optimizing the Input – Based on some of our initial testing, additional clean-up to remove noise and parts of the email text such as signature blocks, footers, and/or attachment names could lead to better overall results. 
  • Linguistic & Cultural Context – Sentiment is expressed differently across languages, regions, cultures, and generations. When reviewing the sentiment scores, consider how each might affect the overall document population and thus sentiment predictions. 

If you would like to see a demo of sentiment analysis or Relativity’s Review Center, where it’s housed, please feel free to reach out to me at Josh.Treat@AcornLS.com. I am also happy to discuss how this technology may work for your case, or exchange thoughts on what other technology in the market may fit. 

About Josh: 

As a seasoned litigation support specialist with 15+ years of experience, Josh has saved millions of dollars in review costs through the development of proprietary assisted review workflows in a variety of platforms. Josh has been involved in numerous landmark cases that leverage Advanced Analytics. In addition, Josh leverages quantitative forecasting and rigorous, best-in-class project management tools for on-time, under-budget completion of complex litigation review. He speaks fluent geek, salesperson, trainer, and difficult client. As a result, Josh has a unique ability to help manage and navigate large complex projects with creative custom solutions to meet any budget or timeline requirements. Josh is a Certified Relativity Master and holds a Bachelor‘s Degree in Management Information Systems from Central Michigan University. 

About Acorn: 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

Relativity Fest Roundup: RelativityOne Technology Updates & Integrations 2022

This year’s keynote at Relativity Fest demonstrated how Relativity continues to stay at the forefront of innovation within the industry, solidifying their mission “to organize data, discover the truth, and act on it”. Relativity’s roadmap was filled with updates and improvements to the technology’s functionality and capabilities, a few of note are: 

  • Import/Export: Getting data in and out of Relativity will be easier than ever, bringing data transfer capabilities to all users with drag-and-drop functionality. 
  • Automated Workflows: Out-of-the-box automation will drive efficiency by eliminating manual steps and reduce risk of human-error. Soon, you’ll be able to sync changes to these workflows just as quickly and incorporate even more efficiency into your case setup, like automatically running mass operations you perform every time you bring in new data. 
  • Case Dynamics and Transcripts: Case Home was announced, which is a centralized location in RelativityOne to review documents, build deposition outlines, collaborate, and prepare exhibit bundles—with a presentation mode. 
  • Translate: Announced in September, Translate in RelativityOne  provides machine translations in 112 languages (and counting) right within the platform—no downloading, exporting, or uploading required. 

Of course, it is impossible to capture everything, and this was just to name a few. The keynote set the stage for the week, reinforcing Relativity’s commitment to innovation and set the stage for the following great moments and sessions throughout Relativity Fest. Below is a roundup of two sessions regarding RelativityOne integrations that truly caught our attention.  

  1. Improve Your Firm’s Efficiency through RelativityOne and iManage

Relativity has taken another step towards a holistic solution to encompass the management of the entire litigation lifecycle through its integration with iManage. Now you can seamlessly collect data from iManage by custodian, without your data ever leaving the security of Azure.  

In this presentation, the iManage team discussed the various use cases that require its integration with RelativityOne, including: 

  • Data transfers due to a client transferring to another firm 
  • Internal investigations 
  • File transfers 
  • Knowledge management  

As Claire Oxley-Barnes, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Relativity discussed, “Relativity can bridge gaps between platforms that are otherwise very siloed because it’s a flexible platform. You can get very custom and granular in some different ways and that’s the unique aspect of combining these systems.”  

It was very insightful understanding the numerous ways the integration of these two technologies will improve workflows and allow firms to explore new business developments and case strategies, integrate review intelligence into their case strategy, and store intellectual property all in one place. 

  1. Reducing e-Discovery Risk with Archive360 and Relativity

Archive360, a cloud-based repository for semi-active and inactive data, is another useful technology that can be integrated with RelativityOne. In the session, Bill Tolson, Vice President of Compliance & eDiscovery at Archive360, informed the audience on how the two platforms allow organizations to address regulatory and technical obligations due to the seamless access Relativity provides to Archive360. Addressing information management needs with Archive360 can allow for: 

  • Greater control of data  
  • Greater data protection  
  • Greater visibility due to archiving any file/data type 
  • Access to both structured and unstructured data 
  • Faster onboarding  
  • Defensible compliance for large volumes of content with legal holds 

This collaboration between the two platforms provides a consolidated, secure, archive for eDiscovery searches in Relativity, “Being able to know where all your data is, manage it, and secure it is becoming a very high focus for many companies as well as federal agencies, and state agencies” Tolson mentioned. 

As the eDiscovery landscape continues to change, combining these highly secure technologies can be beneficial as concerns surrounding data protection and data privacy continue to grow. We look forward to working with these new RelativityOne capabilities and features and guiding our clients through the continuing changes and enhancements within this technology in the year to come. 

About Acorn

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.

Seeing Triple: How 3 Culprits Complicate Deduplication

Over the past years we’ve heard increasing complaints from clients of a lot of duplicates in their hosting and review databases. When we look into the matter further, these “duplicates,” although substantively the same content, are not exact copies of each other from an evidentiary perspective. For example, migrating email to an archiving system might cause slight changes to the formatting of the header that results in the emails not being viewed as duplicates by the processing platform. 

We are seeing an increasing need for defensible, technology-based deduplication beyond just MD5 hashing. The industry standard is to use MD5 hash to identify any duplicates of a document that has been processed and suppressing them, saving clients the time, money, and headache of reviewing duplicative data.

As a first step, clients use solutions provided by RelativityOne such as the Processing Duplication Workflow application. Within this application, users can identify primary and duplicate documents, all custodians, and all source files for documents. It also provides capabilities to identify unique, primary and duplicate files based on a relational field.  

This worked fairly well for a long time, but as email and archive systems have continued to evolve, the MD5 hash is no longer as effective at identifying duplicates as it once was. I want to lay out some of the business practices that are causing challenges with the MD5 hashing strategy for deduplication and propose that we start using Message-ID in addition to metadata as a supplement to deduplication. 

Culprit 1: URL Rewriting 

We’ve all seen the typical phishing email. It is usually formatted in a non-standard way, or requesting an invoice or documents we’ve never heard of, or from a person we know wouldn’t be sending or requesting this information. Those are the obvious ones.  Every year we see them, all slightly different but always evolving to appear authentic. Phishing scams typically go about disguising hyperlinks to appear authentic on the surface but will send users to a malicious site. One way to bypass this bait and switch is to hover over the hyperlink, and see if you are being directed to the location you should be. One example I have seen is an email or text from my bank that is asking me if I authorized a charge and includes a link to log in and approve that charge, however when I look at the link it wants me to click it has nothing to do with my bank. 

A security feature you may not even be aware of that is working hard in the background is URL rewriting. IT security professionals created this as a mechanism to catch these attacks before users can click on the malicious link. When an email is received, URLs are rewritten in the body of the email. When a user clicks the link, it passes through a service where it is analyzed for security before sending the user to the original link location. If the link is determined to be bad, the site is blocked. While this is an excellent technology to thwart malicious attacks, URL rewriting can create unique hyperlinks in each email copy making them unique when hashing.  

Culprit 2: External Email Warnings 

Another feature used to protect against phishing emails is the use of external email warnings. Attackers will emulate an email to look like it is coming from a trusted associate or organization. By putting a warning at the top of the email that it was received by an external source, readers can be aware that the email did not originate from inside the organization before clicking any links. This external warning message will also make an email unique when hashing. The MD5 hash takes into account the body and header of an email during processing, the system is going to think that this email is now a unique document even if the only difference between that email and the sender’s email is “External” at the top of the email. Not to say you shouldn’t implement these policies, but many companies have instituted this policy wholesale and may not have thought about the discovery implications on cost to review and size to host, never mind the frustration of having to review multiple copies of the same document.  

Culprit 3: Emails Rebranded  

In addition to phishing, email marketing strategies are another culprit of email duplicates. A prominent marketing innovation companies have started using is centralized signature management. This allows a company to customize signatures for marketing campaigns by adding or omitting information, promotions, content, etc. from a centralized third-party platform. These signatures are not integrated directly into the users email account but are applied when the email is sent. The sender’s copy doesn’t have the signature, but a recipient’s email copy does, even within the same organization. This creates unique copies of an email just due to the signature block being different between the two versions even though ostensibly this is the exact same document. Consider how this might affect your electronic discovery obligations and timelines if you must review multiple copies of the same document. It can quickly become an exponentially growing headache for companies.  

What Can We Do About It? 

Acorn has been working behind the scenes to support our clients in the never-ending duplication struggle. We have developed custom proprietary tools to analyze email data and identify duplicates within RelativityOne using a combination of the Message-ID and additional metadata fields. Message-ID is a property added to outgoing emails by the sending mail system. It is retained in the recipient’s copy of the email as well.  It isn’t always unique and it isn’t always populated which is why it shouldn’t be the only method of deduplication. This property in association with other metadata can identify duplicative emails. In one project alone, we were able to reduce the review population by 15%. This translated into roughly a savings of $40,000 by reducing the number of documents to review. 

I’m not here to argue the efficacy of using the Message-ID and metadata for deduplication purposes, I will leave that to the attorneys. What I can verify is the increasing number of duplicates in email collections that need to be managed. 

About Acorn

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.

5 Tips for Selecting an eDiscovery Partner

eDiscovery is an essential component of litigation, but this phase of discovery has become increasingly complicated as the amount of electronic data and data sources continues to skyrocket in growth year over year. Often, firms may not have the bandwidth or the expertise to handle eDiscovery in-house. Due to these factors, eDiscovery partners have become very common and can be relied upon to handle the large amounts of data needed for litigation.

eDiscovery partners can provide crucial support through the different phases of the discovery process, starting at collection through review, production, and case completion. An eDiscovery partner will also be able to assist you at the beginning of the matter to develop a targeted strategy and workflow with defined goals and budget. This creates not only a seamless, defined, and understood process allowing your case team to work collaboratively with your eDiscovery partner.

It may be overwhelming to choose between an eDiscovery partner out of the many options available today, and there are a few important metrics to take into account when evaluating and deciding on which partner works best for you. The choice of an eDiscovery partner can have a significant impact on the success (and cost) of your case, so it is essential to hire someone you can trust, particularly since you are dealing with sensitive client data.

1) Level of Customer Support

eDiscovery isn’t always simple and clear-cut, which is why it’s necessary to work with a Project Manager who provides dedicated support from the beginning to the end of your case. When looking for an eDiscovery partner, find out whether you will have a direct and consistent point of contact throughout your case. Does the partner pride themselves on being customer-focused? Do they not only provide technical eDiscovery services but also provide insights and consulting?

The technical experience of a project manager is just one piece of finding the right eDiscovery partner. Ensure that you will be working with a dedicated project manager who is available to you and understands the overarching goals of the case and works in collaboration with your team to develop the most efficient and cost-effective workflows for each matter.

2) Capabilities & Expertise

There is a tremendous level of experience required to understand complex eDiscovery software and workflows. When you are searching for an eDiscovery partner, check the years of experience the current project managers on the team possess. Do they have the technical acumen required to successfully handle all the phases of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)? Has the team attained certifications as an expert or master in their current technology platform and do they hold related eDiscovery certifications? For example, if the provider uses RelativityOne, are their project managers Relativity Experts or Relativity Masters?

The technical knowledge of a project manager will likely determine the quality of work with a chosen eDiscovery partner. Not only should your eDiscovery partner have the technical capabilities to complete the phases of eDiscovery, but it’s also important they have the expertise to produce superior outcomes for your case.

3) Service Offerings

Before choosing an eDiscovery partner, you must determine their scope of services and if the services they offer meet your needs. Whether you require assistance with litigation support, consulting, collection, hosting, review, production, or managed review, doing some research into the partner’s service lines is a simple and quick step to ensure the partner has an understanding of your needs and can successfully execute a plan.

4) Technology Offerings

Now that you have determined whether an eDiscovery partner is both capable in the field and provides the services you need, it is imperative to understand the technology they offer. With cyber-attacks becoming increasingly common and the expansion of data privacy laws, data security concerns are at the forefront of many firms’ and corporations’ minds. Evaluating partners and their technology solutions to meet or exceed industry security standards is essential. 

Once you understand the technology the company uses, determine whether it is reliable, secure, and exceeds industry standards.

5) Agile and Scalable

Your project manager should be closely involved in your case so that if your case grows, they can adjust your workflow accordingly. For example, Acorn developed our Small Case Solution for this exact reason. In RelativityOne we created a solution that is designed for cases with small data volumes. Our Small Case Solution allows our clients to have a fixed price for cases that are on the smaller side.

Using the Small Case Solution has allowed our clients to have a very cost-effective option to preemptively evaluate and work on their cases. If the case increases in scope, all of that initial work product is retained and we can easily scale to a larger case without any loss of work product. A case’s scope can abruptly change and there really isn’t a “one size fits all” scenario. It’s important to ensure your eDiscovery partner has solutions customized to your specific case needs.

Find the Right Partner for You

Since eDiscovery is such an important aspect of litigation, taking the time to evaluate potential eDiscovery partners can ensure that your unique needs are met and successful outcomes achieved. Determining the capabilities of the software and services and the level of expertise of your potential eDiscovery partner can start you off on the right foot toward a successful resolution of your cases. Clearly articulating your goals, expectations, and the services you need will help you find an eDiscovery partner that is the right fit.

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About Acorn

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.

Sizing Up Software at LegalTech – Thoughts and Considerations

As we face the end of mask mandates and a return to “business as the new normal”, the legal tech industry is kicking off its return at Legal Week in New York. This presents great networking opportunities, and a chance to catch up on what the technology companies have been doing under the radar these last few years while we’ve all been locked away at home. 

There have been big changes in the technology space in regard to the “Product.” This year’s Legal Week presents one of the few opportunities where I can see 2 years of progress in a demo versus 2 months since the last trade show. 

The few products I am most excited to see: 

  • Relativity has ramped up their cloud-based solution RelativityOne and gained a lot of momentum around their TRACE product. Their deployment of automated, scalable redactions with their Redact product is probably the most visible advancement during the COVID time period. Second to that is a heavy focus on integration with other cloud-based sources of data with their Verqu acquisition.  
  • Reveal / Brainspace / StoryEngine have all merged. StoryEngine and Brainspace are by far the best AI powered ECA products on the market. This functionality provides tremendous value to customers. Acorn has always been a fan of StoryEngine, and on average, for the cases we have that use StoryEngine there is a reduction in Total Cost of Review of 83%. Integration with Relativity has always been an important part of this process for us and I am keen to see if StoryEngine continues to support that tech stack with their stand-alone product, or if they choose to focus on integrating all the AI into their Reveal review.  
  • Disco’s review platform has always had a leg-up in terms of simplicity and ease-of-use. For individual attorneys running the entire eDiscovery process on their own, it makes a lot of sense. I’m not sold, yet, that it’s as useful for workspace administrators looking to support ultimate flexibility and customization in their work. But Disco is pursuing a channel strategy in earnest now, and I am very interested in seeing how that strategy plays out in the market. 
  • iConect is a product that I’ve always loved. It’s a halfway point between Disco and Relativity. It offers a lot of Relativity’s flexibility, and a lot of Disco’s ease of use and simplicity. They took on new investors ~3 years ago, and I bet they have made a lot of progress in terms of product advancement. I’ll be curious to see and hear about it. This is a bit of a dark horse for me going into Legal Week. 
  • Merlin Search Technologies (a.k.a. The Return Of The Johns – Pappas and Tredennick) is the biggest wildcard for me. This team pioneered Continuous Active Learning / TAR 2.0 in the industry and the original team is largely reunited with a new goal in mind. Based on a quick review of their website, I don’t fully understand their differentiation from other tools. However, with this group of folks, I trust it’s there and am excited to hear about it. 

While I’m looking forward to seeing all the new bells, whistles, and features during my in-person software demos, I’ve learned to start focusing on the “Whole Product” instead of just the “Product.” 

“Whole Product” was a concept developed by a Harvard Business School professor, Ted Levitt, and best understood via example. Let’s use a car as an example. If you buy a car that has the features that you want, but it doesn’t have some of the other critical components of your ownership experience, like a nearby service center, an adequate warranty, availability of parts, etc. then you won’t be happy. The Whole Product is the entire experience, and not just the features of the Product. (See here for an article that explains it a bit more in depth) 

Similarly in eDiscovery and Legal Tech, the Whole Product matters. While the demos will show me the Product, the networking will get me more insight into the Whole Product. Here are the questions I plan on asking about each of the aforementioned technologies: 

Considerations for Whole Product in eDiscovery / Legal Tech Space: 

  • How easy is it to find in-house or out-sourced talent that can support this product / software? 

As a services provider thinking about my “Whole Service” it is hard enough to find professionals with the breadth of skills we look for: education orientation, passion about using technology to drive value, communication skills, client orientation, ability to manage complex projects, etc. I don’t want to limit my pool of candidates further by only looking for people with niche technology skills. I also don’t want to slow down my staff onboarding by requiring my new team members to undergo more training in a new technology. For me, this is a big one where Relativity comes out ahead – and I think is a reason they have been a dominant player in the market. 

  • Support with upgrades, or tech issues 

Although software is a platform, the world of tech gets complicated fast. Does that software work on various browsers, with various versions of that browser, on various types of devices, with various operating systems? Ensuring the Product functions in all those circumstances becomes a geometrically complicated problem. I want my team focused on creating value for clients, not distracted with tech troubleshooting. So, good processes, investments, and expertise from my vendors in this area is key to my Whole Product experience. Alternatively, a software provider who can be very specific and focused on the tech stacks they are designed support also garners my trust. 

  • Access to educational materials on how to get the most out of the Product 

eDiscovery is a devil-is-in-the-details industry. Having good documentation around how the features are configured and the logic around those configurations is key to our services. If we can’t explain to a client why a filter in one software platform generates different results for the same document set than a seemingly duplicate filter in a second software platform, we have a lot of trouble using the software. This is crucial documentation for defensibility considerations. All software providers say they have documentation, support, and access to their experts. However, most run out of bandwidth before we run out of questions.  

  • Security operations, and transparency responsiveness around evolving data security / data breach environment 

Data security is at the forefront of both our industry and the world. There have been several key breaches and vulnerabilities discovered.  The old industry standby of “our data is secure, trust us” doesn’t hold as much water as it used to. I’m not a data security expert, so this is a hard one for me to evaluate. I do generally look for robust processes, contractual commitments to transparency, and dedicated security professionals with both in-industry and outside-the-industry experience to get comfortable when considering a new product in our portfolio. I also rely on a roster of blue-chip clients in financial services to get me comfortable that the data security operations are up to snuff. 

  • Integration with the rest of your tech stack. Integration with the operations / tech stack / talent of the organizations that you need to coordinate / collaborate with 

So, this is another Harvard Business School idea, pioneered by Thales Teixeira. About Decoupling. In short, a lot of technology companies try to force you to use all their modules through coercive technology tactics. Instead, I look for products and companies that support the concept of decoupling. They allow me to choose the tech stack that works for me, my organization, my clients, and my partners – even if it means picking and choosing modules between software companies that are traditionally viewed as competitors. Ultimately, that’s good for everyone because it allows the most value creation in the marketplace. 

Conclusion:

There’s a lot of expertise, hard work, and good intentions in the eDiscovery industry.  Yet there’s still a lot of frustration at clients, at service providers, and at technology firms. The work we do is cross-functional, intellectually challenging, and performed in a high-uptime, contentious, fluid environment. That, in and of itself, makes it hard for everyone to walk out of a project with a good experience. However, understanding and focusing on the Whole Product of eDiscovery technology at the outset of an engagement gives everyone more of a fighting chance at success. Without it, the headwinds are even stronger. 

I refuse to accept the old industry refrain of “all eDiscovery providers suck, but at least we know how ours sucks and ours sucks less than any of the other ones out there.” There is a path to plan and resource our way to success on projects in this industry. And we can learn from other industries. 

I look forward to seeing you all there, and jumping back into the pool of great people, great solutions and great parties at Legal Tech! 

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

Back to the Basics: Why Is It Important to Have a Centralized eDiscovery Platform?

The discovery phase of litigation usually is not something we all look forward to. And even when prepared, it can quickly become the most costly, time-consuming, and stressful part of litigation. With tens of thousands of documents to sort through, it’s hard to imagine how anyone can handle this task alone. While it is possible to handle eDiscovery in-house, not everyone has the resources to do so. Organizations can be caught off guard and overwhelmed fast, leading to unexpected time consumption and costs. This is where an eDiscovery partner can step in. Establishing a relationship with an eDiscovery partner early on allows you to have the resources available when you need to scale up quickly, with a team familiar with your organization and workflows. With a little bit of preparation, a partner can seamlessly step in and give you back the bandwidth to focus on more important things and keep your budget predictable and controlled.  

Think of eDiscovery as an Investment, Not a Cost

Budget concerns are a major concern for every business, coupled with the uncertainty of this past year. You may be wondering how the cost of using an eDiscovery company can actually save you money. Often, people fixate on the line item or upfront price tags. The process should not be looked at as a cost but an investment to manage your overall, long term budget.  

The first thing to think about is the amount of work your team would be doing if they were to complete the discovery process in-house. The easiest way to think about this is in terms of the total cost of review, notably one of the most expensive parts of eDiscovery. With the use of different technologies constantly expanding in the workplace, the amounts of data needed in litigation are only going to keep increasing. With investments upfront in an eDiscovery partner and/or technology, you can utilize efficient workflows, narrowing and refining your data at the onset. Yes, initial costs go up, but litigation typically isn’t a quick process. When looking at the proceeding months, we minimized our recurring data that needs to be hosted and ultimately our final set of documents needing reviewed. Something as small as 2,000 documents, will save us a week of work. Which leads us to our next consideration, Time.

Time Is an Asset

Time is another factor that usually gets overlooked when making these investment considerations. For example, if we say it only takes my team 20 hours review these documents, why would I pay someone else to help with this process? But we need to consider how much your team’s 20 hours is worth. Factoring in their salaried hourly rate, as well 20 hours not performing revenue/value generating activities, suddenly the costs become much more comparable.

But let’s say your team has the bandwidth to spare. We all know how difficult it can be to search for one email among the thousands in our inbox. Now, think of how difficult it becomes to search through hundreds of thousands of emails that might pertain to the information you need to prepare for trial. Using an eDiscovery platform, the same team member could spend just 15 minutes in an eDiscovery platform and be able to find the identify the relevant data and bypass all the “junk”. This is especially useful when you have many cases to work on at once, and every minute is valuable. Your team has more valuable activities they can focus on instead of treading through emails. So, we discussed all these great hypotheticals and efficiencies, but how do we make them a reality?

Find a Solution That’s Right for You

Before we dive into this section. Let us first state, there are many solutions out there and even if ours isn’t right for you, we strongly encourage you to still find one that is a good fit. The solution we leverage, RelativityOne, allows you to seamlessly collect, process, and review your documents. Whether that’s an email account, text messages on a phone, O365 documents, or Microsoft Teams conversations, RelativityOne allows us to easily obtain and review any data no matter where it resides.

It also allows us to detect information that you would not have been able to find otherwise, with advance searching capabilities and tools such as conceptual and contextual analytics. Removing the redundant process of combing through documents from your workload will streamline the eDiscovery process, allowing you to spend your time on the documents that actually matter.

Not only does it save you time, but additionally keeps all your relevant documents centralized, organized, and secure. Organization is important in any field, but is extremely critical when you’re working with large amounts of sensitive data. When piecing through the documents needed for trial, you want to make sure you have them all in one central, organized place which is readily available at your fingertip. By conveniently being able to centralize your documents and organize them with saved searches and tags, you can do just that.

Is It Worth It?

Discovery is one of the most challenging parts of litigation, and it can either be seamless, or require countless hours of work and stress. An eDiscovery platform like RelativityOne can turn discovery into a quick and easy step in the litigation process by minimizing your data burden, increasing your speed of identifying and reviewing documents, and keeping your data organized and accessible.

If you haven’t had these conversations yet, or haven’t in a while, now is a good time to understand how a partnership could improve your operations. The Acorn team is always happy to discuss and educate our community to ensure they are handling the discovery phase as efficiently as possible. Whether a case is 10GB or 1,000GB, the discovery process doesn’t have to be something we dread anymore.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

How I Turned A Reluctant Attorney into An Active Learning Enthusiast (Even in a Worst-Case Scenario)

“Based on my encounters with Relativity Active Learning, I started to think active learning was a very blunt and obtuse tool. Our database contained a lot of non-responsive documents that used the same words as the responsive communications. Half the documents in the database were irrelevant, but we had no easy way to weed them out. That actually has been one of the biggest difficulties we had getting a handle on this database.”
Over the years I have worked on more cases than I can count, and I still always appreciate the moments when I’m able to translate my experience to solve someone’s issue. Personally, I am an analytics guy through and through, from how I manage projects to how I operate in my own day to day life. Because of this, I try to educate people on how they can apply analytics and advanced technologies into their practices. A case I worked on recently comes to mind of where I wasn’t able to solve all the issues, but was able to offer improvements, including some notable improvements in select areas that could be applied to a wide range of matters.

I was working with a client that was very knowledgeable on active learning, in a dataset that is every TAR guy / gal’s worst nightmare. They came to me because they needed a Hail Mary for the case. The data was produced inconsistently, some had metadata, some didn’t, some in pdf format, you name it, they had it. The client wanted to evaluate whether a combination of my expertise and StoryEngine’s advanced technology might work better than their current methodology with Relativity Active Learning (Prioritized Review) solution.

These are the three takeaways I learned from this case:

Overcoming Roadblocks

First – I utilized NexLP’s StoryEngine, which was far superior at identifying hot documents based on their author. Due to the words and structure of the documents being almost exactly the same, the client was skeptical the software could differentiate between them. However, StoryEngine picked up on hot documents based on who the author was, and we could manipulate the model to prioritize this feature even more. This allowed us to overcome a seemingly unavoidable roadblock in our workflow.

Fully Utilizing the Tools

Second – propagation and near duplicates were a hurdle to efficiently and effectively reviewing the document set. While you can turn propagation on in Relativity active learning, StoryEngine does it automatically which streamlines the process. This prevents simply overlooking the feature and not understanding why you aren’t obtaining your expected results or having to backtrack your process to implement it, wasting time and money.

Identifying the Smoking Guns

Third – the model was able to stabilize quicker due to a combination of coverage queue and better prediction models in StoryEngine. When combined with StoryEngine’s emotional intelligence and various other capabilities, it could pinpoint specific documents of interest more efficiently and demonstrate the hidden value that could be easily overlooked or buried deep.

Concluding Thoughts

The greatest takeaway was seeing the Client’s do a full 180 and fully embracing the technology. Although this solution isn’t a do-all be-all, the model is still very applicable in certain scenarios. This case showed the client and I that active learning can be customized and modified to fit all types of scenarios. With the right guidance and expertise, we can use analytics for all kinds of data types. The difference between being able to pull additional value out of the remaining data comes down to nuanced analysis and expertise, like we did here. I’m proud that even under these bad circumstances, I was able to turn a TAR detractor into a TAR promoter.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.