Catalyst Consulting helps client find potentially privileged documents before production.

Our client faced a Department of Justice investigation stemming from a takeover bid by a third party. The General Counsel was not happy with the situation for two reasons: first, the takeover was hostile and second, the DOJ demanded almost all of the corporate files. Review costs were seen as simply adding insult to injury. And, the deadline was tight. They had days rather than weeks to respond.

Challenge: Find Effective Methods to Screen Privileged Documents

The client determined to produce everything to the DOJ. Counsel was directed to screen for privilege only. Catalyst Consulting was asked to assist in the process.

Solution: Combining Search Best Practices with Catalyst Power SearchTM

The first step was to develop searches to find potentially-privileged documents. The team started with lists of attorneys and created searches based on different possible name combinations e.g. John near/2 smith, jsmith, smithj, and so on. We also added email addresses, maiden names and nicknames to make the searches more effective. Lastly, we added legal-related terms that we have found are often associated with potentially-privileged documents.

The next step was to use Power Search^TM to run the searches. Catalyst Power Search is designed to run large volumes of searches automatically. The searches are combined in groups that can be invoked with a single click. The system runs the searches and tags the results as potentially privileged. It also lists the terms that hit in the documents to make review easier.

The third step was to cluster the potentially-privileged documents using Catalyst's Topical Clustering. With Topical Clustering, we can group documents with similar topics into batches for faster review. This technique will often distinguish between general legal work and non-privileged documents on legal topics like legal newsletters and the like.

The fourth step was to run SQL queries against designated individuals to track communication patterns. We ran these against different permutations of emails between inside attorneys, outside attorneys, corporate client staff, and third parties. We then foldered results according to different categories of potentially privileged communications. This significantly speeded up the review, allowed counsel to deal with each category in a different way, and simplified the privilege log.

The Catalyst Advantage: Power SearchTM Backed by Sophisticated Search Experts from Catalyst Consulting

As document populations increase, clients and counsel are increasingly turning to repository companies who provide enhanced technology needed for the legal process along with the expertise to put it to use. The Catalyst Consulting team includes certified search experts with many years of experience in dealing with complex searching, including privilege searching, workflow and QC. That's one of the many Catalyst advantages.

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