Most firms have a need to “just read the emails” and this Section attempts to articulate that requirement.
Overall Considerations #
A requirement has been identified to provide a mechanism whereby users in the firm can review relatively small amounts of electronic information. A classic scenario, is that a client will ask for an evaluation of a potential matter, often on the assumption, that they will either not be charged for this initial evaluation, or it will be a nominal fee. This need is not limited to the litigators in a firm, most lawyers/legal staff receive information in an electronic form and wish to quickly examine it. The issue is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to put this data into the firms in-house systems, as the IT department actively discourages ephemeral client data being added into the sanitised, backed-up, secure environment they provide for the lawyer’s use.
The broad outline of the proposed approach is as follows:
- Vendors provide a solution with specific boundaries in terms of size of data, number of users and timeframe with a low price attached. For example, up to 500 MB of data, with one person looking at it, for one month at £50-100/month up to a maximum of 3 months.
- There is some form of easy to use mechanism whereby the Client information, PST file, email attachments, USB stick can be securely transferred to the vendor.
- The vendor loads the data into their litigation support environment without any additional processing and stores it under a client/matter reference.
Example Requirements #
The services to be provided by the selected supplier will include:
- Provision of means to securely transfer the data between [CLIENT] and the supplier, probably using a secure file transfer mechanism known as “secure FTP”.
- Loading of email and electronic files into the selected product in a speedy manner, (the aim will be an overnight service).
- Provision of tools to allow the initial reading and analysis of documents.
- Provision of review tools to meet the needs of a “quick peek” scenario.
- A well-defined route to export the data so that it can be processed and loaded into the “full blown” litigation support tool.
- Very competitive pricing.
In order to carry out these activities the provider will need to:
- Enter into a call-off contract with [CLIENT]
- Dedicate the required facilities at their site.
- Resource the required operations.
- Provide an experienced project manager to manage individual projects.
- Provide periodic reporting on project status.
- Manage the project budget to ensure costs are monitored and controlled.
