5 Benefits of AI in the Electronic Discovery Process

Published On October 15, 2019

An unfortunate fact of today’s business landscape is that many organizations will get sued at some point. Regardless of the industry, litigation requires information from the organization, and the process of electronically discovering this information can pose challenges. Fortunately, there are benefits of AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) that can mitigate these issues.

The goal of e-discovery is to provide the opposing counsel with only the information that satisfies the discovery request, while protecting the organization from undue exposure — not releasing more information than is requested. The recognized best practice process for this is the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

This process is very effective, but time-consuming, and can be expensive, particularly when you use lawyers at each step. However, AI and ML technology can facilitate e-discovery and help prepare your organization for any legal challenges it may face. Here are five ways AI and ML can help.

5 Benefits of AI and ML in Electronic Discovery

During e-discovery, AI can:

1. Ingest and process physical and digital information, and incorporate metadata from internal and external sources. This automates the identification step more accurately and efficiently than using human resources alone. The first step in the EDRM is Information Governance — the linchpin of the entire process. Getting it right from the beginning ensures the remaining steps run smoothly.
2. Reveal relationships between disparate information assets. One of the biggest issues in the e-discovery process is possibly missing some critical piece of information. AI and ML can find these hidden gems much faster at the onset of the discovery process. More importantly, it safeguards the organization from a failure to maintain accurate records.
3. Increase the efficiency of your highly skilled resources through self-learning AI/ML-based processing. This is a key benefit of AI in that the EDRM collection process can be accomplished by any properly trained staff member, saving the organization time and money that would normally be spent on legal professionals to perform this same function.
4. Intelligently view and interpret information to initiate appropriate actions. The review step in the EDRM is the most critical. It is where an organization’s counsel reviews the presorted, relevant information to the case, concurrently ensuring the organization’s legal privilege is maintained.
5. Organize large volumes of data, and give access to the materials when you need it. Proactive information governance makes the e-discovery process easier and faster, and gives peace of mind knowing you have access to everything needed to defend your legal case.

Many organizations have spent considerable money building data warehouses — adding AI and ML capabilities gives them the insights they need to leverage their information assets without having to sacrifice their valuable time managing it all. It is a welcome change that technology has finally caught up with the needs of information governance professionals and the organizations they serve.