Kroll Ontrack is transforming ediscovery from an art to a science with the launch of ediscovery.com

Global News

28
Oct
2013

Editor

Responding to a legal process that’s grown out of control due to the explosion of Big Data and increased litigation, Kroll Ontrack today unveiled. The ediscovery and data recovery leader is challenging the industry to abandon its long-standing approach of treating every ediscovery project as new, and instead adopt a repeatable approach that can radically increase the predictability of time, costs and results across a crushing number of ediscovery projects.

Kroll Ontrack said its own Advisory Board, comprised of representatives from several large corporations and law firms, initiate an average of 46 new ediscovery projects a year, and each of them need to capture and process more and more unstructured data (so-called Big Data) scattered across computers, laptops, mobile devices and even cloud-based social networks. This downside of Big Data is increasingly unsustainable.

“Today, ediscovery projects are managed as individual, one-off events, where the people, processes and technologies often change from project to project, fueling unpredictable costs and results,” said Dean Hager, Kroll Ontrack’s president and CEO. “Because corporations are often addressing multiple ediscovery matters simultaneously from the same data set, ediscovery should be managed as an ongoing business process continuously improving with each new matter. With ediscovery.com, Kroll Ontrack is transforming ediscovery from an art – something that is re-created with every project – to a science – something that is predictable, reliable and efficient, with higher quality results.”

Kroll Ontrack’s new ediscovery.com platform includes three products that work seamlessly together:

• Ediscovery for Portfolio Management, which is the industry’s first solution for collaboratively managing ediscovery as a portfolio as opposed to individual projects.
• Ediscovery.com Review, which is a single tool that delivers unprecedented control of data volume and costs across early data assessment, analysis, review and production.
• Ediscovery.com Collect, which is designed to reduce the time and cost of identifying, preserving and collecting ediscovery data from Microsoft® Exchange and Microsoft® SharePoint®.

David Yerich, director of ediscovery at UnitedHealth Group, a large managed health care company, said law is an art but ediscovery shouldn’t be. “There are no two cases that are identical,” said Yerich. “However, ediscovery, which supports the practice of law, is a process that can be defined. Kroll Ontrack is on the path to helping customers refine this process to make it not only repeatable, but better with each project.” 

Three New Products:

• Ediscovery for portfolio management: With first-of-its-kind, intuitive functionality, both law firms and corporations can view and manage all of their ediscovery projects as a portfolio from any device. Through interactive dashboards that provide real-time metrics about ediscovery portfolio and project spend as well as data volumes, ediscovery.com allows counsel to accurately forecast, identify trends and find opportunities for greater efficiency. Beyond a new level of ediscovery transparency, ediscovery.com replaces the flood of emails and phone calls required to manage projects with one simple Project Wall, where teams can direct projects and see real-time status updates and progress.
• Ediscovery.com for review: Empowering reviewers to conduct early data assessment, analysis, review and production within a single tool, ediscovery.com Review provides real-time insight into massive data volumes while also empowering customers to efficiently manage their storage volumes. Ediscovery teams have the ability to choose their data formats and nearline unneeded data, which gives reviewers the flexibility they need to easily adapt to mid-process changes while controlling ediscovery costs at the same time. Beyond extraordinary flexibility and control, powerful predictive coding technology is available at every stage of the process, ensuring review is efficient, accurate and cost-effective from beginning to end.
• Ediscovery.com for collection: Driven by Ontrack® PowerControls™, ediscovery.com Collect is a proven Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint legal collection tool that saves valuable time and costs when identifying, preserving and collecting data for ediscovery. With intelligent search and simple drag and drop functionality, ediscovery teams can quickly and effectively search, identify and collect potentially responsive data, ensuring time-sensitive legal deadlines are met. 

“Kroll Ontrack is laser-focused on delivering innovative technology solutions that reimagine how corporations and law firms manage ediscovery to drive repeatability across an entire portfolio of projects,” added Hager. “Ediscovery.com is industry changing in that it brings data, technology and communication together while fully embracing the principles of repeatability to help the industry achieve more predictable, efficient and higher quality results.” 

Ediscovery.com Collect is available today. Ediscovery.com Review and ediscovery.com for portfolio management are currently in limited availability with general availability planned for early 2014.