SERVICES

At Tesseract Data, we provide a full range of legal technology services for responding to legal discovery and regulatory demands, as well as addressing internal compliance and investigations. We are dedicated to the strategic use of the latest artificial intelligence technologies in appropriate contexts.

Additionally, we provide legal consulting services, supported by technology, to help establish, maintain, and improve systems to proactively govern legal risk through information governance, records management, legal hold, and litigation readiness programs.

Explore our Services

E-Discovery

Information Governance

Artificial Intelligence

Legal Tech Consulting

Litigation Readiness

Process Automation

E-DISCOVERY

OVERVIEW

Discovery is “the process of identifying, locating, preserving, securing, collecting, preparing, reviewing, and producing facts, information, and materials for the purpose of producing/obtaining evidence for use in the legal process.”¹ Add the word “electronic” before “evidence,” and watch boxes of paper documents disappear in the rearview mirror, and you have E-Discovery.

E-Discovery arises in civil litigation and criminal law, along with regulatory and internal investigations and compliance functions. Once an afterthought, E-Discovery is now the core of the legal process of document discovery. Massive volumes of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) abound in organizations large and small with varying types of data contained in scores—if not hundreds or thousands—of systems. And all of it may end up feeding into the discovery machine when litigation or investigations arise.

Over the past two decades, E-Discovery has developed into an entirely new practice area for law firms, supported by E-Discovery service providers, such as TDS.

¹ The Sedona Conference Glossary: E-Discovery & Digital Information Management, Fifth Edition, 21 SEDONA CONF. J. 263 (2020). 

Data Collection

The collection of ESI for discovery can be a highly technical process that carries material risk if done improperly. Many lawyers were trained long before ESI played a role in litigation or are less technologically savvy than is necessary to take full advantage of ESI tools and minimize risk. Accordingly, TDS engages professional, certified data collection experts who can work with client IT resources to locate and defensibly extract potentially relevant ESI from all sources, including Microsoft M365 or Google enterprise environments, cloud systems, enterprise resource systems, mobile phones, data warehouses, and any databases.

For those clients who have their own internal resources to perform data collections or have information security controls that prohibit allowing third parties to have direct access into sensitive IT systems, we work with our clients and outside counsel to nevertheless collect and preserve data in a reasonable and wholly defensible manner. This includes potential deployment of on-site containerized collection and review systems for high-sensitivity tasks.

Forensic Analysis

Computer forensics is a highly specialized area of expertise, and TDS works with certified computer forensics consulting and testifying experts for multiple purposes.

First, forensic analysis can be performed to assess activities that have occurred on various computer devices, including laptop computers, mobile devices, and servers. Often necessary to protect our clients’ interests in a variety of situations, forensics is utilized in compliance investigations, employment inquiries, and IP/ trade secret disputes.

Second, forensic analysis can help to determine and validate the authenticity of electronic evidence in both civil and criminal matters. Conversely, forensic analysis can identify fraudulent evidence or improper manipulation of documents or metadata. TDS has years of experience working with the best computer forensics specialists to maximize these tools in any situation.

Processing

“Processing” for E-Discovery is a specific term of art, referring to the use of software combined with technical processes to extract and separate text, images, and metadata from documents for purposes of loading the data into software (databases) used for Analytics and ECA, Hosting, and Document Review.

Processing is nearly always a pre-requisite for conducting the substantive review and analysis of E-Discovery. While all commercially accepted E-Discovery processing platforms can handle standard email, Microsoft Office, and PDF files, other types of ESI require specific processing services to extract and segregate the data accurately and defensibly. Similarly, specific processing software may be needed to combine (a/k/a “stitch”) data from multiple archival or specialized sources.

At TDS, we ensure that all processing is performed on platforms that are cost-efficient and designed for the specific purpose, while allowing us to get the data prepared for timely analysis and review.

Analytics and ECA

It is no secret that E-Discovery can be expensive and time consuming. At TDS, we understand a simple truth: legal technology, when properly selected and deployed in the right hands, can be used to massively reduce time and cost of this process.

Analytics software platforms, when used by an experienced E-Discovery professional, can be harnessed to quickly and effectively segregate large volumes of ESI based on objective parameters: removing ESI that cannot possibly be relevant, while pushing potentially critical documents and other information directly to the legal team for expedited review. This ability to quickly cut through the noise and locate highly relevant documents is particularly valuable at the beginning of a new matter.

Often referred to as Early Case Assessment (“ECA”), we utilize various legal technologies to assist counsel with quickly identifying probative electronic evidence, which frequently means the difference between an efficient, early resolution to a matter and a protracted, expensive, futile fight.
Large projects that cannot be easily segregated through objective filtering can then be assessed through AI-technology, allowing subject matter experts to separate relevant from irrelevant ESI to achieve defensible and cost-efficient outcomes.

Hosting

TDS provides services for hosting a document review and production database, allowing counsel to access, review, code, and take notes on all documents collected from their client or produced to their client from opposing counsel or third parties. TDS hosts ESI in the industry standard platform, Relativity, providing a high level of project management oversight, and controls at competitive pricing. TDS also offers the latest analytics from Brainspace (Reveal) and Relativity. Finally, we deploy cutting-edge Gen-AI review tools where appropriate.

Fact Development

Finding key documents and building case facts is one of the most challenging parts of any case. TDS can help leverage advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and human review to efficiently identify the most important records and facts. Each fact development task is different. Regardless of incoming production data, mountains of historic email data, or even structured data sources, TDS can help design a custom fact development workflow to improve quality and save time. We have deep experience supporting case teams on investigations and plaintiff- and defendant-side litigation, including depositions and trials.

INFORMATION
GOVERNANCE

OVERVIEW

Within any sizeable organization, there are frequently competing demands related to the collection, use, transfer, retention, and timely disposition of information. Business-focused groups in an organization generally see information as a critical asset for generating revenue, improving quality, reducing costs, and overall making the organization better at pursuing its intended purpose. On the other side of the equation, there are groups tasked with identifying, managing, and controlling or reducing risks—e.g., counsel responsible for fulfilling legal and regulatory requirements for retention, disposition, legal holds, and discovery. For these groups, information carries enormous potential liability if it is misused, stolen, or otherwise lost.

TDS advises clients across corporate, non-profit, and public sectors on how to establish, improve, and maintain Information Governance programs. We counsel on the use of policies, procedures, and best practices to achieve an optimal balance between controlling risks and costs related to information, while maximizing value from that data.

Data Mapping

The first step to establishing an Information Governance program is creating a Data Map.

Data Mapping supports the core function of any modern Information Governance program: optimizing the balance between information risk and costs, on the one hand, and the extraction of information value, on the other hand. Effective data mapping allows access to necessary data for stakeholders to make reasoned, rationalized decisions while constraining associated risks.

A fulsome and up-to-date Data Map will detail three core elements related to the information held by the enterprise:

  1. The categories of information that exist within the enterprise.
  2. The storage systems in which that information retained, both locally and in cloud-based environments.
  3. Who has access to what categories of information contained within each storage environment.

Creating an initial Data Map can be a significant undertaking, and is not a “one-and-done” effort, instead requiring periodic updates to reflect the evolution of the enterprise’s data environment over time. That said, there can be an enormous return on investment for a well-built Data Map.
A good Data Map not only supports the enterprise’s high-level approach to and execution of a unified information governance program, but also provides essential value to multiple stakeholder groups throughout the enterprise. For example:

  • Legal and Risk groups will use a Data Map to quickly and efficiently locate and extract data, or implement legal holds over data, in the event of litigation, investigation, or compliance audit.
  • Privacy professionals will use a Data Map to track, locate, and act on personal information either in response to a Data Subject Access Request, regulatory inquiry, or upon other obligation.
  • Records and Information Management personnel can effectively manage the retention and timely disposition of information.
  • Information Security teams can ensure that high-risk, high-value information is subject to increased security controls, and can respond more quickly and effectively to any cybersecurity incident.
  • Information Technology groups can better track information and assets, establish and maintain appropriate controls, and provide more effective technology solutions for the retention, transmission, and timely disposition of data.
  • Business can better organize, store, and retrieve valuable information to support and grow their respective business functions.
Defensible Disposition

Defensible disposition has been defined as: “The effective disposal of physical and electronic information that does not need to be retained according to an organization’s policies when the data is not or no longer subject to a legal requirement for retention, be it statutory or as part of a litigation.”

All information within an enterprise has a useful lifecycle. For certain information, the lifecycle may be measured in hours or days. Other information, particularly items declared as a formal “Record,” should be retained for longer defined periods, often measured in years, if not indefinitely. Information that does not fall within the defined scope of a Record—or that was declared a Record, but has exceeded its defined retention period—can be considered Redundant, Outdated (Obsolete), or Trivial, commonly referred to under the acronym: ROT.

One cannot understate the value of effective, and timely, disposal of ROT. With some experts estimating a cost of $1.00 per document brought into the E-Discovery process, disposing excess physical documents and ESI can, alone, significantly reduce litigation costs.

Moreover, in the event of a cybersecurity incident, having less information available reduces the risks and costs associated with the loss—or publication—of sensitive and personal data.

Defensible disposition projects performed by TDS come in two forms: LEGACY disposition and ONGOING disposition. The former tackles what is often a massive backlog of retained ROT, and focuses on bringing the enterprise into compliance with its information retention policies, while ensuring that it is still meeting its legal hold obligations. The latter focuses on establishing and maintaining a program in which the enterprise can regularly and efficiently dispose of Records that have reached the end of life and ROT before it can accumulate.

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Artifical Intelligence

OVERVIEW

Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is our bread and butter. No longer a fad, AI has been successfully deployed — and increasingly accepted — in E-Discovery for well over a decade. In global terms, AI is used to harness the power of computers to segregate relevant from non-relevant ESI, and reduce the volume of documents requiring human review to make a subjective determination of relevance, responsiveness, or privilege.

Use of AI in E-Discovery

There are many terms used to reflect AI algorithms and processes in the discovery phase of litigation, including: Technology Assisted Review (e.g., TAR, TAR 1.0, TAR 2.0), Continuous Active Learning (CAL), Assisted Review (e.g., Relativity AR), Supervised Machine Learning (ML), Clustering, Support Vector Machines (SVM), Generative AI, Linear or Logistic Regression, Classification, Social Networking Analysis (SNA), Sentiment Analysis, and others.

At the core, we use AI to reduce the number of human reviewers analyzing and coding large volumes of documents to make subjective determinations on relevancy and privilege to fulfill a discovery production obligation. Parties receiving large productions of ESI can also use AI to more efficiently locate relevant information to use in their case.

Please contact TDS to discuss how our use of AI can help reduce time and expense, and help you be in a better position to prosecute or defend your case.

Other Use of AI in Litigation

In addition to the use of AI in the legal discovery process, lawyers can use AI to assist with fact development, document sorting, and a myriad of other tasks. Whether it is traditional TAR optimization or application of new foundational generative AI models (e.g., ChatGPT), TDS can help you design workflows to find and sort important documents faster and with higher accuracy than with human review alone. TDS is working at the forefront of exploring new and exciting opportunities to improve the delivery of legal services.

The Sky is the Limit

AI can be used to improve nearly any process that requires manual review. If your team has a tedious task (especially those prone to human error), TDS is eager to help integrate the latest technologies. We have designed AI workflows for idiosyncratic tasks, such as capturing/predicting insurance policy language, tabulating irregular forms, and conducting early case assessment on publicly available documents.

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LITIGATION READINESS

OVERVIEW

Litigation Readiness is an essential part of a robust Information Governance program. Litigation Readiness focuses specifically on an organization’s proactive planning for a triggering litigation or regulatory event. TDS helps companies respond promptly and efficiently, while reducing the otherwise inevitable distraction to business leaders’ day-to-day activities. Litigation readiness planning often includes:

      • Litigation process workflow mapping;
      • Legal hold best practices;
      • Legal hold and privacy policy integration;
      • Data mapping;
      • Managing ESI in systems of record;
      • Data interview management; and
      • Cross-department notification and coordination.

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PROCESS AUTOMATION

OVERVIEW

Combining a software-developer mindset with ever-advancing technology, TDS builds customized, automated processes for clients with the goal of ensuring quality and the timely execution of desired activities that are repeatable and defensible. This includes tracking the chain of custody of incoming ESI to support authentication and admissibility standards. TDS also builds custom software solutions to support its internal operations to ensure that we are fully leveraging our best thinking and outstanding personnel for the benefit of every client.

Process Automation also expands to establishing and maintaining controls over reviewed ESI, particularly with segregating and logging privileged information.

TDS provides Process Automation support for clients implementing Information Governance and Litigation Readiness solutions, including automating Legal Hold procedures as well as the retention and timely disposition of Records and Non- Records that have reached the end of the information lifecycle, including Redundant, Outdated, and Trivial (“ROT”) data.

If you have a repeatable legal process, TDS is excited to give you a proposal for automating that process.

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TESSERACT DATA SERVICES


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Email

info@tesseractdata.com

Phone

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