eDiscovery in a Pandemic (Part 5): Coordinating with Your Team

01 June 2020 by Mithun eDiscovery COVID-19 pandemic work-from-home

Takeaway: To keep your team running smoothly, make sure your eDiscovery software can do these 6 things: (1) Allow your team to access data, 24/7, (2) Let you leave notes, annotations, and comments, (3) Offer a quick and easy ‘tagging’ feature to help organize files, (4) Make searches saveable, (5) Control levels off access for each team member, and (6) Protect your data.

It’s a challenge to coordinate with your team while working remotely.

There are apps and websites to help manage projects, but with eDiscovery, it becomes a little harder. You need to be able to collaborate with your team while using your eDiscovery software. And third-party apps can’t help with this. So, it’s worth finding software with built-in collaboration tools.

How can the right eDiscovery software help keep a team running smoothly?

It’ll offer you six crucial advantages.

1. Your data will be accessible to all team members, all the time.

As we saw in eDiscovery in a Pandemic (Part 1), your first step will be to move your data into the Cloud. This way, you and your team can access it from anywhere, at the same time. Also, with Cloud eDiscovery, there’s no software to download. You’ll open up your web browser, go to the eDiscovery website, and sign in. It’s the same as checking email, and you can do it from the closest PC, laptop, or tablet. All you’ll need is an internet connection! Learn more about Cloud eDiscovery.

You’ll be able to leave comments and notes for your team.

To build a case, you’ll need to pick out important files, make notes about them, discuss them with your team, and get feedback. The best eDiscovery applications have essential collaboration tools to help you with this.

Notes: This feature lets you add context to files and tack on information that builds your case. You’ll be able to add multiple notes to each document, to address different threads of thought.
Annotations: You can get more specific, with annotations. Here you’ll draw attention to particular blocks of text in a document. When you’re doing your final review, you’ll click on the list of these annotation notes and be taken to the corresponding page.
Comments: This feature lets you jot down more informal thoughts and ideas for your team to weigh in on. You’ll be able to start a discussion without having to switch to email and flood your inbox.

3. Your whole team gets to organize and categorize files.

The ‘tag’ feature in your eDiscovery software lets you organize and reorganize your files without creating new folders or moving old ones around. Think of a tag as a virtual post-it. With paper documents, you stick post-its to key pages so that you can find and categorize them easily. With electronic documents, you use tags. These tags don’t change the documents themselves, but let you pull up relevant files with a single click. And when you’re going through documents, you’ll see all the tags attached to it, which will help orient you quickly. Also, you’ll be able to set up ‘productions’ using tags – either including all files with certain tags, or excluding those files from productions.

4. You’ll collaborate in creating and tweaking your searches.

eDiscovery searches need to be broad enough to catch all the files you’re looking for. But they can’t be so broad that they’ll catch too many irrelevant files. So, you’ll build a custom search, test it on a small sample of your files, then tweak it and repeat the process. That’s why your software must allow you to save the searches you build and let your other teammates work on them too. Learn more about searching your eDiscovery case.

5. You’ll be able to control levels of access for your team.

You may not want everyone on your team to have full control of a case. So, the best eDiscovery applications let you allot different levels of access for each user. For example, eDiscovery software GoldFynch has 4 levels of access:

Level 1: Reviewers – They can search and review data. And generate reports and ‘productions.’
Level 2: Users – They have reviewer privileges, plus they can upload, move, rename and delete files. They can also modify tags, productions, and reports.
Level 3: Admins – They have level 1 & 2 privileges. Plus they can add, remove, and change roles for users.
Level 4: Owners – They can do all of the above, plus delete cases.

6. Your data will be well-protected and accessible only to teammates.

Here’s the kind of protection you’ll get.

Cloud protection. Your data is stored on Cloud servers that are protected from natural disasters, power outages, and hackers.
Multifactor authentication. No outsider will be able to log into your eDiscovery software, because they’ll need two separate pieces of information to access it. They’ll need both your password AND an authentication code (which is sent to you either as an SMS or from a trusted ‘authenticator’ application like Google Authenticator). This is the kind of technology that high-security services like ATMs use – where you need both your debit card and PIN. Most email services use it too. Learn how eDiscovery applications set up MFA.
Secure sharing of productions. Your data is vulnerable when you share ‘productions.’ So, the best eDiscovery applications let you link to these productions, instead of downloading them and mailing/emailing them to your team or clients. People with the link can view your production from within your eDiscovery application, where your data is encrypted and protected from prying eyes. Plus, you’re sharing only the completed production (not the original files), so there’s no danger of anyone reading privileged content. Learn more about sharing productions.

Need eDiscovery software that helps teams collaborate while working remotely? Try GoldFynch.

It’s a next-generation eDiscovery application that prioritizes things that matter to small law firms. That’s why:

It costs just $27 a month for a 3 GB case: That’s significantly less—every month—than the nearest comparable software. And hundreds of dollars less than many others. With GoldFynch, you know what you’re paying for exactly – its pricing is simple and readily available on the website.
It’s easy to budget for. GoldFynch has a flat, prorated rate. With legacy software, your bill changes depending on how much data you use.
It takes just minutes to get going. It runs in the Cloud, so you use it through your web browser (Google Chrome recommended). No installation. No sales calls or emails. Plus, you get a free, fully-functional trial case (0.5 GB of data and processing cap of 1 GB), without adding a credit card.
It can handle even the largest cases. GoldFynch scales from small to large, since it’s in the Cloud. So, choose from a range of case sizes (3 GB to 100 GB, and more) and don’t waste money on space you don’t need.
You can access it from anywhere. And 24/7. All your files are backed up and secure in the Cloud. And you can monitor its servers here.
You won’t have to worry about technical stuff. It’s designed, developed and run by the same team. So, its technical support isn’t outsourced. Which means you get prompt and reliable service.

Want to learn more about GoldFynch?

For related posts about eDiscovery, check out the following links.