Efficiently Manage Complex Data Sets with Data Visualization
As modern data sets have become larger and more complex, it’s become harder during discovery to reveal insights about that data and significant relationships between different classes of data. The problem is one of both depth and breadth. It’s estimated that 90 percent of all the data in the world has been generated in the last two years alone, and a proliferation of programs and communication media means that discoverable data includes more sources and file types than ever before.
Large datasets are also difficult to efficiently manage, resulting in the following concerns:
How to determine what to cull from a data set while also maintaining continuity and efficiency in the review process
How to know what to search for before beginning a search
How to train reviewers on what to search for
Whether it is possible to reveal any patterns or trends in the data without having to search document by document
How to quickly determine if opposing counsel’s production is incomplete without investing time and resources diving into the data set
Data visualization tools have emerged as a way for modern discovery solutions to display large amounts of information and generate high-level insights into a document corpus. Having a clear and meaningful overview of different factors at play in a discovery project can streamline early case assessment workflows, gauge the accuracy of search results, and analyze productions. This saves both time and money in the review process.
Reveal Key Insights with Data Visualization
On Everlaw, the data visualizer tool generates these valuable insights within the same collaborative platform that can be leveraged for later stages in the process of litigation. Data Visualizer enables users to create interactive visualizations from any set of documents. These visualizations provide key insights into document dates, metadata, content, formats, and review activity. Predictive data is also integrated into the data visualization tool, with the goal of speeding up the review process and generating extra insights into what’s going on in a data set. All this is done via a graphical display that enables an intuitive early exploration of a document corpus. This makes it possible to explore documents at a glance without the need to review individual documents or conduct a predetermined search.
Data visualization can be especially useful in the following three cases:
Using Data Visualizer for Early Case Assessment
Data Visualizer is extremely useful in generating a high level overview of the data during ECA. After ingestion and processing, reviewers can isolate potential gaps in collections, hone in on key documents faster, and stage a review more efficiently by visualizing custodians, file types, date ranges, or file directories.
Using Data Visualizer for Search Visualizations
By generating graphic visualizations of any set of search parameters, data visualizer reveals hidden insights into search results across the data set being targeted. For example, a search for specific terms and file types might reveal interesting trends in the custodians and date ranges for the documents containing those terms. With data visualizer, it’s easy to see those trends at a glance. Additionally, predictive coding data is integrated into data visualizer, so it’s easy to double check whether the search parameters include documents with high predicted relevance.
Using Data Visualizer for Production QC
It’s time consuming to do quality control on productions without leveraging some form of data visualization. Typically, this would require doing enhanced searching via numerous saved searches to isolate the same populations and understand what custodians, date ranges, and formats are included in a production. This could involve excessive tagging as well as nesting saved searches which can create cumbersome and unwieldy workflows, especially on legacy platforms.
With Everlaw, data visualizer can also be leveraged for ensuring that a production is complete, both pre- and post-production. Because it’s easy to view different file attributes at scale, and extremely fast to verify custodians and date ranges to make sure they’re consistent with the production request. In only a few clicks, a user can check for correct formatting or ensure that productions include native files versus images. Data visualizer makes it easier to ensure that a production is complete by saving time and providing a quick high level overview of a production.
Getting Started with Data Visualization on Everlaw
Data visualization on the Everlaw platform can speed up the process of review by generating insights into a document corpus that can ultimately save time and money for review teams. Everlaw includes all of our powerful tools and capabilities at no additional cost. To learn more about using Data visualization to speed review, watch our on-demand webinar.
