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Top Tips for Building Your Case for Text Analytics

Andrea Beckman

You’ve heard the buzz about text analytics, and you know the technology can help your team realize big savings on e-discovery time and costs. Still, you’re feeling like the sole champion of analytics in your office. Maybe it’s not on your team’s radar yet, or they’re squeamish about straying from linear review—or they’re just not sure where to begin.

If you’re on board but not sure how to get the rest of your team to join you, try following these five tips, starting where we left off with yesterday’s post: 5 Email Threading Facts That May Surprise You.

1. Define what’s available—and start with email threading.

One of the quickest wins among text analytics tools also turns out to be one of the simplest to explain. Begin the conversation with email threading, then help your team understand their other options. Your team may hear “analytics” and think only technology-assisted review, but you know there’s a lot more to it than that.

2. Set the precedent.

You can showcase the defensibility of these tools by referencing well-known court cases so your team knows they don’t have to worry about judicial approval. It’s also helpful to support these decisions with technical validation of the software you have in mind, so dig up some white papers that discuss its reliability.

3. Know the recommended workflows.

Be on the lookout for cases you know would be a good fit for analytics. It’s best to leverage analytics from the start of a project and fully incorporate it into your review strategy, so call out these opportunities for your team. Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the best practices and proven workflows for using the technology, and be ready to answer questions about those workflows—or know how to get in touch with the right support.

4. Show them how it’s done.

Consider sharing real-world success stories and start talking with your team about how you might implement some of these features in ways that best serve your needs. If you have the option, you could even run analytics on old case data to showcase the difference the features make and compare the results.

5. Encourage your team to learn more.

The more your team knows, the more comfortable they’ll feel giving analytics a try on your next big review project. Start by inviting your team to an upcoming webinar on analytics, or share educational materials, recent industry news, and blog posts on the subject. Invite others to conferences or trainings and report back the most helpful lessons for them.

How receptive has your team been to text analytics? Let us know in the comments.

And check out our free analytics e-book for a high-level discussion of each feature and its benefits. It’s a great resource for kickstarting the conversation and prepping for your next project.


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