StoredIQ Makes E-Discovery User-Friendly

StoredIQ has updated its Intelligent Information Management (IIM) Platform appliance to make it easier for attorneys to use in electronic discovery. Version 6.0 includes features such as workflow, giving attorneys a step-by-step guide to using the software, as well as the ability to perform real-time analysis on data in its native location rather than having to download the data and then look at it. IIM also calculates the cost of downloading data for cost-benefit analyses. StoredIQ has enhanced the performance of the appliance to enable it to index 24TB of full text per day. Pricing for the StoredIQ IIM product starts at $120,000. The appliance uses network-attached storage from NetApp Inc.

The new version of IIM has an interface that is more user-friendly, which makes it more accessible to the attorneys, says Florinda Baldridge, director of practice support for Fulbright & Jaworski LLP, a Houston-based law firm. The firm worked with StoredIQ on the design of the new features. "The prior interface was really daunting to the attorneys," she says. "They would look at it and go, 'Oh, my gosh, this looks like a product that needs to be driven by someone with IT expertise.'" Ultimately, the searching and analysis needs to be performed by a lawyer, she says. "To just say to an IT person, 'Go run these searches and give me the results' is not leveraging the power of this technology." In addition, IT people were already busy, and hiring third-party consultants was more expensive and less secure.

Electronic discovery is important to legal firms because the rules for electronic evidence in federal cases were changed in 2006. Attorneys now need to have a much better idea of what sort of electronic data they can ask for and provide to opposing counsel, and this happens much earlier in the litigation process. In addition, attorneys need to demonstrate retention policies, especially if they wish to contend that an organization no longer has requested data.

IIM workflow features let attorneys walk through the steps to perform features such as creating a particular legal matter, giving it a name and description, assigning it a custodian, and performing analysis. The ability to consistently manage the electronic discovery workflow across multiple matters, tracking progress of what actions have been taken and what the next steps is as important as how quickly they can be completed, says Brian Babineau, senior consulting analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. The "dashboard" and "scoreboard" features in the product make it easy to see where a legal matter stands and what the potential downstream review costs are at any point, which gives attorneys the ammunition they need to support their cases, he says.