Navigating Cloud-Based Data Collection in a Hybrid Environment

The widespread acceptance of flexible working practices has led to greater adoption of digital collaboration tools. As a result, many legal professionals are continuing to work outside the office, even as businesses return to more traditional work models.

Meanwhile, ESI collection during eDiscovery involves more data types and data volumes than ever before. The increased reliance on cloud-based collaboration platforms like Dropbox, Slack, Google Drive, Outlook, OneDrive, and Gmail has further expanded the scope of data being collected. Also, the ever-more-complex regulatory compliance environment is driving significant increases in data volumes. 

So, what does this mean for today’s legal professionals? Capable eDiscovery technology and analytics will be a long-term, strategic advantage for processing data and meeting deadlines. Designing strong, efficient workflows, along with appropriate technologies, is necessary to effectively collect ESI and process these new data types in the cloud without requiring extensive IT help. At the same time, legal teams must avoid incurring unnecessary costs or delays during inquiries, investigations, or litigation.

Maneuvering and Collecting Through the Cloud: Secure, Direct, Defensible

Because collection involves direct interaction with data, most people think of it as principally an IT activity. However, an effective ESI data collection strategy also demands the active involvement of legal professionals, who know what to look for and can help narrow the scope of the collection — ultimately saving time and money. 

The ability to import data directly and securely from the most widely used data collaboration sources created tremendous efficiency for legal teams. Direct collection increases accuracy and automatically records chain of custody information to ensure a defensible process. Casepoint responded to this demand from the marketplace by integrating new robust collection capabilities into a single platform, offering multiple avenues to collect directly from cloud application sources. Also, when we collect, we collect straight into our workspaces. While other providers offer a separate workspace for processing and another for collection, Casepoint uniquely allows all of this to happen within the same workspace — there is no need to transfer data back and forth. The integration of these functions within a single matter-specific workspace ensures the collection process moves seamlessly and efficiently.

With evidence being automatically collected directly from the source and accessed via the Casepoint eDiscovery application, legal teams are no longer dependent on IT teams or their eDiscovery providers to manually help with all collection requests. Collected data is integrated directly, eliminating the need for users to log in and out of other applications or manually transfer duplicate files. Moreover, the collection module is available in both Casepoint eDiscovery and Legal Hold, which can automatically log and inventory all the collected data and generate chain-of-custody reports on the collection at the level of individual items.

Intelligent Processing Saves Critical Time

Each year, organizations waste millions of dollars troubleshooting problems associated with data processing because the processing engine they use is not capable of proactively identifying potential issues. To avoid this scenario, users need to look for platforms that tackle these challenges head-on.

One way to address this challenge is to look for smart and dynamic processing. At Casepoint, we perform a few extra steps to identify partially searchable PDFs and to enable the OCRing of these PDFs automatically — an extremely helpful capability that makes all texts searchable. There is no need to customize. We also look for unstable container files; we inventory upfront and look for errors on the back end. From there, we notify the appropriate parties or custodians and alert them to any discrepancies.

Proactive alerts such as these — which are provided in Casepoint Intelligent Processing — enable users to produce the highest quality data in a streamlined process, save critical time, and alleviate the costly challenges of reproductions and claw-back. An intelligent wizard detects errors or other issues and presents them to users, enabling them to make better, more informed decisions. 

A Single, Holistic Platform To Innovate and Scale

Tracking the movement of data from the point of identification through collection and processing can be challenging. Some end-to-end eDiscovery platforms are actually a mishmash of products from multiple acquired technology companies, without true integration. Data must be moved from one module to the other, which increases the difficulty of accurately documenting the chain of custody. 

On the backend, moving files to and from multiple data lakes can create difficulties in successfully transferring files over. This is a time-consuming process that also puts precision and data integrity in jeopardy. With Casepoint, when you perform collections through the Legal Hold application, you send that data directly to a designated eDiscovery workspace.  There is no middleware repository, so all that collected data will be contained within that specific workspace. Also, because of this integrated process, there are no file conversion errors as you move from one data type to another. Having this functionality, which enables the seamless movement from process to process while continuously maintaining data integrity, is vital for collecting both securely and as efficiently.

The Casepoint Connection

Today’s GCs and legal teams must deliver very high-quality work in an increasingly tough environment. The Casepoint legal discovery platform’s robust preservation, collection, and processing capabilities within one cloud-based software allow legal teams to dramatically streamline their chain of custody for defensible investigations and litigation. Casepoint’s clients also significantly reduce the risk and costs for collection and processing for legal organizations and their clients. Casepoint’s solution is designed to address current and future challenges in a unified, comprehensive, and intelligent platform.

Hear customer success stories detailing how law firms, corporations, and government agencies experienced significant reductions in risk and costs for their organization and their clients.