Litigation Support and Legal Document Processing

Winning automation strategies for litigation cases.  How a litigation database can help you win your case and make you thinner, richer, and give you more time at home.

What is a Database?
A database is any collection of information kept in an organized fashion.  Computerized databases contain records, fields and data.  A computerized database is a collection of information which has been scanned or imaged and organized by several elements or building blocks: records, fields, data.  Each record represents a physical or logical entity and is a collection of one or more fields of information by which images of documents can be scanned and retrieved.  In a litigation support database, a record usually represents one document or image, so that every document has a unique record in the database.
Imaging is the creation of a digital "picture" of a document, which can be stored on a CD-ROM, hard disk or other media for immediate search and retrieval.

Why use technology for Litigation?
Now that we have defined documents and images, let's get to the good part: how does all this technology help you win your cases and make you thinner, richer and give you more time at home?

Faster Access to Critical Information
It takes hours, days or weeks to manually search through boxes, binders and stacks, compared with the seconds or minutes it takes to search a database and print the results.  Whether responding to motions, cross-examining witnesses, or drafting demand letters, you need the information yesterday, not next month.  Imaged databases can provide certainty, competitive advantage and time savings.

The cost advantages are substantial with smaller cases as well as larger cases.  With a 10 box case, the cost of manually searching is $45,000 versus $17,000 to create and use a database.

Conclusion

In many cases you simply cannot afford not to automate your documents.  The strategic and competitive advantages, time savings and the ultimate cost savings, which can be realized through the use of litigation databases - tip the scale in favor of automation.  Plus, just think what you'll be able to accomplish with all your extra time and money.

Once you have worked on a matter that has a coded document database and images available, there is no going back to struggling with the paper copy.