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eDiscovery Software Explained 2022

January 18th, 2022 12 min read

eDiscovery software is a type of document review software. It’s used for uploading documents and then searching for important dates, names, subjects, and other metadata classification fields. 

The software often comes with functions like filtering, tagging, and culling to streamline the process of sifting through documents. This type of tool accelerates research for court cases, projects, investigations, and more. 

Imagine fast and accurate research all in the same place you store documents. It’s designed for organizing based on your needs, and answering the questions your projects ask.

eDiscovery can be very niche to organizations or persons that provide legal services, but that’s not a rule. Below we cover more about eDiscovery and how software is used. 

What is eDiscovery Software?

eDiscovery essentially means electronic discovery or discovery that is virtual. Electronic discovery means the discovery is in the form of electronically stored information or ESI. In the legal process, discovery means the exchange of evidence that will be presented in court. This way the prosecution, defense, and legal teams will not be blindsided by unknown information. 

eDiscovery platforms market their services as discovery solutions. The creation of discovery software comes from the need for faster data processing, better data management, and the fact most evidence today is already ESI. Your social media posts, instant messaging, texts, chat apps, emails, any format of an electronic document, could easily be used as evidence. 

Without eDiscovery software, legal professionals such as paralegals would struggle to navigate hundreds of documents and lose out on relevant data. Paralegals handle most of the research and case management for legal cases. They do the grunt work of mining the data for relevant information.  Finding the best software for you could mean your firm winning over another firm, with less useful software. 

eDiscovery functionality expedites and simplifies their work with indexing, archiving, and other forms of data collection and classification. eDiscovery tools can also come with Ocular Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which means it can read words within virtual images. This will make it far easier to find a text message sreenshot that said, “murder” or “body on 5th st,” etc. 

These platforms can also have deduplication, which is when duplicates of data are removed. This keeps you from sifting through several of the exact same text about a body, and saves you storage space. Many eDiscovery options not only are powerful organizational tools but are easy to access from different locations. This way your legal department has full in-house access to your files. 

This is one reason why many will choose software as a service (SaaS) eDiscovery tools over on-premise ones. Everlaw goes over other reasons to choose in-house eDiscovery options. Everlaw is one of the many eDiscovery tools out there. 

In the next section we go over other users of eDiscovery and why they might need it.

Who uses eDiscovery Software?

Aside from law firms, there are other organizations that can find use for eDiscovery software. Governments, tech companies, retail, and research teams can certainly take advantage of eDiscovery solutions. Government departments that need to conduct internal investigations will look to eDiscovery software. This reason can also extend to tech companies and retail companies. 

Internal investigations could be conducted for legal and policy violations. Examples include sexual harrasment claims, fraud, embezzlement, corporate spying, insider trading etc. Microsoft Office 365 actually has an eDiscovery permissions feature that allows you to place a legal hold on emails to prevent anyone deleting evidence pending investigation. eDiscovery software has a very serious place in the corporate world. 

Less severe reasons for an eDiscovery project would be research. The impressive search and querying capabilities for mixed media files would be an asset for any analysis team. Below you can see a graph detailing Logikcull’s consumers by industry. Logikcull is another phenomenal eDiscovery tool. 

Logikcull alternatives graph

Another great tool is DISCO eDiscovery. They report that their clients consist of corporations and government agencies along with law firms. 

You may be itching to know what eDiscovery software is out there. We briefly discuss some of the best software on the market.

What are examples of eDiscovery Software?

We’re not discussing the pricing and features of each software in this article. We are briefly going over some of the notable benefits of 5 of the most popular software. 

There are quite a few eDiscovery software available. Before, most of the software was on-premises, but since the general switch to SaaS eDiscovery products, more are not platforms you can access. These examples will all be platform-based. 

Common selling points you will find for these software could be AI with heightened machine learning features to aid your workflows, and strong security. Security will certainly be an asset to those with evidence or sensitive company data in the software. 

Support will also be a great feature, because the users of this technology won’t always be tech-savvy. To entice you further, some will highlight all the major corporations that already work with them.

5 Fantastic eDiscovery Software Choices

eDiscovery SoftwareTrustRadius trScore
Logikcull9.3/10 (Top Rated 2021)
DISCO eDiscovery 8.8/10 (Top Rated 2021)
Nextpoint 9.1/10
Everlaw8.5/10
Relativity  7.9/10

Logikcull

Logikcull is one of TrustRadius’ top rated eDiscovery platforms. They emphasize their platform’s ability to provide fast and accurate filtering capabilities, and the savings they’ve brought as a result. One major benefit of Logikcull is you can start the software for free, up to 10GB of storage space, with premium features.

DSICO eDiscovery

DISCO eDiscovery is another top rated software on TrustRadius. They angle their product as incredibly easy to use, and require little training. Their OCR search feature and DISCO AI will handle heavy workflows and make your learning experience so much simpler. DISCO’s reliable security is backed by Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

Nextpoint 

A simpler option than the other is Nextpoint. They highlight their case-by-case pricing model and unlimited storage. They also have some very strong organizational features like custom templates, or witness and deposition management. Nextpoint definitely leans into their niche for law firms, so they may not be the best options for other agencies. 

Everlaw

Everlaw really wants you to know who their big clients are–they have an animated slideshow on the first page. One notable name is the Office of the Attorney General for the Nebraska Department of Justice. Volume wise, they actually appear to serve more corporations than government legal departments. They offer 3 guides detailing how they can benefit law firms, general corporations, and government agencies.

Relativity

Relativity is another well-known service that advertises their security of your data. Their software is trusted by Ford, Exelon, and the US Department of Justice. What is more interesting is their commitment to education and support. 

They host a blog on hot topics like security and work life balance, and host community forums where you can share ideas and help with other users. They don’t use the community to replace support however, they have technical support, developer support, and customer support. 

More Resources 

If you want to learn more about eDiscovery as a concept we included a short video below. It’s part of a video series that goes into more detail about the eDiscovery process, or Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

We also included another more in-depth video on the concept of eDiscovery and software needs.

Those of you more interested in the software can check our eDiscovery product page. There you will find insightful reviews about the software. 

If any of you have used some of the software in the article, please consider leaving a review to help other buyers make informed decisions. 

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