Informatics: the science of processing data for storage and retrieval; information science.
Litigation Informatics: The science of processing data for trial. Litigation, while obviously not a sport, is certainly a winner-take-all competition. Any trial attorney will tell you that more often than not, the attorney who is better-prepared wins. Preparation involves mastering all the facts as supported by documents, depositions and other evidence such as recording and video.
Notwithstanding the need to focus on document review, most litigation involves wasting huge amounts of time to process raw data and files into something that is ready for production. From converting email and files into PDF and getting them numbered, dealing with native files, producing spreadsheets and managing the idiosyncrasies to be found in every e-discovery production, there are 1001 tasks that need to be completed before you are ready to actually start mastering the information needed to win your case. Every minute spent on these clerical tasks is a minute not preparing for trial.
Even if you recognize the need to outsource the processing all the raw data for production, there simply has not been a resource available to handle these tasks for a typical case involving just a few hundred or a few thousand pages. There are lots of eDiscovery firms around but they want large document (hundreds of thousands or millions of pages) cases and billing in the $10,000 plus range. Local copy companies are certainly willing to work on smaller cases but they do not typically have the personnel needed to provide practical solutions.
For more than 20 years i-Legal has been solving that problem for Denver area firms and we seek to offer these solutions nationwide. i-Legal is able to succeed in this business because of its unique combination of experience and expertise. Its owner is an attorney with 15 years of big document litigation experience, 20 years in the litigation support business plus an extensive background in document management software development. When presented with a new project, big or small, our extensive background allows us to, in discussion with you, rapidly understand what you need, to offer suggestions about how to enhance the value of what we do and to get the job done within the tightest of timeframes.
A logical question is: how can i-Legal offer these services and can they be done at reasonable rates? There a couple of components to this answer. First, between our in-house programming capabilities as well as our 20 years in the industry, almost every job we handle is a semi-custom job rather than an involved software development project. i-Legal has a vast array of file management and manipulation utilities that allow us to programmatically handle thousands of documents in just seconds. Generally, we able to process most jobs by simply tweaking an existing program to meet your specific needs. No reinventing the wheel, no lengthy discussions to develop a specification, no outrageous development costs or extended processing schedules.
i-Legal also seeks to build relationships with its clients rather than seeking only one huge job so many projects can be done for the company minimum of 1 hour of time – $150.00. We know that if we do a good job, you will be back.
We appreciate your interest in our web page, blog, and company. Being in the business for 20 years should be an indication that we love what we do. Doing projects better, faster and cheaper is a challenge and one we meet every day.
If you are faced with a mess of documents, we do hope you will call us to discuss solutions. We enjoy talking about how technology and software can enhance your practice. Not all of our suggestions will involve work by us, but may also include ways you can deal with the issue internally.
Our blog will involve stories about how our approach to litigation support has saved thousands of dollars and hundreds for hours of labor as well some insights into trial work that we have gleaned over the last 18 years of providing trial display services.