How to Optimize Your eDiscovery Workflow Using Document Review Tools

13 September 2024 by Uday eDiscovery document-review review-tools
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Takeaway: The eDiscovery process, essential for legal professionals handling digital documents, can often become overwhelming due to the sheer volume of data involved. However, the right document review tools and techniques can simplify the process, ensuring that your legal team remains organized, efficient, and able to work faster.

Increasing volumes of digital records make eDiscovery tools a necessity for document review.

The legal profession increasingly relies on electronic records during litigation in the current digital era. Email, text messages, contracts, and other digital files are significant in court cases. The process of managing and reviewing these records—known as eDiscovery—can be time-consuming. Hence, leveraging eDiscovery tools helps legal professionals manage large data sets while adhering to stringent timelines and preserving accuracy.

Let’s look at the features of the eDiscovery tools that aid document review.

Streamline Searches with Quick and Advanced Search Features

One of the most time-consuming aspects of eDiscovery is locating relevant documents within a massive digital collection. The right eDiscovery software comes with various search options, such as:

  • Quick search allows users to find specific documents using keywords, phrases, file names, Bates numbers, and metadata. Quick searches are handy for initial scans or when looking for a general term.
  • Advanced search goes deeper by enabling you to search with multiple criteria, such as document types, specific date ranges, file extensions, and author names. This precision ensures the retrieval of the most relevant documents, saving time and reducing the risk of missing key information.

Moreover, some eDiscovery software lets you save searches, so you don’t have to recreate complex queries whenever you need specific information. This reusability is a huge time-saver, particularly in long-running cases where you must repeatedly revisit certain documents.

Simplify Document Organization with Tags

As you work through documents, it’s crucial to keep things organized. Tagging helps organize your data. A tag is like a virtual post-it, it allows you to group related documents based on their content, importance, or stage in the legal process. For instance:

  • Tag critical documents separately for quick access.
  • Dedicated tags can be assigned to documents related to specific issues or witnesses, making it easier to focus on a particular aspect of the case.
  • Privilege tags help mark sensitive files that shouldn’t be disclosed, avoiding accidental inclusion in document productions.

By tagging documents, you’re ensuring that even if you’re working on a case with thousands of files, you can quickly locate and reference what you need without getting bogged down by irrelevant information.

Additionally, some eDiscovery tools allow for batch tagging, meaning you can apply the same tags to multiple documents at once, reducing the need for manual effort and enhancing consistency across your review.

Leverage Notes for Document Collaboration

In a collaborative legal setting, leaving notes on documents can improve communication across the team. Document notes are a quick and simple way to jot down thoughts, legal interpretations, or reminders about a particular file so everyone reviewing the file is on the same page. Consider how these notes function as a running commentary on the significance of a document within the case.

For example:

  • If one team member reviews a document and identifies a critical point, they can leave a note outlining its relevance to a specific legal argument or case theory.
  • As the case progresses, other team members reviewing the same document can add notes or replies, ensuring the team benefits from collective insights.

eDiscovery tools like GoldFynch even let you search these notes, meaning your insights are always accessible later in the review process. This is invaluable when conducting follow-up research or during trial preparation.

Use Case Reports to Track Progress and Strategy

Once you’ve tagged, annotated, and reviewed your documents, the next step is making sense of the information. Case reports come in handy and help analyze the available data. They offer a snapshot of your case’s progress, compiling essential information into a readable format. Think of them as a dashboard that displays all the critical insights collected during the document review.

Case reports typically include:

  • Lists of tagged documents (e.g., critical, privileged)
  • Important notes left by the legal team
  • Statistical breakdowns of documents by category or relevance

These reports allow attorneys to summarize key evidence, assess the status of document production, and monitor the pace of the review process. They also help communicate the overall progress of a case to clients, opposing counsel, or courts, supporting transparency and collaboration.

Ensure Privacy with Redaction Tools

In eDiscovery, many files contain sensitive information that needs to be redacted before being shared with external parties. Proper redaction tools are crucial to prevent accidental disclosure of privileged or private information. Redactions are more than just drawing a black box over the text. The tool needs to ensure that no one can remove the redaction. Also, the tool must redact the original PDF and the newly created file for OCRed PDFs.

GoldFynch, a cloud-based eDiscovery tool, provides many features to make your document review efficient.

GoldFynch’s eDiscovery interface is user-friendly and easy to use; apart from this, it has capabilities like advanced searches, batch tagging, adding notes and annotations to documents, and much more. Here’s how GoldFynch can aid your document review:

Search Your Files With Ease

GoldFynch’s advanced search functionality lets you submit quick searches directly from the app toolbar. It also has a user-friendly interactive query builder that enables you to construct complex searches to narrow down the correct documents. You can save and search these advanced searches for future reuse.

Collaborate Efficiently Across Your Team

Users can securely review files without downloading documents using GoldFynch’s browser-based viewer. This feature ensures that you are constantly reviewing the most recent version of the document, irrespective of team members’ locations. Notes and annotations are visible to all team members, making the review efficient and collaborative. The app also lets you create a review set, a bundle of documents that team members can review simultaneously.

Effective Case Reporting

GoldFynch’s reporting system makes it easy to create reports. You can generate reports for a specific tag, a saved search, or the entire case. The system also lets you customize your reports by selecting descriptive fields, such as notes and annotations, tag names, and descriptions. Additionally, you can generate privilege logs using the report function.

The eDiscovery review process can be daunting, but utilizing the right tools—such as advanced search, tagging, notes, case reports, and redaction capabilities—can streamline the workflow, reduce errors, and meet tight deadlines. Modern eDiscovery platforms, like GoldFynch, are designed to make this process as seamless as possible, allowing legal teams to manage even the most complex cases confidently.

Need eDiscovery Software to optimize your document review workflow? Try GoldFynch.

GoldFynch is an easy-to-use subscription service with an advanced search engine. It lets you collaborate easily across your team with various features like shared reviews and document notes. You can sign up for a free trial without a credit card in seconds.

  • It costs just $27 a month for a 3 GB case, which is significantly less than most comparable software. 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 charges only for storage (processing is free). So, choose from a range of plans (3 GB to 150+ GB) and know how much you’ll be paying upfront. It takes just a few clicks to move from one plan to another, and billing is prorated – so you’ll pay only for the time you spend on any given plan. With legacy software, pricing is much less predictable.
  • It’s simple to use. Many eDiscovery applications take hours to master. GoldFynch takes minutes. It handles a lot of complex processing in the background, but what you see is minimal and intuitive. Just drag-and-drop your files into GoldFynch and you’re good to go. Plus, it’s designed, developed, and run by the same team. So you get prompt and reliable tech support.
  • It keeps you flexible. To build a defensible case, you need to be able to add and delete files freely. Many applications charge to process each file you upload, so you’ll be reluctant to let your case organically shrink and grow. And this stifles you. With GoldFynch, you get unlimited processing for free. So, on a 3 GB plan, you could add and delete 5 GB of data at no extra cost – as long as there’s only 3GB in your case at any point. And if you cross 3GB, your plan upgrades automatically and you’ll be charged for only the time spent on each plan. That’s the beauty of prorated pricing.
  • Access it from anywhere. And 24/7. All your files are backed up and secure in the Cloud.

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