The American Lawyer - February 2008

results according to relevance, which saves time. Another innovation is near-duplicate detection software, which weeds out documents that are almost exact copies of each other, cutting back on the number of documents lawyers need to review.

Friedmann cites Stratify, Inc., and Attenex Corporation, e-discovery companies

What coding and scanning vendors or litigation support service bureaus does the firm primarily use?

PRODUCT

On-Site Sourcing Merrill CompuLit Datum Legal Ikon DTI Encore Spi Williams Lea ALC Legal Technologies Kroll Ontrack Medleh Group Capital Legal Solutions ImageNet Superior Glacier

NUMBER OF MENTIONS

21

15

13

9

8

7

5

One hundred fifty-two additional vendors and service bureaus received four mentions or fewer.

that employ conceptual searching in their products, as examples of splashy recent additions to the market. (Iron Mountain Incorporated, an information protection and storage company, acquired Stratify in October 2007.) Attenex debuted on our survey this year with a total of eight mentions in two categories, while Stratify moved up from five mentions in our last survey to a total of 19 in two categories in this one. Still, these tools lag behind Concordance’s 49 mentions and Summation’s 25.

“In technology terms, [the search tools used by older products like Concordance and Summation] are dinosaurs,” says Thomas Barnett, special counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell and head of the firm’s electronic discovery and compliance department. “They have a strong foothold, but eventually people will realize they’re not as effective.” (LexisNexis says its update of Concordance, released in May, includes options for both simple and conceptual searches. CT Summation confirms that its products do not do conceptual searches but can integrate with products that do.)

Although Sullivan & Cromwell uses both Stratify and Attenex, Barnett says even newer search tools, such as those from Digital Mandate, LLC, Cataphora, Inc., and H5 Technologies, Inc., are the next frontier. These products received few mentions in our survey, but

What electronic evidence provider does the firm primarily use?

PRODUCT

Kroll Ontrack
Applied Discovery
On-Site Sourcing
FTI Consulting
Fios
Stratify
First Advantage
Electronic Evidence Discovery
LECG
Renew Data
CaseCentral
Guidance
Merrill
Zantaz
DTI
Ikon
SPI Litigation Direct
TrialGraphix

NUMBER OF MENTIONS

36

17

16

14

12

8

7

6

5

One hundred thirty-four additional vendors and service bureaus received four mentions or fewer.

What software does the firm use to manage discovery documents and transcripts or to help map out a case?

PRODUCT

LiveNote Concordance CaseMap TimeMap Summation IPRO Sanction Trial Director iConect Opticon Ringtail NoteMap Stratify

NUMBER OF MENTIONS

56

49

47

28

25

21

14

12

11

9

7

5

Sixty-two additional vendors and service bureaus received four mentions or fewer.

Barnett says that their search techniques— which combine advanced technical search methods with human input—reduce the amount of data that needs to be reviewed.

Not all firms are writing off the old favorites. DLA Piper director of litigation support Mary Pat Poteet says that developers of older software have made smart, strategic updates to their products. “The most important thing they can do is to stay competitive in their pricing structure and to listen to what their user base wants in future releases,” she says.

At Shearman & Sterling, the primary litigation software tool is still Concordance, which chief information officer Tony Cor-deiro says remains one of the best discovery organizers on the market. Still, he says, big firms can’t afford to limit themselves to a single vendor’s offerings. “There is no one right answer,” he says. “That’s why all these vendors exist.” In other words: Don’t look for the market fragmentation to end anytime soon.