Clustify Offers Tryout

Is concept clustering a concept missing from your company's or law firm's document review? Hot Neuron is offering the opportunity to try out its clustering product Clustify to see how well it speeds the process — free for the month of March.

Clustify's technology uses algorithms to group related documents into clusters, labeling them as categories. The software can then automatically categorize new documents as the project progresses, using predictive coding (aka technology-assisted review). Users can choose whether to cluster documents as similar by concept, similar as near-duplicates, or similar as parts of an email thread.

Hot Neuron CEO Bill Dimm, in a press release, emphasizes this is not an evaluation and urges users to apply the technology to "real case data." Is he trying to hook you past March? Could be. Is there a catch? Participants must sign a licensing agreement and attend a short training session on GoToMeeting. Interested parties can register here.

Press release.

Image by Clipart.com

Guidance Buys CaseCentral

Pasadena, Calif.-based Guidance Software has announced its acquisition of CaseCentral, bringing customers software and services from collection to review in an end-to-end e-discovery platform, report LTN's Sean Doherty and Brendan McKenna.

Before it bought CaseCentral, Guidance had used third party vendors during trial preparation to conduct further review and analysis of its customers' collected data. With San-Francisco-based CaseCentral's focus on hosted review, Guidance can now analyze, cull, and review collected data, de-NISTed using EnCase Forensics, it says.

Guidance will acquire CaseCentral for $17 million under the terms of the agreement and anticipates the acquisition will add $10 million in software-as-a-service growth in 2012.

Read the story, "Guidance Buys CaseCentral to Make End-to-End E-Discovery Platform."

Logos courtesy of Guidance and CaseCentral

The Big Picture in Capturing, Analyzing Data Ecosystems

A torrent of data is created every day by the interactions of millions of people using computers, GPS, mobile devices, and social media. Electronic data has become so prevalent in our culture that we now have data ecosystems developing similar to ecosystems in nature.

Data communities include mobile, social media, transactional, communications, etc. These ecosystems also create a huge amount of so-called exhaust data — data created as a byproduct of other data — like transaction logs, metadata, etc.

The challenge is being able to channel these data communities into actionable information that can be used for business intelligence, investigations, e-discovery, and predicting trends. Currently most data is lost, not used, or partially analyzed in a reactive setting during litigation.

Consultants Key to Predictive Coding Success

Predictive coding is only as good as the person(s) seeding the initial document set. Identifying, analyzing, and coding the seed document set requires skilled content analytics consultants.

Otherwise there is the risk of unreliable results and statistical uncertainty. Garbage in: garbage out still applies.

To that end, I saw service providers at LegalTech promoting their consulting teams. For example, RenewData launched RDC Analytics, which is a group of forensic linguists, mathematicians, librarians, and attorneys who provide content analytics consulting for legal, regulatory, and business purposes.

The real stars at Legatech this year were the regional service providers driving the technology. As Recommind points out, predictive coding does not replace human review. It optimizes it!

Image: Clipart.com

Here Comes the EDD Tidal Wave at LTNY

More e-discovery vendors are announcing products and services ready for viewing at LegalTech New York.

• Ipro Tech reports that it is adding predictive coding, concept searching, and other features to its Eclipse discovery system.

• Recommind reports that it is updating its Axcelerate eDiscovery to be manageable through a single interface.

• Australia's Nuix is adding defensible data deletion to its suite of offerings.

Expect on-premise software versus the cloud; cloud data collection; and product compatibility and integration to be among the major e-discovery themes on the floor and at the show, blogs Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Katey Wood.

Read the full report from Evan Koblentz, "Second Wave of E-Discovery Products Targets LegalTech."

New E-Discovery Software Heads to LegalTech

Visitors to LegalTech New York's vendor floor can check out eagerly anticipated e-discovery releases.

AccessData is adding an early case assessment module to its Summation product, while Clearwell promises a more tranparent predictive coding. Other e-discovery players bringing out their wares include BIA, debuting social media collection for its TotalDiscovery.com, and bit-level litigation hold from Index Engines.

Check out the whole story, "E-Discovery Software Leads the Charge to LegalTech New York," from LTN reporter Evan Koblentz.

Breaking News: Lexis Sells Applied Discovery

This just in: Lexis has sold Applied Discovery to Siris Capital Group. Lexis bought Applied in 2003.

"Regardless of how 2011 turned out, you now have a clean slate to build upon in 2012. And, while we are on the topic of clean slates, we are thrilled to report that we are beginning the year afresh too, as an independent company," wrote Applied's Jon Resnick, worldwide vice president for field operations and marketing, in the company's weekly newsletter.

"Siris Capital Group has taken Applied Discovery private from LexisNexis (with LexisNexis' parent, Reed Elsevier, retaining a minority interest)," Resnick continued. "As friends of our company, we want you all to know that business will be as usual through this transition, which is happening incredibly smoothly."

Stay tuned to the Law Technology News homepage for the full story later today.

Digital Reef Debuts Free ECA Service

Digital Reef, which offers hosted e-discovery services, recently opened a cost-free early case assessment service at MyEdiscovery.com. The new service lets users upload a data set, after which they are told its initial size, potential size after deduplication, size of data responsive to popular search terms, and number of files responsive to search terms, according to the site's Frequently Asked Questions page.

But there are limits. Data is stored for seven days, and then customers must either pay for online storage, pay to download the output, or let the data evaporate, the site FAQ explains. Read more at Law Technology News.

Image: Digital Reef