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e-Discovery & the Government: Predictions for the Public Sector

Kristen Pipal

This year, we’re taking the Relativity spring release on the road. Over two weeks, we’ll connect with local e-discovery professionals in four major cities on the Relativity Spring Launch Roadshow, including Washington DC on April 28.

We're excited to make a stop at the nation's capital. e-Discovery teams at government agencies handle a diversity of matters with huge data sets—and our support team frequently helps with projects that far exceed their original data volume estimates. These agencies also operate under highly strict security requirements.

As corporations, law firms, and service providers feel the pressure to keep up with massive data volumes and constantly evolving technology, so to do government agencies. They face the same struggles, but criminal and civil investigations, congressional inquiries, and FOIA requests also place immense pressure on their data management and review workflows.

Our team supports more than a dozen government agencies at the state and federal levels today. Their needs have evolved rapidly in recent years—in fact, one agency’s caseload has more than tripled their original estimates since they started using Relativity.

Based on what we’ve learned from our work directly with government agencies and contractors, we have two predictions for how the public sector will continue to face these challenges head-on. They are:

Prediction 1: The public sector will raise their voice.

Decades of asynchronous data, regulatory requirements, and procurement guidelines have left agencies to face particularly complex discovery challenges under close monitoring by protocols that were often put into place before the meteoric rise of electronic data.

More agencies are pushing to bring in the right technology to solve their e-discovery challenges. We think that trend will continue in the space. Professionals in the public sector are already hands-on with e-discovery technologies and workflows, and they’ll quickly become more vocal as industry conventions and best practices take shape.

Prediction 2: The public sector will set a new pace for text analytics adoption.

Our user base in Washington DC has grown by more than 800 percent in the last 5 years alone, and the region’s Relativity Analytics usage is up nearly 1,000 percent. In fact, the DC area’s Analytics usage is the highest of any of our roadshow stops.

We’re seeing a growing need—and desire—to implement the right technologies and take advantage of the streamlined e-discovery that today’s tools offer. Specifically, we’ve seen groups asking to learn more about text analytics and how that technology can build efficiencies into their review workflows.

We can’t wait to visit DC tomorrow. The event is free and includes a peek at our latest release, networking with the local Relativity community, and more. If you haven’t already, claim your entry badge here.


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