By Everlaw
There are various moving parts during ediscovery that make the overall process more convoluted, time-consuming, and ultimately, more cost-inefficient. But modern ediscovery solutions, such as Everlaw, simplify otherwise complex legal work by automating ediscovery tasks that typically would be completed manually.
Below we break down how some of Everlaw’s top features work and make automating ediscovery tasks easy.
Automating Productions
Once all the data in a document corpus have been prepared during review, it’s time to produce the evidence for any opposing counsel or outside organizations. Last-minute production modifications, securely sharing files with outside counsel or experts, and creating an exhibit list in preparation for depositions or trials often necessitate moving information from one platform to another. This creates inefficiencies in the final stage of the litigation process.
The Everlaw platform significantly streamlines each of these processes by enabling flexible productions, providing secure file sharing options within the platform, and automatically creating exhibit lists in real-time as lawyers build outlines.
Productions
Once all the data in a document corpus have been prepared during review, it’s time to produce the evidence for any opposing counsel or outside organizations. Everlaw provides a cloud-based production environment that can generate, modify, and share productions at any time. Flexible protocol options enable the production of legal documents as necessary, with endorsement stamping, customized Bates numbering, and other options.
This makes productions work simple, straightforward, and less prone to error. When production errors are detected and work needs to be modified, Everlaw makes it easy to claw back documents that have already been produced, produce documents that were originally withheld as privileged, or rerun a production after changing its configuration. This simplifies the entire task of modifying productions, eliminating errors, and increasing efficiency.
Secure File Sharing
Once a production is complete, it’s vital to be able to share data with other individuals and organizations. Collaborators and experts may also need access to key documents in order to provide input but without having access to the entire document corpus. Unfortunately, most ediscovery review platforms don’t provide a way to share data or communicate within their software securely, necessitating either exporting the material via physical media or a file sharing service or going back and forth over email.
However, sharing files with opposing counsel takes only seconds with Everlaw exports and secure sharing links. Flexible sharing options make it easy to get documents from Everlaw, deliver completed productions to the appropriate parties, and confirm timely receipt. This saves time and eliminates costly back-and-forth exchanges between parties.
Everlaw also enables sharing and communication directly in the platform to promote secure, seamless collaboration. Comments and notifications are incorporated throughout the platform, allowing team members to work through issues collaboratively without compromising security. This eliminates the cost and inconvenience of forcing teams to collaborate across multiple, disconnected software applications. By taking advantage of secure messaging and sharing on the same platform that stores relevant evidence, teams and their admins can move issues to resolution faster by eliminating downtime between decision-making actions.
Exhibit Lists
Similarly, when preparing to present evidence, lawyers often need to create a list of exhibits. At critical points in litigation, having the right documents in hand can make all the difference. The process of preparing this critical document availability is fully automated on the Everlaw platform. As individuals use Everlaw’s Storybuilder to create outlines, the system automatically builds a corresponding exhibit list that displays documents with an exhibit number, any notes, and a bookmarked set of pages.
Associates and paralegals can conveniently prepare and publish customized exhibit lists in a PDF format in preparation for subsequent depositions or trials. In this way, they save time preparing for depositions and organizing exhibits post-deposition or testimony; partners keep relevant information together in a sane, orderly fashion, on the same digital platform; and their firm can focus more effectively on substantive legal work.
With Everlaw, users can upload a PDF, TXT, or PTX transcript, and any exhibits previously marked will be automatically linked within the transcript. Key testimony can be referenced in other work products (Drafts and Depositions), and testimony citations can be copy-pasted outside of Everlaw. These tools can help you preserve meaningful evidence from both documents and testimony in Storybuilder while allowing you to share that evidence and collaborate with your case team.
Final Thoughts on Automating Ediscovery Tasks
Ediscovery technology companies that focus on automation are always thinking of the client’s long-term best interest, not about how they can bill more hours for mundane tasks. Firms and corporations that establish a relationship with a vendor that prioritizes developing automated processes benefit significantly in that they worry less about human errors causing delays and know that things can be completed reliably and on time. Everlaw’s automated processes help ensure that user experiences are predictable, fast, secure, and errorless.
If you’re interested in learning more about automating ediscovery tasks, check out our white paper, “Automating Ediscovery from Start to Finish with Everlaw.”