Inside the SFL - Electronic Discovery Edition, November 2009
Finding Email “Needles” in Eight-Terabyte Haystack Saves Law Firm’s Client Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars
On the eve of the trial, a law firm asked us to locate emails sent or received by five custodians. In this case, the custodian’s emails could not be segregated or collected by sender or recipient. They could only be gathered from an email archiving appliance in Asia that contained email for the entire company (equaling about 50 million messages). The client needed a rapid turnaround so we set out to look for these “needles in a haystack.” After extracting the email content from compressed archives, we employed our fleet of “Octo-bots” to text index the data, wrote a custom program to convert and restore messages and attachments, and did it all in three weeks. Budget estimates for a project this size using conventional EDD culling prices could have topped seven figures. By working with SF Legal, the final cost to the law firm was less than 20 percent of that. Here’s the full case study.
Relativity Tips to Simplify Your Search
- Need to build a private search for your eyes only? Set yourself as the owner when you build a new Advanced Search. The search will be invisible to others. Set the owner to “public” if you want it to be viewed by everyone.
- Want to download a native file? The easiest way to view the file on your local computer is to place your cursor over the file icon in the upper left corner of the Viewer. Right click and select “Save Target As.” You can then copy the file to your local computer. You’ll need rights to do this and can only download native files with this method, not TIFFS.
- Looking for redacted documents? You can build a search that will easily return redacted documents, even if there’s not a specific coding choice to note redaction. Query the “Markup Set” field for “Has Redactions” and you’ll rapidly return all redacted documents in your collection.
- Are you properly leveraging Views to facilitate work flow? The Views function controls three things: which documents are returned, what fields are shown and who can see the documents. If you want to readily return all privileged documents in your collection so that you can build a Privilege Log, let SF Legal help you build a View.
Learn even more ways that Relativity can help you. Also, find out five reasons why Dave Swider, SF Legal’s “Relativity Evangelist,” believes in this secure, web-based platform.
One-to-One Advice from Our Expert Staff
 You’ve probably worked with SF Legal’s seasoned industry experts and watched them go above and beyond to meet your litigation support needs. Now here’s some targeted answers to help you get to know them even better and learn from their experience.
Dave Swider, discovery solutions consultant (Relativity expert)
Q: How long have you been in the industry and how do you use your experience to help clients?
A: I have worked in litigation support for 27 years, and have been involved in e-discovery since its infancy. I’ve trained Concordance and other technologies. I’m now known as the “Relativity Evangelist.” I have learned the importance of having a roadmap in place before beginning a review. The temptation is to jump into action before you know what you’re trying to accomplish. Instead, I encourage our clients to map out all necessary decisions for document review, figure out who makes those decisions, and ask what will happen to the documents after those decisions are made.
Jaime Abenojar, director of data processing
Q: How do you help clients save time and money on their reviews? What is the single biggest mistake you see them make most often?
A: Clients can reduce costs significantly by taking the time to figure out a process to cull down the data before jumping in. I help clients narrow down key term searches, the custodians involved and important date ranges. The biggest mistake I see people make is rushing to TIFF production. Some clients hand over the data and say, “We want everything processed in TIFF by next week.” They’re looking at the end product right away, which ends up being both a cost and time issue. If their data totals 100 gigs, each gig adds to the cost. I suggest not going to TIFF productions right off the bat. Spending time on the front end saves you a ton of time and money on the back end.
Robert Beauparlant, senior database administrator
Q: What experiences have shaped your understanding of best practices and what advice do you give clients about setting up searches?
A: I started out as a programmer whose first major program was a litigation review tool. From product management training to working at a highly technical program level, I’ve continued to add to my e-discovery knowledge base. As a litigation support manager, I saw the ins and outs of how to best handle different types of files. I now advise clients to consider customization for a more streamlined search. While other vendors will provide raw data spread over several fields, SF Legal goes the extra mile at no charge to make searches easier. As an example, we provide a “Global Date” field that allows reviewers to search a single date field to find the docs they’re seeking. We’re always looking for new ways to make reviewers more efficient and more confident in their search results.
 Andy Crain, director of forensics and collections
Q: What tools do you recommend and how can clients improve quality and avoid court sanctions?
A: I would say SF Legal is essentially tool-neutral. Rather than investing tons of money writing our own software, SF Legal constantly searches for the best tools and licenses those tools so that we can focus on service value. As for improving quality and avoiding punishment by the court in the form of sanctions, I advise clients to concentrate on adequate preservation and e-discovery planning.
Jeff Lewis, discovery solutions consultant (Clearwell expert)
Q: How do you leverage your industry experience and use Clearwell to help clients?
A: My paralegal experience helps me identify with our clients’ challenges. My first e-discovery case was the famous Napster suit. At the time there weren’t many commercially available tools, but now technology has evolved. Clearwell is a big part of that. I integrate traditional methods with more tech-forward methods such as Clearwell. From collection all the way through production, I help clients determine a customized scope, approach and budget. Plus, I emphasize the cull and analysis stage to help drive down volume and reduce review cost
Richard Cheng, senior manager of forensics and collections
Q: What forensics and collections experiences have shaped your understanding of best practices?
A: I’ve done hundreds of collections– some exotic and complex, others not. I’ve traveled internationally for cases, including to Shanghai, to find the smoking gun. I do all of this while trying to preserve the data as soundly as possible because clients depend on us to get the job done. With so many personal communications devices like iPhones and Blackberries, and with the growing popularity of social media, data is now ubiquitous, and that will be a real issue going forward. Fortunately, at SF Legal we make it a point to stay on top of the latest technology.
We’re Thankful for…You!
 November is “Client Appreciation Month,” and we’re sending you a resounding Thank You! We’re truly honored that you’ve chosen us to support you through every step of the trial process. In eleven years, we’ve satisfied more than 10,000 clients, delivered more than 100,000 projects on time and within budget, and done it 30 percent more efficiently than our competition. We’re 100 percent committed to you and we hope you’ll accept our gratitude. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Christian, Ciaran and the SF Legal Staff
|
