Current discussions of electronic discovery and legal technology often focus on strategies for managing large volumes of data as it is funneled through different phases of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). The goal: to produce responsive documents in the fastest and most cost-effective manner possible. Yet an important part of the discovery process — case analysis and legal strategy — has been a niche left unaddressed by traditional technologies. Existing “big data” technology is very good at performing thousands of discrete operations on data at a massive scale, but there are few tools in today's marketplace designed to facilitate the unique ways legal professionals think and interact as they try to understand the facts of a case and to develop an effective strategy.

My law firm, Bartlit Beck, discovered a tool that enhanced its existing workflow for case analysis by allowing attorneys to work and collaborate more efficiently. This workflow includes activities like highlighting, underlining and attaching notes to key passages, or engaging in dynamic group discussions about pieces of evidence or annotations with particular relevance to case strategy. It also includes bookmarking and grouping content that pertains to a particular legal issue (or witness or date) with color-coded tags and custom binders for quick and easy retrieval. Most legal professionals analyze cases and build arguments in this manner — by finding connections and stringing together a series of documents, passages, research, testimony and other pieces of evidence that begin to tell a story. Such activities typically take place at the nexus of case management: e-discovery and litigation support.

At this crucial nexus point, ideas and insights about the most pertinent details of a case need to be cohered into strategy. Legal professionals must work closely together to interpret and analyze information and develop a case based on what they've learned. Analysis may involve a formal early case assessment (ECA) to identify key strengths and weaknesses that could inform important decisions down the road — e.g., whether to settle, arbitrate, or go to trial.

The Selection Process

Bartlit Beck had already used a variety of mainstream tools for identifying, preserving, collecting, processing, reviewing and producing information housed in large databases powered by e-discovery platforms. What we lacked was the equivalent of a secure online “war room” where team members could easily access the most important case content to prepare for depositions, motion practice and ECA. We sought an electronic version of a “whiteboard” that could capture ongoing dialogue and interpretations of the relationships among key documents, testimony and research. And, because today's legal professionals are mobile and spend much of their time working online, any new tool had to be able to securely accommodate multiple devices, and its users needed to be able to interact easily and efficiently at all times.