Resource Center
Our client is one of the largest software and electronics companies in the world. We host millions of their documents and assist with numerous litigation matters and regulatory proceedings. Over the years, the company has worked with more than 2,000 law firms and had a prior attorney list with over 5,000 names.
Challenge: Develop Defensible Methods to Find Privileged Documents
The client asked Catalyst Consulting to develop comprehensive search strategies that would identify potentially-privileged documents across dozens of different sites. We were also asked to help refine counsel's searches for new product names and other company confidential information.
Solution: Catalyst Consulting Search Best Practices Combined with Power Search
The first step was to prepare thousands of searches to be run against each upload. Catalyst Consulting developed software that will take names and automatically generate 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. For foreign names, we prepared the search matrix with and without accents. Lastly, we added hundreds of legal-related terms that we have found are often associated with potentially-privileged documents.
The next step was to use Power Search to run what turned out to be over 7,000 searches against each upload. Catalyst Power Search is designed to run large volumes of searches automatically. Searches are combined in named groups that can be invoked with a single click. You can run them against a particular upload or with any other limiting criteria desired. Catalyst Consulting also sampled the high-hit searches to analyze for false positives.
As searches are run, documents are tagged "Potentially Privileged," and the terms that hit in the document are placed in a field so that attorney reviewers can see why each document was tagged. Power Search will also allow you to place the documents that hit in designated folders. Because uploads are ongoing, we developed a means to rerun and update search results when new names are added to the list.
During the review, attorneys use the review form to build the privilege log entries, and for QC, documents are checked again for privilege at production time.
The Catalyst Advantage: Power Search 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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