5 Common Ediscovery Questions
Think of any software or app you use daily. I bet you know a few tricks or hacks to speed things up. For example, I lock header rows to the top of Excel or Google worksheets before scrolling through data sets, and my inbox auto-highlights emails sent from specific senders. Document review is no different: once you know a tool well, you know shortcuts to use.
When we’re coding our ediscovery tool, we try to make it as intuitive as possible. You shouldn’t have to use it for a year to find some hidden trick or workaround that’ll get you the data you want. Want proof? Here are five commonly-asked document review actions, along with how Everlaw handles them:
1) How can I construct custodian searches?
If your document set includes a “custodian” metadata field, you can search for it on the main search page. Just drag the green “metadata” term to the middle of the query builder, and choose the “custodian” field. For the second parameter, choose which custodian you want to pull up documents for; it will even autocomplete as you type! Then, run your search. That’s it!
2) How can I pull up all of the documents in a case?
There are two ways to pull up all documents within a case:
1. If you started on a case after 12/17/2015, a permanent “All Documents” card will appear in your search column on the homepage. Clicking the card will bring up a results table with all the documents in your case.
2. You can also create a search that will return all the documents within a case. Simply add the green Bates search term into the query builder, choose “Any Prefix” for the first parameter, and input “1-” in the second parameter. Then, run your search!
3) How can I export large groups of case documents?
You can easily export documents, messages, Binders, and Chronology entries out of Everlaw by using the Export button on the right side of the toolbar. Depending on what you are choosing to export, you will be provided with different options, like desired file format. You can tell when your export is complete in the “Batches and Exports” column on the homepage. Once it’s ready, just click on that card to download your export!
4) How does document deduplication work?
In a document search, duplicate results are automatically hidden from view, except for duplicates that have been rated hot or warm, or coded with any code. You can choose to include duplicates in your search results by clicking the “Include duplicates” box below the query builder.
You can also see duplicates or near duplicates of a specific document during review. In the review window, the panel on the left side displays duplicates and near duplicates down to 95% similarity for a given document. This can help identify different versions of the same document, for example.
5) How can I redact text?
If your case is in production mode (a case-wide setting), redaction features are automatically enabled. There are two primary redaction methods:
An area redaction performed using the redaction tool, and
Text redaction performed using the text selection tool.
To redact an area, toggle the redaction tool (identified by a black highlighter), click and drag it over an area of your document image/PDF. All text underneath the highlighted area will be redacted when produced.
To use text redaction, click the “text selection mode” icon in PDF view, and select the text you’d like to redact. Once text is selected, a menu with three options will pop up:
You can redact a single instance of the text that you selected by clicking on the redaction tool.
You can redact all instances of that text in the entire document by clicking on the redaction marker with the green checkmark. The number of instances of the selected text will be displayed on the icon in yellow.
You can add the selected text as a hit highlight, which will highlight all instances of the text, but will not redact it.
Curious how other things work in Everlaw? Just ask in the comments or on Twitter!
