Kroll Ontrack Introduces Ediscovery Platform

Responding to a legal process that’s grown out of control due to the explosion of big data and increased litigation, Kroll Ontrack Inc. unveiled a model for conducting ediscovery and a suite of products at ediscovery.com.

It’s challenging the industry to abandon its approach of treating every ediscovery project as new, and instead adopt a repeatable approach that can increase the predictability of time, costs and results across a number of ediscovery projects.

The company said its own advisory board, comprised of representatives from several corporations and law firms, initiate an average of 46 new 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 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.”

The platform includes three products that work together:

• Ediscovery for Portfolio Management, solution for collaboratively managing ediscovery as a portfolio as opposed to individual projects.

• Ediscovery.com Review, a single tool that delivers control of data volume and costs across early data assessment, analysis, review and production.

• Ediscovery.com Collect, designed to reduce the time and cost of identifying, preserving and collecting ediscovery data from Exchange and SharePoint.

David Yerich, director of ediscovery, UnitedHealth Group, a 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 functionality, both law firms and corporations can view and manage all of their projects as a portfolio from any device. Through dashboards that provide real-time metrics about portfolio and project spend as well as data volumes, it allows counsel to forecast, identify trends and find opportunities for efficiency. Beyond a level of transparency, it replaces the flood of emails and phone calls required to manage projects with one 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, it provides real-time insight into massive data volumes while also empowering customers to manage their storage volumes. Teams have the ability to choose their data formats and nearline unneeded data, which gives reviewers the flexibility they need to adapt to mid-process changes while controlling costs at the same time. Beyond flexibility and control, predictive coding technology is available at every stage of the process, ensuring review is cost-effective from beginning to end.

• Ediscovery.com for collection: Driven by Ontrack PowerControls, it is an Exchange and SharePoint legal collection tool that saves time and costs when identifying, preserving and collecting data for ediscovery. With search and drag and drop functionality, teams can search, identify and collect 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. Ediscovery.com Review and ediscovery.com for portfolio management are in limited availability with availability planned for early 2014.