Predict Proves Effective Even With High Richness Collection

Finds 94% of the Relevant Documents Despite Review Criteria Changes

Our client, a major oil and gas company, was hit with a federal investigation into alleged price fixing. The claim was that several of the drilling companies had conspired through various pricing signals to keep interest owner fees from rising with the market.1 The regulators believed they would find the evidence in the documents.

The request to produce was broad, even for this three-letter agency. Our client would have to review over 2 million documents. And the deadline to respond was short, just four months to get the job done. Continue reading →

Optimizing Document Review in Compliance Investigations, Part 2

This article was originally published in Corporate Compliance Insights on August 6, 2018

Using Advanced Analytics and Continuous Active Learning to “Prove a Negative”

This is the second article in a two-part series that focuses on document review techniques for managing compliance in internal and regulatory investigations. Part 1 provided several steps for implementing an effective document review directed at achieving the objectives of a compliance investigation. This installment outlines an approach that can be used to demonstrate that there are no responsive documents to an equivalent statistical certainty – essentially proving a negative.

What Does it Mean to “Prove a Negative?”

The objective of a compliance investigation is most often to quickly locate the critical documents that will establish a cohesive fact pattern and provide the materials needed to conduct effective personnel interviews. In that situation, the documents are merely a means to an end. Continue reading →

Optimizing Document Review In Compliance Investigations, Part 1

This article was originally published in Corporate Compliance Insights on July 17, 2018

Internal/Regulatory Investigations Versus Litigation

Too many corporations approach litigation and compliance investigations the same way, using the same technology, approach and people. But your approach to managing electronic information in internal and regulatory compliance investigations should differ from the one for litigation.

Most of the discussion surrounding compliance investigations focuses on best practices for planning and conducting personnel interviews. This article addresses document review, specifically electronic document review, an equally critical component of the investigation process directed at finding what some refer to as the “truth serum” for controlling those interviews and structuring much of the investigation. Continue reading →

Hon. Paul Grimm and Kevin Brady of Redgrave Outline Admissibility of Digital Evidence

“Objection, foundation.”

To any seasoned trial attorney, the foundation objection shouldn’t trip up anyone. Akin to blocking and tackling in football, laying foundation for admission of evidence is almost taken for granted. But ask that same trial lawyer (only after a few adult beverages) if he or she has ever been tripped up on a foundation objection, many, if not most, will say they have. Heck, it happened to me on a couple of occasions when I was trying cases. Continue reading →

57 Ways to Leave Your (Linear) Lover

A Case Study on Using Catalyst’s Insight Predict to Find Relevant Documents Without SME Training

A Big Four accounting firm with offices in Tokyo recently asked Catalyst to demonstrate the effectiveness of Insight Predict, technology assisted review (TAR) based on continuous active learning (CAL), on a Japanese language investigation. They gave us a test population of about 5,000 documents which had already been tagged for relevance. In fact, they only found 55 relevant documents during their linear review.

We offered to run a free simulation designed to show how quickly Predict would have found those same relevant documents. The simulation would be blind (Predict would not know how the documents were tagged until it presented its ranked list). That way we could simulate an actual Predict review using CAL. Continue reading →

Using TAR Across Borders: Myths & Facts

As the world gets smaller, legal and regulatory compliance matters increasingly encompass documents in multiple languages. Many legal teams involved in cross-border matters, however, still hesitate to use technology assisted review (TAR), questioning its effectiveness and ability to handle non-English document collections.  They perceive TAR as a process that involves “understanding” documents. If the documents are in a language the system does not understand, then TAR cannot be effective, they reason.

The fact is that, done properly, TAR can be just as effective for non-English as it is for English documents. This is true even for the complex Asian languages including Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK). Although these languages do not use standard English-language delimiters such as spaces and punctuation, they are nonetheless candidates for the successful use of TAR. Continue reading →

Catalyst Insight Review By Brett Burney

Recently, Brett Burney, e-discovery consultant and founder of Burney Consultants, reviewed Catalyst’s Insight Discovery search and review capabilities, which are part of Catalyst’s full EDRM platform comprising of Insight Legal Hold and Collect, Search & Review, Predict and Business Intelligence. We invited Brett to share his insights as a guest author.

Catalyst Insight – Lightning Quick, Responsive Review Platform for Instantly Searching Millions of Digital Files with a Built-In Continuous Active Learning Predictive Analytics Engine

It seems that Catalyst has always been on a mission to push the boundaries of applying advanced text analytics to enormous amounts of electronically stored information for eDiscovery and investigatory purposes… and it’s exciting to watch. Continue reading →

Part II: Practical Considerations for U.S. Legal Teams Taking Discovery to Asia

[This is the second in a two-part Q&A between Rachel Teisch, Catalyst’s director of product marketing, and Dave Sannar, Catalyst’s head of Asia operations. Part I discussed trends and cultural differences U.S. legal teams should be aware of before embarking on cross-border discovery in Asia. Part II focuses on tactical considerations for collecting, processing, reviewing and transferring data subject to litigation, investigations and regulatory compliance.] Continue reading →

Part I: Q&A with Dave Sannar on E-Discovery Trends in Asia

[This is the first of a two-part Q&A between Dave Sannar, Catalyst’s head of Asia operations, and Rachel Teisch, Catalyst’s director of product marketing. Part I discusses trends in Asia discovery. Part II focuses on tactical considerations for collecting, processing, reviewing and transferring data subject to litigation, investigations and regulatory compliance.] Continue reading →

The Importance of Contextual Diversity in Technology Assisted Review

How do you know what you don’t know? This is a classic problem when searching a large volume of documents in litigation or an investigation.

In a technology assisted review (TAR), a key concern for some is whether the algorithm has missed important relevant documents, especially those that you may know nothing about at the outset of the review. This is because most modern TAR systems focus exclusively on relevance feedback, which means that the system feeds you the unreviewed documents that are likely to be the most relevant because they are most like what you have already coded as relevant. In other words, what is highly ranked depends on the documents that were tagged previously. Continue reading →