For most attorneys and litigation support professionals, their first look at potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI) occurs after data has been preserved, collected, processed and loaded into a review platform. This crucial stage in any eDiscovery matter helps inform review strategies, the need for further collection and ultimately, production deadlines.

There is understandably a great sense of urgency to dive into the documents themselves and get started with review and production as quickly as possible on a rolling basis.  Most platforms and providers include standard static reporting with the release of processed data sets that can easily get lost in the shuffle. Critical mistakes or oversights can occur that will make or break production deadlines and eDiscovery budgets downstream.

Issues involving incomplete data sets missing date ranges or key custodians, corrupt or password protected files and unexpected non-standard file types can be easily missed at the time of processing but can wreak havoc by the time of production. Identifying and addressing issues like these as early as possible can avoid the need for costly and time-consuming last-minute recollection, review team expansion and production deadline extension.

Data visualizations can play an integral role in enhancing information as it becomes available for review.  A simple timeline chart can be used to perform a quick date range gap analysis confirming relevant dates have been captured at the time of collection.  A custodian pie graph can ensure key custodian data sets are accounted for, and an exception breakdown can quickly identify sets of password-protected, corrupt or unsupported file types for further review.  These individual widgets become even more powerful when used in conjunction to quickly drill down to the most relevant documents and dive into review.

CDS Vision provides a dedicated “First Look” dashboard designed to be a one stop shop for all the vital information contained within initial processing sets.  With Vision – First Look, users have the full power of Relativity Visualizations coupled with CDS proprietary filters, workflow and technology to quickly and efficiently navigate the most crucial phases of the EDRM and ensure their matters stay on track and within budget.

Read Part 3 of our blog series on Demystifying eDiscovery for Data Intelligence.