How the Shift to Remote Work Leads to A/V Issues in Ediscovery
More than six months into the work-from-home (WFH) revolution, more people are jumping on calls — both audio and video — than ever before, and the dramatic uptick in collaboration tools and virtual meetings has had a significant impact on legal teams.
As companies across the nation changed from in-person to remote working virtually overnight, there was a simultaneous increase in the use of video conferencing tools — Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, Slack, and others — to collaborate internally with co-workers and externally with clients. Because these tools are creating discoverable data, the approach regarding how to best handle audio and video (A/V) files during the discovery stage is something legal and I.T. teams need to increasingly consider.
A/V Issues in Ediscovery
As organizations accumulate hours upon hours of A/V recordings, they should be thinking about the downstream implications of preserving, collecting, processing, searching, and producing that content. According to J.D. Supra, video and audio files are typically large, expensive to house, and require significant customization to be searchable. If a meeting’s content isn’t easily searchable, its relevance will remain unknown, potentially increasing risk or exposure. Is your team prepared to search, review, bookmark, and transcribe thousands of hours of content if the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), or other regulators ask for it?
Automate Your A/V Process with Everlaw
Everlaw can help corporate clients and law firms with their increased A/V transcription needs. Through the use of automation, the Everlaw platform enables legal professionals to:
Create fully searchable transcripts of audio and video files and view them alongside A/V playback.
Add timestamped, searchable notes during the review process.
Utilize search against the text of A/V files and incorporate that text into predictive coding models. This capability significantly reduces the cost of transcription services and provides an instant window into previously opaque information.
The Everlaw platform automatically transcribes audio and video data upon ingestion, potentially making tens of thousands of hours of content fully searchable for legal teams — at no extra cost.
Security has become a top consideration in the legal world, where protecting client information is sacrosanct.
Learn how to keep sensitive data secured while practicing law remotely in the "Cybersecurity in the World of Ediscovery" white paper.
