Today is University of Florida E-Discovery Conference Day! You can still register here – it’s not too late!
One of my favorite lines from Illinois District Judge Iain D. Johnston’s epic decision in the DR Distributors, LLC v. 21 Century Smoking, Inc. case (that I covered here and here) is this statement: “The same basic discovery principles that worked for the Flintstones still work for the Jetsons.” I love that analogy. But, according to an article written and just published by Mandi Ross at Prism Litigation Technology, that may not be quite true.
In the article Moving From Flintstones to Jetsons: How to Rocket Power Your Search Strategy, Mandi discusses how “many lawyers and other legal professionals understand (or at least think they understand) keyword search” and that “[b]est practices for eDiscovery search require a methodical approach that starts at the core of the case itself: the claims, defenses, and fact pattern that define the language of the who, what, where, and when of the matter.”
Mandi also discusses a process for Search Term Optimization (which they discuss in this whitepaper) that centers on five key objectives: 1) Issue Analysis, 2) Logical Expression Definition, 3) Component Identification and Expansion, 4) Search Strategies and 5) Test Precision and Recall. According to the whitepaper, the approach has “achieved a staggering 80 percent reduction in data volumes”.
But, because of today’s BIG data challenge (which I’ve discussed before), that’s no longer good enough. Mandi’s article discusses the benefits of index-in-place technology (utilizing technology from X1) and discusses that, with the technology (along with the Search Term Optimization approach discussed above), “the time frame to review is reduced from approximately 28 days down to about 3 days”! And she also provides a case study example with a starting file count of 664,277 files that was reduced down to only 9,512 documents with direct search hits in those three days. Impressive!
Want the details and other benefits associated with the approach? I won’t steal her thunder – check out the article here!
So, what do you think? In terms of keyword search, are you a “Flintstone” or a “Jetson”? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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Disclosure: Prism Litigation Technology is an Educational Partner and sponsor of eDiscovery Today
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.