In this age of technology and mass communication, information is a much more valuable asset than ever before. Digitization has enabled all forms of information to be documented, from private messages to entire reports. Hence, any profession or organization that deals with such a large volume of documents need to have a system on how to deal with and organize these efficiently and methodically.
The legal profession, in particular, makes use of a large amount of documentation and paperwork. Even the smallest piece of information can make or break a case, making information management extremely crucial.
This is why the legal profession can benefit greatly from electronic discovery (ediscovery) solutions. eDiscovery involves collecting and producing electronically stored information, which includes emails, databases, video and audio recordings, and many more. Given the dynamic nature of electronically stored information as well as the necessary technology involved, ediscovery is required in order to ensure that no piece of information slips through the cracks.
Here are some benefits to using ediscovery solutions and software in managing your firm’s legal documents:
Have all the evidence in the palm of your hand
In a field that is so dependent on physical and documentary evidence, gathering as much evidence as possible is key to building a successful case. Hence, it is important to have a system that is able to process mountains of documentary evidence and identify whether they are relevant or not. The fact that this is being done by software means that you might even find some important information in the documents that you otherwise would have missed out on. You will also be able to more easily sort through different kinds of evidence to find what is truly helpful in building your case.
Do away with claims of evidence tampering
Electronically stored information differs from physical evidence in that they contain metadata such as timestamps, author information, file properties, and revision history. This helps your case hold water should you be accused of evidence tampering. It also makes evidence tampering much harder to accomplish, as well as easier to disprove or debunk.
Lessen the possibility of human error
A crucial part of reviewing legal documents involves redacting any confidential information. This is done so that any shared documents do not contain any privileged information that could lead to repercussions if leaked.
Manually redacting hundreds of pages of documents is slow, time-consuming, and prone to human error. Many ediscovery systems come with auto-redaction capabilities. Furthermore, some also have version history features to preserve all original versions of the documents, in order to make any redactions or revisions easily searchable.
Make document sharing easier
Reviews of legal documents are typically done by teams of people. As a result, this means that the document can pass through multiple individuals who will each provide comments and revision suggestions.
Without ediscovery solutions, it would be difficult to keep track of what changes were made, why, and by whom. Annotation features, however, help easily reference such comments and whether or not they have been addressed. This makes collaboration much more streamlined and saves time that would otherwise have been spent trying to figure out when exactly each change was made.
Similar to other technological advancements, ediscovery solutions drastically reduce the time and effort needed to accomplish tasks that would otherwise have to be done manually. This allows legal teams to instead channel their energy into building a solid case, thus enabling them to perform their jobs better.
