October 2016 - Anexsys - A Consilio Company

03
Oct 23’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Government Business website article highlights the benefits of eDisclosure platforms for DSARs and FOIA requests

Anexsys is pleased to announce the publication of an article about the benefits of eDisclosure platforms for DSARs and FOIA requests on the Government Business website. The article, titled "Legal Technology and Consulting Services", discusses how eDisclosure platforms can help public sector organisations respond to DSARs and FOIA requests more efficiently and effectively.

DSARs and FOIA requests are becoming increasingly common, and public sector organisations are required to respond to these requests within strict timeframes. eDisclosure platforms can help organisations automate many of the tasks involved in responding to DSARs and FOIA requests, such as data collection, processing, and review. This can help organisations to meet their deadlines and reduce the risk of fines.

In addition, eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to ensure that they are complying with the law when responding to DSARs and FOIA requests. eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to identify and redact personal information, and to produce responsive documents in a secure and auditable manner.

Here are some specific benefits of using eDisclosure platforms for DSARs and FOIA requests:

Reduce the time it takes to respond to requests: eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to reduce the time it takes to respond to DSARs and FOIA requests by automating many of the tasks involved. This can help organisations to meet their deadlines and avoid fines.
Improve the accuracy of responses: eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to improve the accuracy of their responses to DSARs and FOIA requests by providing tools to identify and review relevant documents. This can help organisations to avoid sending out incomplete or inaccurate responses.
Reduce the cost of responding to requests: eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to reduce the cost of responding to DSARs and FOIA requests by automating tasks and streamlining the process.
Improve compliance: eDisclosure platforms can help organisations to comply with the law when responding to DSARs and FOIA requests by providing tools to identify and redact personal information, and to produce responsive documents in a secure and auditable manner.

If you are interested in learning more about how eDisclosure platforms can help your public sector organisation respond to DSARs and FOIA requests more efficiently and effectively, we encourage you to read the full article on the Government Business website. You can also contact Anexsys to learn more about our eDisclosure platform and how we can help you improve your process.

Link to the article:
https://governmentbusiness.co.uk/company-focus/legal-technology-and-consulting-services

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LBTC November 6, 2023

"This is a very short and crispy method of understanding the subject. It is really helpful and gives confidence too. https://www.lbtc.co.uk/ Thanks to you"

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17
May 21’

Omid Jahanbin

Consilio Closes Merger with Xact Data Discovery

Combination of data management capabilities with deep technology and industry expertise will deliver a more complete client experience

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 17, 2021 – Consilio, a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services, and Xact Data Discovery (XDD), a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management, and managed review services, today announced the closing of their previously announced merger transaction. The united company will operate as a global technology-enabled service provider and eDiscovery leader.

“We are very pleased to close the merger with Xact Data Discovery and to see this major milestone in our evolution come to fruition,” said Andy Macdonald, CEO of Consilio who will continue as CEO of the combined company. “Employees will benefit from the increased resources and scale of the combined business which will allow them to focus on what matters most – providing world-class service and solutions for our clients.”

Together, Consilio and Xact Data Discovery will combine operations under the Consilio name and operate globally to support small, mid-size, and large clients, regardless of how complex their challenges may be.

The transaction is now closed and will be followed by an integration period of several quarters as the two businesses align systems and processes.

For more information on this announcement, visit www.consilio.com.

About Consilio

Consilio is a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Through its Consilio Complete suite of capabilities, the company supports multinational law firms and corporations using innovative software, cost-effective managed services, and deep legal and regulatory industry expertise. Consilio has extensive experience in litigation, HSR second requests, internal and regulatory investigations, eDiscovery, document review, information governance, compliance risk assessments, cybersecurity, law department management, contracts management, legal analytics, paper discovery and digital printing, as well as legal recruiting and placement. Consilio employs leading professionals in the industry, applying defensible workflows with patented and industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery and risk management lifecycle. ISO 27001:2013 certified, the company operates offices, document review and data centers across Europe, Asia, and North America. For more information, please visit us at www.consilio.com.

Media Contact

Gabrielle Simon
gsimon@prosek.com

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28
Apr 21’

Omid Jahanbin

XDD Acquires Paralaw UK Limited to Expand Managed Reviewer and eDiscovery Services Talent Pool in UK

XDD Acquires Paralaw UK Limited to Expand Managed Reviewer and eDiscovery Services Talent Pool in UK

MISSION, Kan. — April 28^th, 2021 — Xact Data Discovery (XDD), a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management and managed review services for law firms and corporations, announces the acquisition of Paralaw, a UK-based legal outsourcing company providing managed review staffing, eDiscovery and contracts management services to law firms and corporations.

The acquisition expands XDD’s UK footprint via its Anexsys brand, providing an internal pool of legal outsource talent to fulfill core managed review, eDiscovery and contracts management services in the UK region. Based in London, UK for over 20 years, Paralaw provides clients with flexible outsourced legal support to both in-house legal teams and law firms, with clients ranging from start-ups to established firms, technology providers and blue chip household names.

Rob Crowley, Managing Director at Anexsys states, “”I am excited to add Paralaw’s portfolio of services to our business”. Paralaw’s subject matter expertise in legal process outsourcing and contract management combined with Anexsys’ suite of legal technology services is incredibly exciting. Coupled with the company’s core managed review staffing capabilities, the Paralaw team will also be a valuable resource to scale short and long-term eDiscovery and contracts management engagements in the UK and European markets.”

Murray Duncan, Paralaw’s Managing Director, adds, “We are delighted to be joining forces with Anexsys and XDD. Having worked closely with Anexsys for a number of years, we know that our shared passion for customer service provides a firm foundation for continued success. We are excited about being able to increase the range of services we can offer to our clients and provide a wealth of opportunities to our staff.”

Bob Polus, XDD Founder and CEO, comments, “As part of XDD’s ongoing acquisition strategy, Paralaw further expands our brand, services and market reach on an international stage. The Paralaw team brings a solid reputation to the XDD table in providing advanced short and long-term legal staffing solutions.”

The acquisition of Paralaw by XDD comes as XDD and Consilio have recently announced plans to merge, pending regulatory approval. The merger is pending forthcoming final legal contractual agreements between XDD, Consilio and representative private equity firms JLL Partners, Aquiline Capital Partners and Stone Point Capital respectively. Final branding, operational, services and financial models may adapt accordingly.

About Xact Data Discovery

Xact Data Discovery is a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management and managed review services for law firms and corporations. XDD helps clients optimize their eDiscovery matters by orchestrating precision communication between people, processes, technology and data.

XDD services include forensics, eDiscovery processing, Relativity hosting and managed review. XDD has 21 offices throughout the United States, two locations in India and one in the UK. XDD offers exceptional customer service with a commitment to responsive, transparent and timely communication to ensure clients remain informed throughout the entire discovery life cycle.

About Paralaw

Founded in 1997, Paralaw is an established provider of flexible outsourced legal support services to law firms, technology providers and corporates across the UK, with clients ranging from start-ups to household names. Our services include legal process outsourcing, managed document review, legal recruitment, wayleaves processing and a range of general paralegal support. Our experience, flexibility and speed of response combine to deliver real cost savings to our valued clients. Paralaw has offices in London and Nottingham, as well as providing support on client premises.

About Anexsys

Operating under the XDD brand, Anexsys is a legal technology services consultancy, providing eDiscovery, digital forensics and hardcopy services to law firms, corporations, and government bodies throughout the UK and Europe. Our secure offices hold ISO9001, ISO27001 and Cyber Essential Plus certifications. We are unique in having a custom software development team, who design and implement bespoke software solutions to enhance legal processes. Please contact our nationwide team at info@anexsys.com or visit anexsys.com to find out more.

About Consilio

Consilio is a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Through its Consilio Complete suite of capabilities, the company supports multinational law firms and corporations using innovative software, cost-effective managed services, and deep legal and regulatory industry expertise. Consilio has extensive experience in litigation, HSR second requests, internal and regulatory investigations, eDiscovery, document review, information governance, compliance risk assessments, cybersecurity, law department management, contracts management, legal analytics, paper discovery, and digital printing, as well as legal recruiting and placement. Consilio employs leading professionals in the industry, applying defensible workflows with patented and industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery and risk management lifecycle. ISO 27001:2013 certified, the company operates offices, document review, and data centers across Europe, Asia, and North America. For more information, please visit us at www.consilio.com.

About Stone Point Capital LLC

Stone Point is an investment firm based in Greenwich, CT, with approximately $30 billion of assets under management. Stone Point targets investments in companies in the global financial services industry and related sectors. The firm invests in a number of alternative asset classes, including private equity through its flagship Trident Funds. Stone Point also manages both liquid and private credit funds and managed accounts. In addition, Stone Point Capital Markets supports our firm, portfolio companies and other clients by providing dedicated financing solutions. For more information, please visit www.stonepoint.com.

About Aquiline Capital Partners LLC

Aquiline Capital Partners, founded in 2005, is a private investment firm based in New York and London investing in businesses across the financial services sector in financial technology, insurance, investment management, business services, credit, and healthcare. The firm has $6.1 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2020. For more information about Aquiline, its investment professionals, and its portfolio companies, please visit www.aquiline.com.

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pelorustech August 23, 2023

This strategic move by XDD to acquire Paralaw UK Limited is truly commendable! The expansion of their talent pool in the UK signifies a stronger foundation for their managed review and eDiscovery services. It's great to see companies like XDD taking bold steps to enhance their capabilities and provide top-notch solutions. Kudos to them!

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20
Apr 21’

Omid Jahanbin

Consilio and Xact Data Discovery Agree to Combine Strengths to Deliver a More Complete Client Experience

WASHINGTON, D.C. and MISSION, KS, April 20th, 2021 – Consilio, a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services, and Xact Data Discovery (XDD), a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management, and managed review services, announced today that they have agreed to a merger of the two companies. The united company will operate as a global technology-enabled service provider and eDiscovery leader.

The combined company will operate under the Consilio name and will consist of over 4,000 employees and active review professionals serving clients from more than 70 global regions across 11 countries. The company’s global operations will support small, mid-size, and large clients, regardless of how complex their challenges may be.

“This is a significant step for Consilio and XDD to bring together our respective strengths to deliver a more complete experience to the whole spectrum of client needs,” said Andy Macdonald, the Chief Executive Officer of Consilio who will continue as CEO of the combined company. “Joining our companies together will provide exponential growth opportunities for our clients. We believe our employees’ experience is directly connected to their ability to provide world-class service and solutions for our clients.”

Bob Polus, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at XDD, said, “We are pleased to join our services and offerings with those of Consilio. We have complementary global operations, a strong cultural fit, and a similar legacy of successful acquisitions and integrations. Both organizations have diverse strengths and fared well throughout the pandemic, leaving room for enhanced growth as a combined organization.” Mr. Polus will serve as the Corporate Development Officer of the combined company.

In connection with the pending merger, investment funds managed by Stone Point Capital LLC and by Aquiline Capital Partners LLC have committed to partner with management in the ownership of the combined company. The acquisitions of Consilio, from GI Partners, and XDD, from JLL Partners, and the subsequent merger are subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approval.

Chuck Davis, the Chief Executive Officer of Stone Point Capital, said, “We are excited to partner with Andy, Bob, and the combined company’s senior leadership team, as well as our friends at Aquiline, in the merger of these two impressive companies. We look forward to supporting Consilio and XDD as they continue to provide exceptional client service and to develop innovative solutions to reduce client risk.”

Jeff Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Aquiline Capital Partners, said, “We are pleased to work with both management teams and Stone Point to merge these two businesses. The combined company will offer a compelling value proposition and be well positioned to thrive in a steadily growing market.”

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP acted as legal advisors to Stone Point Capital and Aquiline Capital Partners, respectively. Jefferies LLC represented Consilio and William Blair represented XDD as their respective exclusive financial advisors. Houlihan Lokey served as financial advisor to Aquiline Capital Partners.

About Consilio

Consilio is a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Through its Consilio Complete suite of capabilities, the company supports multinational law firms and corporations using innovative software, cost-effective managed services, and deep legal and regulatory industry expertise. Consilio has extensive experience in litigation, HSR second requests, internal and regulatory investigations, eDiscovery, document review, information governance, compliance risk assessments, cybersecurity, law department management, contracts management, legal analytics, paper discovery, and digital printing, as well as legal recruiting and placement. Consilio employs leading professionals in the industry, applying defensible workflows with patented and industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery and risk management lifecycle. ISO 27001:2013 certified, the company operates offices, document review, and data centers across Europe, Asia, and North America. For more information, please visit us at www.consilio.com.

About Xact Data Discovery

Xact Data Discovery (XDD) is a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management, and managed review services for law firms and corporations. XDD helps clients optimize their eDiscovery matters by orchestrating precision communication between people, processes, technology, and data.

XDD services include forensics, eDiscovery processing, Relativity hosting and managed review. XDD has 23 offices throughout the United States, one in the UK and one in India. XDD offers exceptional customer service with a commitment to responsive, transparent, and timely communication to ensure clients remain informed throughout the entire discovery life cycle. For more information, please visit us at www.xactdatadiscovery.com.

About Stone Point Capital LLC

About Aquiline Capital Partners LLC

Media Contact

Gabrielle Simon
gsimon@prosek.com

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06
Aug 20’

Omid Jahanbin

Hobs Group’s Anexsys attracts US buyer

Hobs Group’s Anexsys attracts US buyer

August 2020: Anexsys Group Limited, which provides technology and consultancy services for law firms, corporations and the public sector, has been acquired by private-equity-backed Xact Data Discovery (XDD) from the Hobs Group Limited.

As of August 1^st 2020, Anexsys Group Limited will legally operate in its current London and Manchester, UK offices under the name of Anexsys as part of the XDD portfolio of brands.

Anexsys was formerly part of the Hobs Group Limited, which will continue operating legal reprographics in London and Manchester. As part of the deal, BGF – the UK’s most active investor – will exit its investment in Anexsys, which it has backed since 2014 as part of Hobs Group. In this period, Anexsys revenues rose from £2.1m (2015) to £7.3m with an EBITDA of £2.1m as (2020) the business established itself as a leader in the UK digital forensics and e-disclosure market.

Ben Barker, head of BGF’s portfolio in the North said: “Rob Crowley and the Anexsys team have a done a brilliant job in growing the business to become one of the main players in e-discovery services with key public sector contracts and a number of the UK’s top law firms as clients. We wish them every success with their new partners. We’re also pleased to continue backing Craig and the Hobs Repro and 3D teams in the next stage of their journey”.

BGF continues to support Hobs Repro and its subsidiary Hobs 3D, which is led by Managing Director Craig Horwood. James Duckenfield has transitioned to a non-executive director role. Peter Bertram was appointed to the board as non-executive chair after being introduced by BGF in 2014 and continues in this role for Hobs Repro.

Commenting on the deal, Peter Bertram said: “We are pleased to announce the sale of Anexsys to XDD which presents a strong opportunity for the company at this stage of its growth. The sale allows the businesses to focus on their respective missions and reflects the distinct operations between the companies and their target markets.

“Following a period of growth and significant M&A, the separate businesses will be in the best position to pursue their growth strategies, amid what continues to be challenging trading conditions for all businesses.”

Advisers for Anexsys:

Corporate finance – Lincoln International. Chris Brooks, Anant Kapoor, Hamzah Shakoor

Legal – DWF Paul Rimmer, Rosie Spencer, Liz Clark

Advisers for BGF:

Legal - Brabners Andrew O’Mahony, Daniel Hayhurst

Financial and commercial due diligence, and tax – RSM Colin Smyth, Rob Aitken, Jake Hodgson

--ENDS--

About BGF:

BGF was set up in 2011 and is backed by the UK’s five major high street banks (Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds & Standard Chartered. BGF has invested more than £2.1bn in over 300 companies, making it the most active investor in the UK.
BGF is a minority, non-controlling equity partner with a patient outlook on investments, based on shared long-term goals with the management teams it backs.
BGF invests in growing businesses in the UK and Ireland through its network of 14 offices.
In 2018, Canada launched its equivalent – the Canadian Business Growth Fund – and in 2019, Australia did the same, both based on BGF’s funding model.

www.bgf.co.uk

Social media: @BGFinvestments

About Xact Data Discovery

XDD services include forensics, eDiscovery processing, Relativity hosting and managed review. XDD has 18 offices throughout the United States and two locations in India. XDD offers exceptional customer service with a commitment to responsive, transparent and timely communication to ensure clients remain informed throughout the entire discovery life cycle.

Press Contact:

Bob Lorum

Xact Data Discovery

951.378.1991

About Anexsys

Anexsys is a legal technology services consultancy, providing eDiscovery, digital forensics and hardcopy services to law firms, corporations, and government bodies throughout the UK and Europe. Our secure offices hold ISO9001, ISO27001 and Cyber Essential Plus certifications. We are unique in having a custom software development team, who design and implement bespoke software solutions to enhance legal processes. Please contact our nationwide team at info@anexsys.com or visit anexsys.com to find out more.

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30
Jul 20’

Louise Jackson - Director

eDiscovery: The Solution to FOIA Requests?

The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) gives individuals the right to see recorded information held by public authorities. Once a request under the FOIA is made, there are stringent time limits in place: authorities are required to provide the requested information within 20 working-days. Our Director of eDiscovery Klaudia Aliaj and Director of Technical Services Stu Craft cover how we can use our technology to help meet these strict deadlines and build a robust process.

Key Considerations

Prior to responding, public authorities should consider whether any exemptions apply. Grounds include the projected cost of the response, which cannot exceed a statutory limit.
When compiling a response to a request for information, respondents must consider all data sources and the types of data that contain potentially responsive information. The data provided can be in the form of computer files, letters, emails, photographs, sound or video recording and printed documents. It is important to consider not only where data resides within your environment but also how you ensure it is searchable.
The information provided to the requester needs to be in a format that the requester can understand. Respondents should also remember that the information provided will be visible to the public, not only the requester.
The public nature of the response adds further need for respondents to have a robust system in place to avoid inadvertent disclosure of personal or sensitive information.

Process

Preparing a response that complies with the guidelines within 20 working days can be challenging.

Anexsys makes use of and builds on top of Relativity, the market-leading eDiscovery platform which provides an immediately accessible and proven solution for searching and reviewing documents with ease.

So how can technology be used to streamline the process of FOIA requests?

Step 1 – Be Request-Ready - Consider where recorded information and data is currently stored and the ease with which it can be retrieved.

Our team can assess your data sources and help to establish a centralised, up to date repository for data potentially subject to FOIA requests. A log page can be created within Relativity, which can easily track and update data sources. This means when a request comes in you already know where and how you will get to that data.

FOIA

Step 2 – FOIA Considerations - Upon receipt of a valid request, seek any necessary clarifications, consider the types of data required, what searches need to be carried out and the format of the response.

By building these prompts into the workflow it can ensure the responding team is thinking about the right questions at the right time. The other advantage of building up a collection of requests is to allow you to easily check if the request has already been fulfilled or partly fulfilled before, saving time and effort.

FOIA

Step 3 – Apply Technology - eDiscovery tools are designed to support search and review over large amounts of data from disparate sources, making them perfect to assist with FOIA reviews.

These platforms can help create responses via:

Unifying Data – They can provide a single repository for all data sources, meaning all potentially relevant information is stored in one place.

FOIA

Data Extraction– Processing tools extract key metadata from documents such as date, custodian, file type as well as the underlying textual content which enables targeted searching and a focused review.

Data Reduction - There are various analytical techniques to reduce data for review from deduplication, which helps to remove duplicate copies of documents to email threading, which helps present emails in their threaded nature reducing the number of documents to review.

Finding your documents - eDiscovery platforms have comprehensive search engines supporting concepts such as proximity and stemming searches to help find the key data. Analytics can also be used to help cluster similar documents and to find documents based on concepts. This means you can quickly locate documents which are likely to be key to fulfilling the request and get them in front of the responders first.

Tracking Requests and Disclosed Information – The platform can be used to track which documents have already been released to the public in response to previous FOIA requests. This can assist with repeated requests for the same information and allows public authorities to avoid duplication of work, for instance if a document has already had sensitive content redacted, this will not need to be repeated.

FOIA

Automatic redaction – Personal and sensitive data within documents provided to a respondent will often need to be redacted. Done manually this can be a time-consuming process. Anexsys’ automated redaction application Mask-It! can significantly speed up the redaction process, leading to significant time savings.

FOIA

By following a robust process and allowing technology to support the necessary workflows, the primary focus for the responding team can remain on answering the response effectively and efficiently. This allows for improved responses and fewer follow up requests.

Get in touch with us if you require any support on FOIA requests.

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23
Jul 20’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys Becomes a RelativityOne Silver Partner

We are delighted to announce that we are now a RelativityOne Silver Partner, a status achieved by providing exceptional service experience to RelativityOne end users.

The RelativityOne Silver Level recognises organisations that have reached a high bar for experience, customer satisfaction, staff training and certifications. These partners are also proven innovators, with at least one custom application available in the Relativity App Hub.

You can read the full press release here.

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07
Jul 20’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Continued Reprographics Support

The Covid-19 crisis has prompted legal teams across the UK to adopt tech-enabled methods to complete routine legal tasks, without the benefit of an office environment. At Anexsys, we have adapted our services to assist clients, providing specialist court-bundling software for remote hearings and completing a successful transition to remote working in many of our service areas.

The preferred working methods of legal teams mean that there is still demand for hard copy support. As we take our first cautious steps to returning to office life, our reprographics team have been providing a door to door, reliable, and socially distanced collection and delivery service. The team works from our ISO27001 secure sites and our drivers have point to point tracking, to ensure continued security of documents.

Throughout this period legal teams have been making use of our secure FTP site, uploading documents for subsequent printing and bundling. Even with the demand for eBundles on the rise, there remains a preference for accompanying hard bundles from our reprographics team. In these challenging times, we have acted as the link between fee earners based in different locations, our client’s opponents, and the Court. Our team have assisted legal teams through online hearings and have provided reliable and committed operational support.

Health & Safety

We have stringent measures in place to ensure the health & safety of our clients and our staff, in compliance with government guidelines.

Our team of fully vetted staff; coupled with our commitment to best practices has enabled us to maintain our high services levels during these difficult times.

You can find details for your local Anexsys branch here - www.anexsys.com/contact

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16
Jun 20’

Tom Sothcott - Senior Consultant

Rampiva – Nuix automation solution

We are excited to announce that we have teamed up with The RYABI Group to internally deploy the Nuix automation solution – Rampiva

Nuix is a leading eDiscovery processing engine, which we use internally to process our clients’ data quickly and efficiently. The adoption of Rampiva has further improved our processing methodology, enabling us to provide our clients with quicker access to their documents and a better understanding of the progress of their processing jobs. In an eDisclosure exercise, the processing of data can be divided into two problems;

Unpacking and processing the source data; and
Getting the processed data into Relativity as quickly as possible.

To solve the first problem, we internally developed “edMe,” a proprietary product comprised of a series of automation tools, scripts and processes, which automates several elements of processing source data.

Solving the second problem was more of a challenge, and we recognised that there was potential to minimise or automate some of the steps involved in setting up processing jobs in Nuix and promoting this data to Relativity, particularly, during out of hours and times of peak demand.

Adopting Rampiva has allows us to bridge the gap between Nuix and Relativity to offer a seamless end-to-end processing-to-review workflow. Rampiva contains an in-built queuing system, which gives users the ability to automatically queue up processing jobs and to have them run automatically when the required server resources become available. It offers this through an easy to use self-hosted web interface, which allows our team to easily and quickly setup new processing jobs, whilst seeing the status of other jobs in the queue.

The following screenshot shows the processing jobs in backlog, those currently processing and finished jobs.

Rampiva

Rampiva Automate is a product of two halves, Workflow and Scheduler. Rampiva Workflow is an automation wrapper that sits on top of the Nuix Engine, whereas Rampiva Scheduler provides a slick web UI for executing workflows. Through Rampiva Workflow, users can define a series of operations that would mimic typical user inputs in Nuix, such as; creating a case, adding evidence, excluding documents, running scripts, adding items to a de-duplication item set, creating a production set, running a concordance export and importing to Relativity. Using the Rampiva Scheduler web interface, users can queue up and execute Rampiva Workflows and input parameters where required.

Rampiva provides our clients with a series of dashboards, metrics, and reports within Relativity, that display progress, statistics and other useful metrics to keep track of the data that was processed. It also means the system can automatically start the next part of the process, even outside of normal working hours.

Before running Rampiva, we were only seeing about a 30% efficiency in our Nuix workers. Efficiency is measured by calculating the idle time of workers vs the time they are being used (i.e. processing data, OCR etc). We found that there was a lot of “dead time” in between a processing job finishing, and the next action starting. Rampiva has helped us to reduce that dead time by automatically starting the next step in the process automatically, without any manual input.

We have seen over the years that processing has become somewhat of a commodity, and clients expect their source data to be processed and made available for review as fast as possible, all whilst maintaining high levels of QA. Having an automated processing workflow allows us to spend time on the aspects of eDisclosure that really matter – the consultancy.

We believe that the introduction of Rampiva to our suite of technology applications, combined with the benefits of edMe, will offer a better experience for our staff internally and will enable us to provide a better service to our clients.

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15
Jun 20’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

PDF Bundles for remote hearings: the latest guidance

In this article, Anexsys National Head of Reprographics Mike Lewis provides his perspective on the latest Court guidance on how solicitors should be preparing and exchanging PDF bundles.

Mr Justice Mann (“MJM”) recently produced helpful guidance aimed at achieving a level of useful consistency in the provision of PDF bundles for use by judges in hearings.

MJM is quick to clarify that his guidelines should not supersede any directions or requirements of particular courts, judges or cases, but he follows this up by confirming that any litigants that fail to comply with the principles set out should be asked to explain why.

I have been compiling PDF bundles for solicitors for over a decade to help them prepare for hearings, usually with tight deadlines looming. Below I share my thoughts on MJM’s guidance, which gives helpful structure to a process which has abruptly become standard practice for law firms across the country.

1 - Your PDF should be OCRed.

OCR (optical character recognition) is the process of turning scanned images into text searchable documents. The process is heavily dependent on the quality of the scan and loses accuracy when attempting to recognise particularly bad handwriting (good luck to all you clinical negligence teams working with doctors’ hand writing!) However, even if the accuracy is low owing to poor scans and handwriting, it will give you a head start when searching for keywords and terms. I have always recommended running this process regardless of the end use of your PDF bundle.

2 - All documents should appear in portrait and landscape documents should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

Now this goes against my standard practice. When Anexsys supplies scanned documents, we rotate all scanned images during the QC stage, so text is readable without the need to tilt your head or screen. At times this means that we may include pages in landscape format. I can see why this is MJM’s preference and recommendation as it keeps your pages consistent on screen. We will adapt this method within Anexsys Repro as the new recommended standard.

3 - Default page view set to 100%.

I would place a small wager on this changing relatively quickly! The most common initial view setting is “Fit One Full Page” which works nicely, as it means that no adjustment is required when documents require more or less focus. If anyone would like to take me up on that bet, I have 50p ready and waiting…

4 - PDF core bundles should comply with the same requirements as paper bundles.

I agree…

5 - Proper thought should be given to the number of bundles required.

MJM states that it is “generally not helpful to have to open a significant number of PDF files during the course of a hearing”. This just seems like common sense, right? Our custom built eBible solution Exhibit enables swift transition between PDF documents within a bundle and houses all documents one smartly produced eBible.

6 - All pages must be numbered and, where possible, preceded by a letter.

Just like OCR, this is a very straightforward process that can be retrospectively applied to scanned documents. If your documents are not paginated before they are scanned, save yourself the time of doing it manually and have your electronic copy paginated.

7 - Pagination should not mask relevant detail on the original document.

This takes a little more time to get right but with an adequate QC process it is easy to achieve.

8 - Scans of documents should not be greater than 300dpi.

Dots per inch (dpi) is essentially a function for printing and tells a printer how many dots of ink to drop per inch. If you want a quick scan of a document that you will simply read on your tablet on the train home, then do not worry about a high resolution. I recommend 300dpi to give the OCR process the best possible quality documents and to help achieve accurate results. If you are struggling with file size, I would avoid going lower than 150dpi. MJM has asked to go no higher to avoid large file sizes and poor scrolling and rendering.

9 - All significant documents and all sections in bundles should be bookmarked.

There are several ways of achieving this. It can be done manually with your PDF editing programme, but it will be time consuming, especially with large bundles and if the scanning is not done in a smart manner. This is where a tool like Exhibit comes in handy; I would thoroughly recommend a demo if you have not experienced it already.

10 - An index or table of contents of the documents should be prepared.

With a well-prepared index you will save time with the previous requirements for book marking. You will also need to ensure your documents are scanned and labelled in a sensible manner to aid with keeping this process pain free.

11 - All PDF files must contain a short version of the name of the case and an indication of the number/letter of the bundle, and end with the hearing date.

This can, and will, be a time-consuming exercise if you try to do it retrospectively. At Anexsys, we properly label any scanned documents during our QC process. We ensure the PDF title matches that of the index, where present, and conforms to any naming conventions specified.

12 - If a bundle is to be added to after the file has been transmitted to the judge it should not be assumed the judge will accept it as a complete replacement because he/she may already have started to mark up the original.

Point 12 is very much a “common sense” instruction with the addition of instructing additional pages to also be supplied as a separate file. This is easily achieved with your PDF editing software with the right technical know-how.

Delivering e-bundles:

MJM provides helpful guidance on the delivery of electronic documents. Firstly, if you email your documents, the justice.gov email addresses can only receive a total attachment size of 36 Mb. Some courts will have an e-judiciary account, with an ejudicary.net email address, which permits up to 150 MB. When emailing your documents, the email subject line should contain the following:

Case number;
Case name (shortest comprehensible version);
Hearing date;
Judge Name (if known);
The words in capitals “REMOTE HEARING”.

As an alternative to email, you can send your electronic bundles via a file transfer service. The more interesting point here is that the HMCTS will launch its own file transfer service in the future.

You can read the original article here: http://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2020/05/20/general-guidance-on-pdf-bundles-for-hearings-in-courts-guidance-issued-today/

Information on Anexsys’ services and how to contact us should you require assistance with your PDF bundles can be found on our website: www.anexsys.com

If you haven’t familiarised yourself with our software offering, you can do so here: https://documentfolio.com/

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05
Jun 20’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Remote Review at Anexsys Lens

Our success as a company is attributable to innovation, proactivity and problem solving. We are proud to be a company that stands for success but also a company that recognises their USP and builds upon it by acknowledging possibility along with pragmatism.

Technology is our home, however service is our calling. In May 2019, we put actions on our aspirations and opened a dedicated space to facilitate a managed review service which incorporates technological prowess with legal know-how - Anexsys Lens.

Since last year, we have provided dedicated services to a variety of clients from government and public sector bodies in our capacity as a Crown Commercial Services supplier to law firms of various sizes. We provide a managed review service with an edge which means we are not an advocate of the ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Our in-house software development team, forensic team, eD team and legal team have always ensured that our projects are orchestrated with the utmost care and attention to detail therefore, we are pleased to confirm that the current pandemic has not influenced our ethos rather, it has tested our technological resolve. Traditionally, eDiscovery technology is as a SaaS platform and therefore is accessible remotely from any location via internet connection. As a proponent of flexible working and the Flex Appeal movement, Anexsys already provides for our traditional ‘techies’ to work remotely utilising VPN and multi factor authentication (MFA).

Instituting remote review for the traditional document reviewer is something that could be seen as a challenge as successful review projects are based on a close-knit team of reviewers who can rely on a dedicated senior resource for support. The current global crisis has tested our problem-solving skills as a team and has resulted in the development of a secure and defensible mechanism for remote document review which will allow us to continue to provide high quality review services to our clients despite the current circumstances.

In March 2020, in order to ensure continuity of service, we successfully deployed 40 secure Anexsys Lens laptops to our teams. We selected high specification laptops with large screens to provide the best possible review experience and to avoid the need to connect to a large external monitor. All Anexsys Lens laptops have privacy screens installed as standard to ensure that sensitive review material is protected, even within a home working setting.

Quality Control & Communication

We have utilised our review platform’s (Relativity) extensibility capabilities and Anexsys’ in-house development team to build a time recording application integrated within Relativity for use by the review team. This means that we can cross reference the hours worked per individual time entry with actual work completed per day per reviewer. We monitor reviewer performance on an hourly basis through the utilisation of bespoke performance scripts which provide us with real time hourly review statistics and automatically compare same against historic review rate data.

remote review 1

We have created dedicated Slack channels to maintain communication between review managers and review teams. Slack records all case communication in one place and allows review managers to share updates and to respond to common queries in real time.

remote review 2

Privacy Tips

Provide reviewers with boot-level encrypted laptops with locked down application availability.
Ensure that each laptop is equipped with a privacy screen so that they can be used securely in a shared home environment.
Alternatively, home PC equipment can be used via a thin client (AWS Workspaces as an example).
Limit access to the review platform to the reviewer’s home IP only and enable Multi-Factor Authentication.
Disable USB drives on each laptop and restrict the ability to download and print documents from the review platform.
Provide each reviewer with a robust NDA (in addition to that which would currently be in place) and ensure that a comprehensive and prescriptive Remote Working Agreement has been executed by each individual prior to the commencement of remote working.

Now, more than ever, we are reliant on technology to ensure that we continue to deliver as a business. With no indication of how long we will need to work under the current conditions, we must embrace the change and find new and innovative ways to meet the challenges we face, head on.

We’re excited to be able to add secure home working to Anexsys Lens and believe this will open up the talent pool available to our clients.

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22
May 20’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Anexsys Directors Featured in the Legal Technologist

An interview with our Managing Director Rob Crowley and Director of Technical Services Stu Craft was recently featured in the Legal Technologist, an online publication focused on the legal technology industry.

In the article, Rob and Stu highlight the challenges faced by law firms and how eDiscovery can help them to analyse huge volumes of information quickly and efficiently. They discuss responses to Data Subject Access Requests and Data Breaches and how Anexsys’ unique approach to eDiscovery helps law firms to simplify these processes.

They also touch on the benefits of upskilling in eDiscovery and eDiscovery as a potential career path, as managing large volumes of data becomes an increasingly vital component of the role of paralegals and solicitors.

You can read the full Legal Technologist article here

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12
May 20’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Brainspace Certifications – Continuous Technical Development

Brainspace is an eDiscovery analytics platform, suitable for the early case assessment of data for investigations and large-scale litigation. It enables users to focus on the data that is key to their matter and to cull what is irrelevant.

Using Brainspace can have a significant impact on the development or direction of a matter, as it allows users to uncover hidden insights within their data, which may have otherwise been missed or discovered too late. We guide our clients through the Brainspace experience, ensuring that they benefit from the array of techniques and technologies that the platform offers.

It is essential to us that we follow best practices when providing our technical solutions. We achieve this by pushing our consultancy team to constantly improve their level of expertise. Brainspace offers three certifications: Administrator, Analyst and Specialist, all of which require the development of skills and understanding of the platform. We recently challenged our team to build on their existing knowledge of Brainspace and urged them to obtain these certifications. Our enthusiastic technical and legal consultants were keen to do so, and they more than rose to the challenge; we are delighted that we now have 15 consultants, across the Anexsys eDiscovery team, with the full suite of Brainspace certifications.

The push to obtain these certifications reflects our commitment to technical expertise and ensuring that we can offer the highest level of service to our clients. More so than ever, our consultants can now fully harness the platform’s offerings, which include the popular cluster wheel, communication and conversation analysis, Continuous Multimodal Learning (CMML) and native file analysis.

For enquiries regarding Brainspace or to schedule a trial or demo, please email us here: info@anexsys.com.

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05
May 20’

Alex Horn - Principal Engineer

Remote hearings in litigation: Are you prepared?

Litigators are being asked to adapt quickly, following the Court’s recent guidance for parties to engage in remote hearings during lockdown as a result of COVID-19. For many, the acute emphasis on an alternative to traditional, in-person hearings is a step in the right direction, with the consensus being that they will provide a route for litigation to be managed more efficiently, in good times and bad.

The guidance sets out instructions on how these hearings should be conducted, and references amendments made to the CPR to introduce these changes. We are here to support law firms through these challenging times and we too have adapted to help clients meet the Court’s requirements.

eBundles

The new guidance dictates that electronic bundles can be prepared in “.pdf or another format.” Whilst complex and multi-faceted trial-presentation software already exists, it is tailored to large-scale litigation in the High Court and it is not cost effective or appropriate for smaller applications and hearings where the volume of documentation is generally smaller. A simple problem only requires a simple solution…

The latest version of the Anexsys eBundling application Exhibit has been adapted to meet the requirements of remote hearings, regardless of size.

remote hearings

Exhibit is a lightweight and inexpensive document bundling application, adapted to meet the requirements of remote hearings, as an alternative to a continuous .pdf bundle. Using Exhibit users can have an unlimited number of documents open without leaving the application home screen, enabling swift transitions between documents and simple navigation of the hearing bundle.

Why is Exhibit suitable for remote hearings?

Exhibit is a standalone application which can be deployed offline. Identical copies of the electronic hearing bundle are provided to the parties and the Court on a USB or through secure file-sharing protocol, in a similar manner to the distribution of hard copy bundles in hearings of old.

Exhibit has a built-in .pdf viewer used for all document types, including Excel files. It supports notes and annotations, enabling users to mark up copies of documents in advance of the hearing with comments and highlights. All documents within the Exhibit bundle are text searchable, meaning users can search for specific words and phrases contained within the bundle documents in advance of and even during a hearing.

Simple Pricing

Users pay a flat fee for the creation of the hearing bundle which depends on the number of documents and the number of copies required. There are no hidden user fees, data hosting, processing costs.

Video Conferencing & Remote Hearing Support

In addition to eBundling, we are currently providing hands-on assistance with remote hearings. The court’s guidance approves a variety of conferencing methods (Skype for Business, Zoom and others). Impartial third-party assistance can help these hearings proceed without hitches. We provide a quasi-paralegal service, setting up video-conferencing, screen sharing and providing further technical support throughout hearings. This ensures that the parties, counsel and the Judge are on the same page and that software issues which have the potential to derail a hearing are avoided.

Get in touch with our team today to find out more.

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20
Mar 20’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Remote Document Review

Outsourced remote document review, which usually involves teams of solicitors and paralegals working in close proximity, must adapt, and fast. Below are some of the measure that can be implemented to enable disclosure deadlines to be met without making concessions on quality or data security.

Security

Provide reviewers with laptops with privacy screens installed, so they can be used securely in a shared home environment.
Alternatively, home PC equipment can be used via a thin client (AWS Workspaces as an example).
Encrypt and lock down laptops (in kiosk mode) with only Chrome accessible and the review platform’s URL permitted.
Limit access to only the reviewer’s home IP and enable Multi-Factor Authentication.
Disable the laptop’s USB Drives.

Quality Control & Communication

Use a business messaging service to maintain communication between review managers and review teams. Slack enables the creation of project specific channels and records all case communication in one place.
Monitor reviewer performance by checking hourly review statistics and compare against historic data.
Create fixed times for project briefing and review strategy updates.

To find out more about remote document review get in touch with one of our teams today.

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24
Jan 20’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Eureka, I’ve found it! – Brainspace Partnership

When assessing a client’s evidence during the course of a case or investigation, nothing beats those Eureka! or Aha! moments. Locating a key or corroborating piece of evidence, or proving an assertion through detailed analysis of evidence, is what makes the often-arduous disclosure process worthwhile.

With a traditional approach, these Eureka moments are hard to come by, usually earnt through a solicitor’s creativity and graft, but what if they could be achieved more frequently and with less time and effort?

Brainspace is a cutting-edge data analytics platform, which gives users the technology to analyse and understand evidence and locate vital information buried within large volumes of data. Anexsys have partnered with Brainspace to bring these benefits to our clients. This Brainspace partnership will be provided as part of our managed services, alongside a range of market-leading eDiscovery platforms.

How It Works – Early Case Assessment

Brainspace has an intuitive, user-friendly interface that allows users to dig into areas of interest, no matter how large the dataset. At the outset of a case this can be vital and can heavily inform the direction of a case.

The Brainspace Heat Map directs users towards trends, enabling the targeting of specific people, places and entities. User can easily customise searches to target key areas of evidence. At the same time, irrelevant data that does not require review, can be culled. As part of our managed service, our consultants can assist in the development of case strategy using the functionality of Brainspace.

Brainspace’s Cluster Wheel allows users to visualise data and to focus in on the most relevant information more rapidly.

Concept Searching

Using a phrase, a paragraph, or even entire document as a basis, Brainspace can detect key concepts or issues in a case and produce documents that relates to those concepts. This goes beyond standard keyword searches and can often lead to the discovery of key information that would not be picked up by standard search terms.

Communication Analysis

Communication analysis provides users with an interactive visualisation of networks of communication. It can be modified to the specific facts of an investigation and used to identify who has been communicating with whom, how often and during which periods.

Avoid Duplicating Work

For companies carrying out similar investigations into multiple employees or individuals, standard workflow and templates can be created to target certain types of data from the outset, accelerating access to key documents.

Continuous Active Learning

Users can tag documents in Brainspace and can implement Continuous Active Learning (“CAL”). CAL is an analytics engine that learns from document tagging decisions made by users. It detects the features of a document tagged as relevant and directs users to other documents within a data set that contain similar features. The more documents that are tagged as relevant, the more the CAL engine understands the features of a key document. This significantly increases the likelihood of finding them.

At Anexsys we have a continuing commitment to ensuring our clients have access to market-leading technologies. We are excited by the opportunities that our Brainspace partnership will bring to our clients involved in both litigation and investigations.

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17
Jan 20’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Brainspace Partnership with Anexsys

Anexsys, the leading UK consulting firm specialising in legal support and e-discovery is delighted to announce its new Brainspace partnership, the world's leading data analytics platform for investigations, eDiscovery, and compliance.

Anexsys has integrated the Brainspace platform as part of the firm’s e-discovery managed services solution, enabling clients to conduct early case assessments and manage the growing volume and complexity of complex litigation and investigations.

"At Anexsys we are committed to delivering innovative new ways to solve complex data challenges for our clients. Our Brainspace partnership will place highly specialised investigative technology in the hands of our consultants, significantly enhancing the service we will be able to provide to clients" says Anexsys MD Rob Crowley.

"Our exciting new partnership with Anexsys highlights our commitment to the UK market and we are keen to support the innovative approach of Anexsys" stated Dean Kuhlman, Vice President of Sales at Brainspace.

About Brainspace

Brainspace, an Appgate Inc. Business, is altering the field of digital investigations through the unique combination of machine learning technology and interactive data visualizations. Brainspace's unique solutions utilize the patented Brainspace platform and is leading the industry in text analytics, e-discovery, digital investigations, and defence intelligence. Their customers include the Fortune 500, leading consulting firms, legal service providers, and government agencies.

Learn more: www.brainspace.com

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02
Dec 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

To Cloud Or Not To Cloud?

At Anexsys we collect and host large volumes of sensitive data on behalf of our law firm, corporate and public sector clients. Unsurprisingly, when enquiring about our services, the first question we receive is almost always around data security.

Without question, security of our client’s data is our number one priority. Our internal infrastructure is constantly monitored for potential threats and we stringently vet those that we work with to ensure that they adhere to the highest security standards.

Since 2012 we have offered an on-premise version of Relativity, the market leading eDiscovery platform. Relativity’s software is hosted on dedicated servers at our highly secure ISO27001 accredited premises. For many clients, this represents a more secure data security solution than what they have internally.

As access to the cloud becomes increasingly cost-effective, the shift from on-premise data storage to cloud storage seems inevitable. Conscious of this trend, we began offering RelativityOne, the cloud version of Relativity, earlier this year. Our commitment to the cloud is further demonstrated by our recent launch of Entity, our own cloud-native eDiscovery platform.

Despite the highly secure nature of the cloud. there is still ambivalence towards it, with major organisations understandably cautious about where they permit their data to be stored. For many, use of the cloud can seem like a step into the unknown, with the cost, scale and process benefits outweighed by the perceived lack of security. These organisations are unwilling to allow their data to travel into the vortex of the cloud, despite our best efforts to allay these concerns.

The reality is that the cloud storage services we provide clients with access to also serve the world’s largest and most security-sensitive organisations. They are based in the UK and have the most extensive data security accreditation of anyone in the cloud-storage industry.

So how do we serve clients with different security demands? By offering two flavours of eDiscovery, catering to clients with both a cloud-first and cloud-phobic approach. We advocate for both solutions, as we know our client’s data is secure, regardless of which they choose to take advantage of.

One Step Further: The Air Gapped Solution

Under certain circumstances neither cloud nor on-premise solutions are deemed secure enough for some of our clients who require access to Relativity. For these clients we provide a bespoke service, building them a completely isolated or “air-gapped” version of Relativity, with no access whatsoever to the internet and any other system with internet access. Clients opting for this solution retain complete control, with data completely shut off from exterior access or threat.

Anexsys Enhancements

Anexsys have built multiple applications to enhance Relativity’s capabilities. Our latest release enables clients to view message data within Relativity in its native form. Whilst these applications were originally built for our on-premise version of Relativity, they are also available for RelativityOne, meaning clients opting for either solution can ultimately benefit.

To learn more about our cloud-native eDiscovery platform Entity, click here.

18
Nov 19’

Alex Horn - Principal Engineer

Redactions – Doing it the right way

I'm excited to kick-off a series of posts aimed at making the most of your eDiscovery technology. I’ve always been passionate about technology and, if used in the right way, it can really enhance a legal team’s work.

Every time we begin developing a new application or workflow at Anexsys, I remember what I was told early in my career as a developer; “never forget KISS” (Keep It Simple Stupid!) If you follow this, it's a great way to break down problems and come up with efficient solutions.

Redactions

No one wants to be responsible for missing a redaction or to have their redactions questioned. Using a tried and tested redaction workflow can help get things just right.

Step 1 - Consider redactions from the outset

It's always worth running some sensible potentially privileged terms as a starting point.
Make sure you have a “needs redaction” tagging option from the outset. This makes it easy to flag documents for redaction, even where it’s not the focus.
Personal information (“PI”) extraction – use the latest technologies to highlight PI for potential redaction in documents.
Consider the most appropriate redaction methods for email, Word, Excel or audio files.

Step 2 - Doing the work

Identify duplicates. Where more than one copy of a document requires redaction, ensure these are identified early so that consistent redactions can be applied.
Enable automatic redactions. This can significantly speed up the process, giving more time for quality control. Using RTK.RedactAuto you can apply lists of keywords or regular expressions, as well as detecting and redacting email headers.
Keep a log of your redaction decisions providing descriptions for the redactions applied. This comes in handy if your redactions are queried at a later date.
Rather than converting Excels to image files to redact, use RTK.ExcelRedact to redact Excels in their native form.
For audio files, look for a partner that can provide transcription. We've partnered with Intelligent Voice who have taken this a step further and provide a playback and redaction viewer, allowing the redaction of audio files.

Step 3 - Quality checks and delivery

You're on the home stretch. The last thing you want to do is inadvertently disclose a document that undoes all of your hard work.

Run a check that all documents that require redactions actually contain them, do not rely on someone telling you it's done.
Set up a tagging option which confirms when redactions are complete, not simply that redactions have been applied to a document.
Run checks that all duplicates of documents have the same redactions applied.
Once redactions have been finalised, don't forget your text! Build a new DTSearch index over your redacted text and run your keywords to make sure there are no hits.

Step 4 - Checking an incoming disclosure

Review what has come in from the other side to alert them to a missed redaction, or to where they have gone overboard with their redactions.
You can run your own privileged terms over documents to see what you can find.
Look for documents containing redactions and check the text has been correctly redacted.

Roundup

Sensible workflows can give confidence to your cases, they provide space for quality checks and if used as part of a template, provide consistency within a team. They also provide a solid base to extend for more complex cases. This post covers some of the basics and points someone to what they may want to consider when setting up a redaction workflow. I hope you’ve found it useful. The next post will explore some of the things you should consider when dealing with native files for redaction.

I’m passionate about legal tech and eDiscovery and always happy to talk about workflows or solutions in more detail. Feel free to reach out by emailing info@anexsys.com!

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06
Nov 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Entity – Streamlined eDiscovery for Lawyers

At Anexsys we are well known for our innovative approach to eDiscovery and broader legal technology solutions. Through our in-house software development team, we work directly with end clients to build software to solve their unique challenges. We have a strong history of building products and bespoke solutions for our clients, from automatically adding hyperlinks to word document en masse, to natively applying redactions to Excel files. We work with some of the world’s largest law firms, corporations and government departments.

Earlier this year Anexsys opened an office in Sheffield, to focus on the continued development of a new product. Today I am excited to announce Anexsys’ new legal technology platform Entity. Entity is the result of over two years of hard work from our eDiscovery and software development teams.

Entity is a cloud-first legal tech platform, built on top of AWS’ marketing leading cloud infrastructure. It’s been built from the ground up around micro-services architecture, which enables immense scale, on a minimal hardware footprint, whilst delivering the highest performance.

Entity’s user interface has been designed with simplicity in mind, stripping away as much complexity as possible, resulting in an experience where lawyers can jump right into the product with no training. We’ve also built our interface to be mobile first. As the product matures, you can expect a consistent experience across mobile, tablet and desktop.

The Entity tech stack utilises Graph and NoSQL database technologies, designed specifically to provide high performance at scale, and suited to hosting the largest unstructured datasets. Full text search is powered by Lucene, offering a familiar search experience along with powerful features such as faceted search, phrase search and more.

We’ve built a best in class viewer technology, that provides the performance modern web users expect across desktop, tablet and mobile, along with a host of in-built features. Our viewer technology supports a range of annotations from page level notation, to highlights and hand written notes (when using a touch screen or tablet). Redactions can be applied right within the viewer without the need to convert to an intermediary format.

Entity is using AWS infrastructure to provide on-demand scale to the Entity platform. Entity can spin up a near infinite number of processing tasks in a matter of seconds, to support optical character recognition, document conversion, text extraction and more. We only pay for these resources whilst they are active, meaning we can pass the cost savings and efficiency benefits on to our customers.

Finally, we’ve built the Entity platform for extensibility, enabling our clients to benefit from the immense research and development efforts of the major technology and cloud providers. We can plumb in Google Cloud’s handwriting recognition and translation services, Microsoft’s AI, and more, all available without upfront fees or commitments. This really is a game changer, offering cutting-edge technology, at accessible prices.

I’m super excited to get Entity out into the legal tech community. We’re already working with our existing client base to utilise Entity for a number of use cases, from a low-cost Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) review platform, to a trial preparation product. We’ll continue to collaborate with existing and future customers to find new use cases for this powerful technology.

To book in a demo of Entity please enquire via marketing@anexsys.com

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29
Aug 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Disclosure pilot scheme update for Birmingham Law Society members

Anexsys are delighted to be partnering with the Birmingham Law Society to deliver a breakfast seminar on the application of the Disclosure Pilot Scheme.

The seminar will focus on the use of eDisclosure technology during the disclosure process and how using document review platforms can help practitioners ensure compliance with new rules. This is an opportunity for Birmingham Law Society members to quiz our disclosure experts on the practical use of eDisclosure technology. We will lead discussions on how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be used during disclosure to reduce data volumes and locate key documents faster.

The seminar will take place on Monday 16 September 2019 in central Birmingham. You can find more information and book your place here.

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02
Jul 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Two sides of a DSAR

Under the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR, individuals are entitled to make a Data Subject Access Request (“DSAR”) which enables them to obtain personal information a company holds about them (a step by step guide on how to respond to DSAR is here ). A simple request can be an administrative nightmare for an organisation to manage and DSARs are on the rise.

Complying with a DSAR can be broadly divided into two categories:

Obtaining legal advice as to whether the request made is valid and how to comply with the relevant duties. Identifying personal information can be more nuanced than it seems on its face. Full consideration must be given to the ICO’s guidance and the relevant exemptions.
Finding a method to review documents for personal information in the quickest and cheapest way possible. Whilst companies will understandably want to be aware of sensitive personal information that they have to disclose to a Data Subject, they should not have to waste valuable time and resources combing through every document they hold in order to find it.

There is a clear distinction between the category which requires legal expertise and the category that ought to be dealt with via a “production line” type solution. For category two there is an alternative route which is far more efficient than dealing with a DSAR internally; using an LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) company. LPOs can commit to turnarounds time, are cost effective and can be brought in to handle one or several elements of a case or DSAR request.

The Production Line

The production line approach to DSARs can also be divided into two elements:

Tech - the use of a technology platform to reduce data volumes and review documents more efficiently.
Review - The human capital required to review the documents for personal information.

The conventional wisdom is that the more tech that can be included in the process, the less documents companies will have to review.

eDisclosure technology & analytics

Alongside the use of standard functionality such as keyword searches, date ranges and document metadata to cut down the number of documents for review to a more manageable size, text analytics, based on a mixture of natural language processing and classification can be used to determine whether a document contains personal information.

Redaction is a common element of most DSAR matters. Attempting to redact hard copy documents can be an arduous process and whilst standard document review platforms enable redactions, the process remains time consuming. Our Redaction software can be used to automatically redact terms which should not be included in a DSAR response, including personal information relating to individuals other than the Data Subject.

Anexsys Lens

For the elements that cannot be automated, a workforce of experienced solicitors and paralegals can be used to review documents for personal information. Anexsys Lens is the barrister led managed review service for DSARs. Reviewing documents not only for personal information but for privilege and relevant exemptions is a task that requires a human element. Fortunately, those tasked with the review can implement sophisticated software to assist with this task and improve the speed and quality of their response.

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11
Jun 19’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Intelligent Voice partners with Anexsys to bring Audio Review to RelativityOne

In a world where 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, the scope for litigation involving audio and video files increases all the time. Be it from insurance companies, healthcare providers, banks or just users’ desktops, video and audio can appear in any legal case, and it is tough to review, as someone has to listen to or watch all of it.

Anexsys are delighted to announce their partnership with Intelligent Voice (“IV”), to integrate IV’s speech review software within the Relativity platform, to avoid someone having to do just that. Not only have Anexsys provided their integration expertise to surface IV output in Relativity, they are providing secure hosting services for UK government GCloud clients using IV. Today, Intelligent Voice and Anexsys announce that this partnership extends to Anexsys’ new RelativityOne service.

The IV software lets you ingest and search vast quantities of audio securely using its unique ultra-high speed GPU powered speech recognition algorithms. Working across more than a dozen languages and dialects, IV’s market-leading SmartTranscript™ technology cuts review time by 70%. In addition, IV provides an alternative word ("Lattice") search to enable you to find likely words and phrases without the over-retrieval of phonetic search. User-driven model improvement puts the power to get greater accuracy in the hands of the user without the need for expensive and time-consuming professional services.

The IV solution is already helping law firms and governments around the world ingest, transcribe, analyse and review vast amounts of audio, in a secure environment, freeing up valuable lawyer time and cutting down on costs. By providing connectors and APIs into the world’s leading legal platforms, the solution makes audio review as easy as reviewing any other document. Which is why partnering with Anexsys to use the full power of the Relativity platform has been an exciting opportunity for Intelligent Voice.

The new viewer features lattice based search and alerting, for better retrieval, automatic audio length detection, a free audio player, document set based bulk transcription (in up to a dozen languages and dialects) and perhaps the most exciting new feature is by far the ability to use IV’s machine learning language model builder directly within the Relativity platform. This means the user can customise their "dictionary" using documents from saved searches and or case files as well as importing documents or manually adding words/phrases or acronyms to ensure greater accuracy in the transcriptions, all without having to leave the platform.

“We see Intelligent Voice as the leader in audio processing in the legal market, not just in terms of accuracy, but because they really understand the difficulties that audio presents and the user needs. They have worked hard to make audio processing more than just ‘OCR for Voice’, and instead have built the ability to make audio as reviewable as text”, says Rob Crowley, MD of Anexsys.

“Anexsys combines a deep technical understanding of the Relativity platform with excellent project delivery skills,” quotes Ben Shellie, CEO of Intelligent Voice. “This means we have been able to develop a plug-in for Relativity with actual users of the system. We already have customers who rely on Anexsys for their audio processing in their hosted Relativity environment, and we look forward to extending that to RelativityOne”

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05
Jun 19’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

RTK.Redact gets an upgrade

Anexsys are delighted to announce new enhancements to their proprietary redaction application RTK.Redact and the relaunch of RTK.Excel Redact.

RTK.Redact enables users to apply redactions to duplicate documents. Within Relativity, users can identify a document with multiple duplicates, apply redactions to it and automatically apply the redactions made to its duplicates. This reduces the risk of inconsistent redactions and solves a common issue for professionals faced with multiple duplicates during a disclosure exercise.

RTK.Redact new functionality enables users to automatically find and redact keywords, phrases, regular expressions and email headers. This has the potential to significantly reduce review time for eDisclosure users tasked with redacting documents for privilege and confidentiality.

Stu Craft, Head of Software Development at Anexsys commented that “the ability to automatically redact a certain name or phrase which may otherwise slip through the net could be a game-changer for solicitors and investigators faced with a tight deadline to complete a disclosure exercise. We want our clients to be able to concentrate on the legal aspects of a disclosure exercise, i.e. is this document relevant and / or disclosable, or is this document privileged? We want to reduce the administrative burden of applying redactions to documents and automate it as far as possible. We are excited about the next steps for RTK Redact which we want to see being used as standard in the majority of Relativity eDisclosure exercises.”

RTK.ExcelRedact allows users to apply redactions to native versions of Excel documents of any shape and size within Relativity. The excel does not need to be converted to a PDF or TIFF prior to applying redactions which is a common but problematic approach. RTK.ExcelRedact is particularly helpful in banking litigation matters where disclosure sets can often contain thousands of Excel documents.

Both applications are part of the Anexsys Review Tool Kit (“RTK”) for Relativity. Anexsys are a certified Relativity Development Partner with a dedicated eDisclosure software development team based in the UK.

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21
May 19’

Jack Enthoven - Commercial & IT Director

Anexsys announced as new RelativityOne partner in the UK

Anexsys, the leading UK consulting firm specializing in legal support and e-discovery, today announced that it has expanded its partnership with global e-discovery company, Relativity, to offer its SaaS product, RelativityOne, as a new RelativityOne Certified Partner in the UK alongside its current on-premises offering.

Anexsys plans to leverage the secure and flexible cloud-based e-discovery platform across a variety of e-discovery and unstructured data matters. One of the first tenants on Anexsys’ dedicated RelativityOne environment will be a UK department who chose to operate with Anexsys via RM3717 on the Crown Commercial Service framework. Anexsys was successful in the selection process of this department due to their expertise on the e-discovery platform and ability to create custom applications unique to their workflows.

"We are excited to add RelativityOne to Anexsys' overall Relativity service offering which includes dedicated on-premise, mobile infrastructure behind the firewall, and now in the cloud via RelativityOne. We look forward to working with new and existing customers to offer them access to RelativityOne, in particular, public sector bodies who are able to procure RelativityOne via Anexsys using the Crown Commercial Service eDisclosure services framework RM3717", says Jon Chan.

As a long-time Relativity partner, Anexsys is excited to expand their suite of e-discovery services by offering RelativityOne as a RelativityOne Certified Partner. The consulting firm has invested significantly in innovation over the past few years and plans to realise this investment by harnessing the extensibility of the SaaS product to build out new and unique workflows and applications for their customers.

“It’s always great to see a long-time Relativity partner say "yes" to the growth possibilities of RelativityOne,” said Steve Couling, Managing Director and VP Sales EMEA at Relativity. “We’re excited to see how they leverage the extensibility of the platform to further build out their suite of innovative e-discovery services.”

Anexsys’ RelativityOne tenant and client data will be based exclusively in the UK on the secure Microsoft Azure cloud.

To find out more, get in touch via info@anexsys.com

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20
May 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

And Analytics for All…

Technology gives small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to meet or even exceed service levels of dominant enterprise-sized organisations. This opportunity exists during the disclosure phase of litigation, where advances in analytics allow solicitors to prioritise review, control costs and gain insights into large data sets.

Managing the costs of disclosure is an ongoing issue, exacerbated by rising data volumes and growing numbers of electronic documents being collected during commercial disputes. The latest attempt to combat these mounting costs is the Disclosure Pilot Scheme, (in force in the Business & Property Courts until January 2021), which aims to phase out costly and dated approaches to disclosure and replace them with collaborative, tech-based methods.

The key for solicitors acting for SMEs who want to give their clients the edge and ensure compliance with the new rules will be to embrace the technology at their disposal. Fortunately for them, price is no longer a barrier to entry.

The eDisclosure journey has entered its second phase. The case for document review platforms has been made and won, but there is work to be done to make use of eDisclosure analytics just as widespread. eDisclosure analytics come in many flavours, but the benefits are undisputed; they enable clients to prioritise review of documents which are most likely to be relevant to a case and they reduce the overall number for review. Analytics can be also used before proceedings are issued to get a better understanding of a client’s documents. Used in the right way, and under the supervision of an eDisclosure specialist, they can result in a significant time and cost saving.

As with all technologies there have been first adopters and unsurprisingly it is those with more resources at their disposal. Some large corporations are ahead of the curve when it comes to eDisclosure and have brought their eDisclosure function in house. Others are represented by major law firms who have dedicated eDisclosure departments. These departments have well-drilled procedures for dealing with electronic data, enhanced by collaborative relationships with eDisclosure companies like us.

On the other hand, there are SMEs who may very well be represented by sizeable law firms, but do not have the appetite to support a full bells and whistles eDisclosure exercise inclusive of analytics. They are using eDisclosure platforms, but in a limited way, which hands the edge to their opponents in cases where they encounter them.

Anexsys act for law firms and companies at both ends of the scale but our aim is to ensure that analytics are available to all. We want to create a level playing field for our clients and we do not believe there should be barriers to entry. Our analytics packages comprise of analytics from market leading eDisclosure platforms, cloud services, text analytics and custom-built solutions.

Our competitive pricing models include bundling of analytics with standard eDisclosure services into a manageable monthly fee. This minimizes upfront investment and spreads costs, allowing clients to avoid excessive fees where matters settle sooner than expected.

For more information email info@anexsys.com

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19
May 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

The Eagle has Landed

At Anexsys, we pride ourselves as being the forerunners in technological awareness and development. Our solutions are fresh and our approach is innovative. Our extensive experience working with some of the top law firms in the country has given us an insight into what our clients really want when embarking on a document review exercise. Our clients need a two-pronged approach to review, amalgamating tech know-how and bespoke software development with streamlined project management and legal expertise. With the introduction of the Pilot Protocol and the necessity for increased speed and transparency of the overall review process, we believe that the role of technology in document review is becoming increasingly more difficult to escape. With that said, we don’t believe that technology alone is the solution and know the importance of ensuring that our people are the right people. So, with all of the above noted, we are delighted to introduce Anexsys Lens.

Anexsys Lens is our new managed review service offering which is ideally located in the heart of London’s legal district at our purpose-built review centre in Eagle Street, just four minutes’ walk from Holborn Tube Station. It was designed to host review teams in a secure and comfortable environment conducive to accurate and expeditious document review. With that in mind, each work station is equipped with a custom-built PC designed to maximise security and double monitors to aid the review process. Continuity of service and access to the review platform at all times is aided by a secure connection using an ultrafast fibre internet connection, with failover for resiliency.

Traditionally, review teams span various categories of the legal profession and levels of experience. Law graduates, litigation support staff, paralegals, trainee solicitors and qualified barristers and solicitors can make up some or all of a team. We believe that people = pride. We hand pick our people and are still in the process of building this out, based on; expertise, language specialism and niche areas of law. We work with qualified lawyers and paralegals who have a proven track record working as part of a review team and in delivering accurate results. We don’t believe that a review exercise is successfully carried out by throwing numbers at the issue – rather, we believe that we can achieve expeditious and excellent results through the application of technical expertise in tandem with experienced review lawyers.

We offer a range of managed review options from fully comprehensive to supervisory. A fully comprehensive service would entail sending a qualified lawyer from our team to you at the beginning of the case where they’ll sit in on the initial briefing and get to know the case – so when it comes to the compilation and creation of a briefing document for the review team – your resources won’t be taken up. We can create the brief, brief the team and monitor the progress of the review for the duration of its lifecycle. This includes the compilation of the team from our panel of reviewers, managing attendance, tracking progress, reporting on substantive issues arising from the review and providing bespoke advice in relation to ascertaining which method of TAR is best to employ to reduce the data set defensibly, maximise human resources and expedite the timeline. We know how important it is to keep clients in the loop too, so rather than furnishing unreadable metrics on a daily basis – we provide meaningful, succinct reports in a digestible format. Our reporting mechanism is malleable and we can draw up reports from basic need to know information to comprehensive technical breakdowns – client dependent and also adaptable. Reports don’t have to be static either, we can provide varied formats at different stages in line with your requirements.

We can alternatively take on a supervisory role in that we will assemble the review team and administer the brief as compiled by you. Day to day team management, progress reporting and advice on data set reduction is also included. We know how important the first week of a review is, in terms of accurately briefing the team and ensuring that each member is developing an understanding of the case at the required pace. We achieve this through daily morning meetings where document queries are raised and fielded, content is explored, progress is tracked and goals are set.

We feel that having our own in-house software development team allows you to really make our managed review service your own. Bespoke applications can be designed and integrated into Relativity (or the chosen platform) in order to streamline processes. For example, we can write and install a script to allow you to generate your own bespoke reports as and when desired, broken down by reviewer, rate, issues and overturns. This allows you to take control of the layout, content and scheduling of the reporting element of the review.

Jennifer Howlett will be heading up Anexsys Lens. She is an experienced barrister, specialising in litigation and eDisclosure. Prior to joining the team at Anexsys, she moved from the Bar to one of the largest law firms in Ireland where she managed numerous complex large-scale review projects. She would be delighted to discuss our proposition further and to offer tours of the review centre at your convenience. For further information on Anexsys Lens, please get in touch – jennifer.howlett@anexsys.com

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06
Feb 19’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys arrive in Sheffield

We are excited to announce that we have taken up residence in Spaces, a co-working office in the heart of Sheffield.

Sheffield is fast becoming a hub for legal tech in the north of England after hosting Legal Tech North Conference. Kollider, a Sheffield based company who co-hosted the event, have been supporting local businesses – their investment is helping to fund innovative tech solutions and is placing Sheffield on the map for legal tech.

The new location places our development team at the centre of legal tech innovation in the north of England. Anexsys are building a next generation legal technology platform due for release in Q3 2019.

Rob Crowley, Managing Director of Anexsys commented, “We are thrilled to be joining Sheffield’s thriving and growing legal tech scene – it is the ideal location for our new development team as we look to expand in the years ahead.”

We now have seven offices in six locations throughout the UK and the move bolsters our presence outside of London, adding to offices in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham.

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21
Dec 18’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

The Disclosure Pilot Scheme – An Opportunity for a Culture Shift

From January 2019 the Disclosure Pilot Scheme will be tested in the Business & Property Courts for a two-year period. The new rules aim to promote a shift in the culture of disclosure to ensure cases are dealt with proportionately and costs are kept under control.

Proportionality: it is a principle that litigators are supposed to keep at the forefront of their minds as soon as they find themselves doing any work that is remotely chargeable. It is part and parcel of the Overriding Objective, a notion that recognises the court’s limited resources and how costly access to justice can be.

Given its lofty standing, you would expect the guidance the judiciary gives to litigators on how to dispose of their cases proportionately to be well defined. Unfortunately, it is not and litigators find themselves unable to provide their clients with real certainty as to how much it will cost to bring or defend a claim. The problem is that proportionality depends not only on the value of a claim, but on a wide array of factors, meaning that no two cases can ever really be treated in the same way.

The lack of clear direction on proportionality extends to disclosure, where costs can easily escalate and efforts to budget are often a guessing game. Next year’s Pilot is the latest attempt to remedy the problem. The new rules are not a huge departure from what existed previously but they place more emphasis on the following principles which aim to combat the mounting costs of disclosure:

Collaboration - the requirement for parties to collaborate is codified and they will be expected to use the Disclosure Review Document to reach a consensus on disclosure issues rather than resorting to adversarial and costly letter writing;
The use of technology - as a means of reducing data volumes to make the process more proportionate;
Accountability – parties will be expected to keep adequate records of how they have carried out their disclosure exercise and they will need to demonstrate pragmatic conduct;
A clamping down on the disclosure of irrelevant material (“document dumping”);
Sanctions for parties that fail to collaborate with their opponents and engage with the new rules.

Undoubtedly, the new rules are a step in the right direction, but it is unlikely that a “hearts and minds” approach will be the key to transformation. Litigators’ natural tendency toward, well, litigation, means that it will be very difficult for them to resist the urge to use the new framework to come up with new and inventive ways of getting one over on their opponents, with costs remaining a secondary concern.

It will be up to the judiciary to ensure they stringently apply the new rules, forcing parties to use technology where appropriate and making use of the sanctions available to them where litigators fail to get on board. If litigators are really going to be forced to play nice with each other they will need to be shown the consequences of failing to do so. This of course will require judges to fully grasp the capabilities and limitations of technology in eDisclosure to ensure they can rule on disclosure matters appropriately. If they do so, there is every chance the Pilot will have the transformative effect on the costs of disclosure that it aims for.

Matthew Beilin
Senior Consultant

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18
Dec 18’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Message from the Hobs Group CEO, James Duckenfield

In the past year, the whole Group has undergone some incredibly important and exciting changes. As we head towards 2019 and beyond, we will continue to take on new challenges to help our company go from great to greater.

Hobs Repro had a record-breaking year with the acquisition of the Callprint Group. By joining forces, we are now the clear leader for reprographics in the UK. We have made investments in four focus areas:

The very latest digital press technology with Xerox Iridesse. We believe this is the most exciting development in digital print since the launch of HP Indigo in 1993.
A spectrum of scanning services, under the Hobs Exchange brand, covering bulk scanning through to meticulous legal scanning; heritage scanning and A0 flatbed scanning for fine art or old deeds.
Our wide format business has grown and we are investing. We now have eight HP PageWide machines for ultra fast plan and poster printing. We will focus more in this area with project management led services under the Hobs Visual Communications brand.
Automated bid services have seen significant success in AEC, professional services and financial services with our Qvidian®, AutoQ™ and WordIndesign™ technologies.

In Anexsys, the team have been very successful with the Crown Commercial Services framework, serving various government departments. Anexsys’ expert developers have also continued to push technological boundaries by creating a new document management system that is both mobile first and truly cloud computing first. This microservices technology will give our customers unparalleled speed and flexibility in processing and managing their documents. The platform will be launched in January 2019 through Hobs Repro as Hobshare, supporting the expansion of our Exchange business and as Papyrus for eDiscovery and ePresentment through Anexsys.

Hobs 3D, formerly ‘Hobs Studio’, has been rebranded to clearly reflect the services they provide. As well as taking on a new identity, Hobs 3D London has relocated to a state-of-the-art facility in Here East; the home of making, at the beginning of this year. The Olympic Park hosts many high-tech organisations, which places us at the very centre of UK innovation. Hobs 3D have continued to revolutionise the world of VR with the launch of the sustainable VRCUB3D - a mobile, multisensory VR platform engineered from Tri-Wall technology. The first patent pending product from the Group has been used to aid with health and safety training programs for the Thames Tideway project and has won a number of industry awards.

With so many developments underway, we plan to keep up the momentum and look forward to the bright future ahead.

On behalf of the Hobs Group, I’d like to thank the team for all their hard work and our customers for their continued business. I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Warm regards,

James Duckenfield
Hobs Group CEO

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06
Dec 18’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

RPC partners with Anexsys

We are proud to announce that RPC has partnered with Anexsys to deliver an eDiscovery Managed Service.

The RPC Managed Service provides RPC clients with value and price certainty. Up-front investment in data storage infrastructure and software, alongside existing RPC project management capabilities, affords RPC control over the eDiscovery process.

Emily Wyllie-Ballard, RPC’s eDiscovery Manager explained, “This service enables us to scale and accelerate our eDiscovery practice, providing immediate benefits for our clients with more control over the cost of managing the exponential growth of data. Anexsys are well known for creating innovative solutions and we are pleased to partner with them on this venture.”

Rob Crowley, Managing Director of Anexsys commented, “We are delighted to partner with RPC and to provide a leading-edge subscription service focused on scalability, responsiveness and innovative service differentiators. As the electronic disclosure environment continues to evolve, particularly with the advent of the new disclosure rules - relationships such as these will be essential to leveraging the impact of increasing data volumes and reaching new levels of client service.”

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15
Nov 18’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

How eDisclosure can help you cope with a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)

If your personal information is being collected, held or processed by a company, you are a “data subject.” As a data subject, you automatically have certain rights and protections. These include the right to obtain a copy of the personal information companies hold about you by making a data subject access request (“DSAR”). Generally speaking, giving individuals rights in relation to their data should be seen as a positive, but DSARs are being increasingly used as a weapon by ex-employees to put their former companies through a painstaking process of reviewing thousands of documents to produce the data requested.

Once you receive a DSAR, you have one month to provide the personal information requested and failure to comply can result in hefty fines. For companies that do not have well-oiled procedures in place, the prospect of complying with a DSAR can be daunting. Fortunately, using eDisclosure technology can significantly reduce the time and cost of compliance.

I have received a DSAR from a (former) employee, what do I need to do?

A DSAR does not need to be in a prescribed form and it can be made verbally or in writing. Once you have established that the DSAR you have received is valid you can seek an extension of time of up to two months to respond as well as clarification of the personal information being requested. Nevertheless, you would be wise to kick start the following five stage procedure as soon as possible:

1. Identify sources (electronic or otherwise) where documents containing an individual’s personal information may be recorded or stored

You may want to start with the individual’s HR file, or personal folders allocated to the individual. The individual’s email inbox will almost certainly contain their personal information, and you should also consider which other individuals are likely to have exchanged the individual’s personal information.

2. Reduce the number of documents that need to be reviewed for personal information to a manageable size

Using the following eDisclosure techniques will help you identify where the personal information is stored and will reduce the number of documents for review to a more manageable volume:

Filtering: Use keywords and date range filtering to restrict the documents for review to a limited number.

Email Threading: Identify all emails within the same ‘conversation’ and present only the final emails in each conversation for review. This reduces the amount of repeated content for reviewers.

Near Deduplication: Group together documents during your review so that the same reviewer sees similar documents in sequence, improving the efficiency of your review.

3. Locate the individual’s personal information in the documents found in those data sources

Using specialist tools such as Ayfie’s Supervisor to identify personal information in your documents, reduces the burden of manually searching each document. Supervisor applies next-generation natural language processing and machine learning technology to locate the personal information within the documents you have and indicates where it is stored.

Further time can be saved by outsourcing the review of the documents to a team of document review specialists. Completing the review inside the one-month time limit can be challenging. Using seasoned reviewers will ensure the DSAR is complied with inside the deadline.

4. Ensure no personal information relating to another individual or legally privileged material is inadvertently provided to the individual

Using bespoke redaction software simplifies the process of locating repeat instances of personal or privileged information requiring redaction, ensuring the individual only receives their personal information and no one else’s.

RTK.Redact allows you to apply redactions made to a standalone document to duplicate copies, ensuring consistency in your redactions.

5. Provide the individual with copies of the personal information

Rather than spending time compiling copies of documents or personal information, copies can be exported from your eDisclosure review platform with ease.

If you are interested in hearing more about how Anexsys can assist with your DSAR, please email solutions@anexsys.com for further information.

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24
Oct 18’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Matthew Beilin joins team of eDiscovery specialists after life as a litigator

After working as a solicitor at a boutique city law firm, Matthew Beilin has now joined a team of eDiscovery specialists at Anexsys London. In this post he shares some of his thoughts after a month in the role:

Following in the footsteps of many a solicitor before me, I have made the leap out of private practice and into the world of legal tech. I joined a firm of eDiscovery specialists just over a month ago. I am no stranger to eDiscovery software and I used it regularly whilst practicing as a litigator. For the uninitiated, eDiscovery can be simply defined as the process by which potentially relevant electronic evidence in legal proceedings is collected, made searchable and reviewed. It requires the handling of huge and ever-increasing volumes of data, and a key motivator in my decision to take on this role, was the opportunity to gain a better understanding of how the legal industry is taming and leveraging “Big Data,” so that it can be used to our advantage.

Funnily enough, a lot of the pre-conceived notions I had about what it would be like to work for a tech company (all heavily informed by film and TV) are more or less accurate: computer screens filled with lines of unintelligible code, widespread use of acronyms and abbreviations and a team of people who seem to find the quirks in the software they work with hilarious.

As expected, the pace is lightning quick: the time you are afforded as a litigator to contemplate your work and reach decisions is something you have no choice but to let go of. Solicitors will usually call upon eDiscovery specialists when their backs are up against wall and there is a constant pressure to deliver. What I had not counted on was the creativity involved in solving tech related problems (often the answer is not written down in a book or manual) and observing that process first-hand and having the opportunity to query the methodology employed, has been a great learning curve. I think that all solicitors would benefit from a similar experience, as a sort of immersion therapy into all things tech.

Having the benefit of the view from the other side of the fence has given me a wider understanding of how solicitors approach technology and how the acceptance of its benefits has not necessarily translated to its widespread use. In litigation, the employment of eDiscovery software is standard practice, but for most senior solicitors, getting to grips with it is still not a priority. That task is instead left to junior associates or dedicated litigation support teams. It is a workable solution and it gives more tech minded solicitors the opportunity to diversify their skill set, but it does pose a slight problem, as clients would probably benefit most if the professionals with the most legal experience working on their case (i.e. the partner or senior solicitor) took the time to truly understand the tools at their disposal.

There are a few things I miss about being a solicitor. There is something very satisfying and very human about considering the facts of your client’s case and using your understanding of the law, experience and intuition to build an argument that will hopefully convince a judge to take your client’s side. All the glory belongs to you and the rest of the legal team. Working in a tech company, the technology takes centre stage, which to some extent creates a degree of separation between you and the client you are working for.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of my role so far has been gaining an appreciation of where eDiscovery fits in an industry doing its best to navigate unknown waters. eDiscovery software has already had its moment in the sun: it is part and parcel of the disclosure phase of litigation and has already overcome the hurdle of integrating itself into standard legal practice (something legal tech relevant to other disciplines of law is still in the process of negotiating). It employs artificial intelligence techniques (supervised / unsupervised machine learning, natural language processing etc) which are evangelised at every corner of the internet and there is huge potential for current practices to be improved and new ones to be invented. Despite this, it does not attract the fanfare currently enjoyed by other areas of legal tech. Nearly all the litigators I know still see disclosure as the millstone around the neck of the litigation process: a costs headache which is time consuming, complex and unpredictable. Perhaps the key to overcoming these issues will be the further development of the technologies surrounding eDiscovery and the more widespread adoption and understanding of their use. With new legislation on the horizon (http://tiny.cc/9ded0y), which aims to do just that, eDiscovery will hopefully be something solicitors appreciate as they did before, and I dare say enjoy, before too long.

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14
Dec 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys land stateside for Relativity Fest

Relativity Fest 2017 - Chicago, Illinois

Anexsys were delighted to play a vital part in this year’s Relativity Fest. In October, the team travelled to Chicago, Illinois to attend the eDiscovery conference which attracted almost 2,000 industry professionals in the legal sector.

Relativity is a document review platform where large volumes of electronic data is stored. Corporations and law firms use this software to find evidence which can be used in court. It is used by over 160,000 individual users, belonging to more than 13,000 unique organisations in over 40 countries around the globe. Collectively, Anexsys has over a decade of experience in developing applications for Relativity.

Relativity Fest has a large Developer community and this year Stuart Craft (Head of Software Development) and Charlotte Murray (Software Engineering Consultant) from Anexsys London, were recognised at the Developer Summit as top contributors to the community's help site – an incredible achievement!

Jon Chan, Director of Technical Services at Anexsys also delivered a presentation. Jon revealed several ways to enhance Relativity's features and demonstrated the benefits of using the software.

Whilst in Chicago, the team attended a variety of sessions and discussions on topics ranging from the new features of Relativity Analytics, to software testing within Relativity. During the Relativity Fest keynote speech, Andrew Sieja, Founder and CEO of Relativity, unveiled some exciting new features coming to the platform, including improvements to Relativity Assisted Review and updates to the security around Relativity. Attending this event was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Relativity and to also share Anexsys’ experience with the software.

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22
Nov 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys receives ISO 9001:2015 certification

ISO 9001 is the world's most recognised quality management standard within an organisation.

By achieving our certification, Anexsys have demonstrated to customers and suppliers that the systems we have in place meet the high standards set out by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).

To gain the certification, Anexsys showed dedication and commitment to meeting customers’ needs, operating efficient management processes and delivering consistent, good quality products and services.

We are also ISO 27001 : 2013 accredited for our commitment to information security management. If you would like to check the validity of our ISO 9001 certification or find out more about the principles we follow, please get in touch today, we would be delighted to speak with you.

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01
Nov 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys sign partnership with leading text analytics provider ayfie, Inc.

Anexsys is pleased to announce our partnership with ayfie, Inc., the leading provider of ayfie Inspector for Relativity - a text analytics engine used in a variety of industries and disciplines.

Anexsys will use the ayfie Inspector for Relativity application to focus on contract analytics workflows to provide eDiscovery customers with contractual insights during the M&A diligence process. Using Relativity’s review, workflow and reporting capabilities, Anexsys can tailor the contract review experience to meet the engagement-specific requirements of clients.

Rob Crowley, managing director at Anexsys commented, ‘The use of contract analytics and AI has become a regular talking point in the legal industry over the last year. Working closely with the ayfie team, we have created a powerful, flexible contract review platform that enables legal teams to filter contract value, expire dates and other contract-specific metadata to prioritize high-risk contracts and demote low-risk or expiring contracts. I’m excited to offer ayfie’s advanced analytics capabilities as an on-demand service hosted in Relativity, backed by Anexsys’ eDiscovery consultants.’

Rob Wescott, CRO at ayfie, Inc stated, ‘For the past few months, Anexsys has served as a development partner with ayfie to create our new application, ayfie Inspector for Relativity. We’re excited to continue working with them as they provide our solution to their customers and we’re looking forward to entering a new market in the UK for M&A and other legal processes.’

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30
Oct 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

15,267 pages manually checked in under 24 hours

COMPLETING PINSENT MASONS LLP TRIAL BUNDLE PROJECT IN RECORD TIME

CHALLENGE
Pinsent Masons LLP, an international law firm, were working on a high-value, high-profile case relating to a top UK sport. Working to a fixed-court deadline, Anexsys were asked to produce four sets of critical trial bundles in under 24 hours. In addition to producing the hard copy bundles, Pinsent Masons LLP also wanted a fully searchable eBible – an indexed electronic document filing system.

Key Challenges:

Complete the process in under 24 hours
Print and file 304 paginated documents
Maintain accuracy and manually check each trial bundle
Create a fully searchable eBible.

SOLUTION
Comprising of a combination of witness statements, exhibits and correspondence, each trial bundle adhered to an index provided by the law firm; and contained 304 identically paginated documents. As the case was on-going, the Anexsys team printed and inserted additional information, as and when the index was updated.

Combining state-of-the-art digital photocopying and printing equipment, specifically designed to complete high-demand projects, the Anexsys team used their extensive experience to produce all four bundles ahead of time. They implemented real-time changes when needed and hand-turned all 15,267 pages to ensure their complete accuracy.

To create a fully searchable eBible, Anexsys’ proprietary DocumentFolio software was used. This made the documents easier to navigate, filter and read, which saved time, storage space and money. The eBible also made distributing the documents much simpler and removed the need to print further hard copies for future use as well as opening up limited office space for storage.

THE RESULT
The trial bundles were delivered ahead of time. All four bundles were identical and accurately paginated.

Once each document was printed and thoroughly quality checked, the team personally delivered the bundles back to Pinsent Masons LLP using their secure, in-house courier service – ensuring a completely trustworthy and accurate, quality service.

“The level of service is unbelievable. Anexsys’ staff are attentive, always willing to assist and great to work with. No deadline is too soon for their team. Time and time again, they consistently perform over and above our expectations.” Alexander Richardson, Solicitor for Pinsent Masons LLP

For more, please visit our trial bundle printing page.

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11
Oct 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

e-Disclosure Events: The changing face of e-Disclosure

Anexsys are delighted to present our series of e-Disclosure events which are kindly presented in association with Squire Patton Boggs.

The changing face of e-Disclosure; practical insights for your legal teams

In this engaging, sociable event, we will explore the history, evolution and impact of e-Disclosure.

We will share how effective e-Disclosure can give legal teams an edge today, and how things might look in the future.

You can attend our events in one of three locations. We hope you will be able to join us:

Leeds - 28th November - 6pm

Squire Patton Boggs, 6 Wellington Pl, Leeds LS1 4AP

Book your place on the Leeds event here

Birmingham - 29th November - 6pm

Squire Patton Boggs, 148 Edmund St, Birmingham B3 2JR

Book your place on the Birmingham event here

Manchester - 30th November - 6pm

Squire Patton Boggs, Trinity Court, 16 John Dalton St, Manchester M60 8HS

Book your place on the Manchester event here

Event Schedule:

18:00 Networking

18:30 Presentation

19:30 Networking / Questions

Canapes/Snacks & drinks included.

Further Information:

Electronic disclosure (e-Disclosure) is any process in which electronic data is identified, located, secured, and searched with the purpose of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case.

For more information see our e-Disclosure page. If you have any questions about these events please contact your local Anexsys.

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29
Aug 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Relativity Fest London Recap

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Relativity Fest London Recap - April 2017

In case you couldn't join us, here's our Relativity Fest London recap:

We were thrilled to co-host with kCura hosted the first ever Relativity Developer User Group at RelativityFest London 2017 in April 2017. As the 5^th annual Relativity event hosted by kCura in London, it was attended by over 450 members of the UK’s eDiscovery community.

Our software team have put together their reflections on the User Group below - we'd be delighted to hear more insights from the Developer Community, so please get in touch.

During the User Group, we talked through an overview of one of Anexsys’ RTK (Review Tool Kit) products and discussed Relativity’s APIs, custom objects (RDOs), and all the ways we love to build software on top of Relativity. We broke out into groups to look at an example challenge and structured a solution using Relativity’s APIs and other extension points. We also discussed our ‘Tips and Tricks’ for developing software on top of Relativity, and the Developer Experience Roadmap from Relativity.

The sample application we ran through was our native Excel redaction software, RTK.ExcelRedact. We talked about the different elements of the Relativity extensibility points that make up the application, such as:

RDOs (Relativity Dynamic Objects)

In this Relativity Fest London recap we don't need to tell you how RDOs are the ‘building blocks’ of Relativity Applications. They behave much like Document objects, in that they can have views, fields, and layouts – but they are much more flexible. We use RDOs in RTK.ExcelRedact to store values that help with the configuration of the software, such as settings to use during the processing or saving of documents. One key feature is that RDOs allow us to load data into fields on the Document object based on a ‘Field Mapping’ stored in the RDO.

Event Handlers

Event handlers manage everything from data validation to controlling the flow of data. They are triggered by user interaction, either on an object or Document save or on a Console.

We use a Pre-Save Event Handler on a custom Layout which allows a user to prepare an Excel for redaction. This performs some validation on the settings that the user has chosen, then adds the Excel to a work queue to be picked up by a Custom Agent which will run the initial processing.

We also use Post-Install event handlers to create proprietary SQL tables within the workspace’s database that store processing and redaction information required for RTK.ExcelRedact. The Install Event Handlers are useful for setting up this information, along with any configuration options that may be required for the software.

Custom Agents

Agents perform long-running background tasks like OCR and Imaging, but Custom Agents can also be written to run tasks specific to your application. Computationally intensive work should be distributed to Agents.

In RTK.ExcelRedact, Custom Agents do much of the work when processing Excels or applying redactions. Agents are ideal for this job as they can perform long-running tasks without locking up the rest of the workspace, and can run repeatedly at specified intervals to check queues for additional work.

ExcelRedact follows a ‘Manager-Worker’ design where a single manager agent per instance is responsible for distributing work, and one or more worker agents can pick up jobs from a queue and process them as needed.

Custom Pages

A Custom Page is a web page, deployed by Relativity, to display information or allow users to interact with data in a way that Relativity limits. These can be used for advanced data inputs, graphics, or visualisations of data.

ExcelRedact uses a Custom Page to display an Excel document to a user for redaction. We can display custom tools, options, and information with the extra flexibility a Custom Page allows us.

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31
Jul 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Developing Relativity Applications

Anexsys collectively has over a decade of experience in developing Relativity applications, and we’ve picked up a lot of tips and tricks along the way. We’ve learned some of our development lessons in interesting ways and have established a set of tools and practices that we use on a daily basis when developing our software.

Do put all your eggs in one basket: RTK. Manager Workspace

This is a workspace that we create in every Relativity instance that has any of our software products installed. It allows us to create a ‘base’ for all our applications and have a centralised store for all our application data.
This workspace contains all our queue tables for the work our agents do. By making our job and queue tables RDOs rather than SQL tables, we let front end users see the status of jobs in the queue without having to run SQL queries.
By having a centralised workspace for these types of objects, we can also have an application installed in several different workspaces and only have to use one queue table.

A stitch in time saves 5000 lines of code: Custom Utilities Package

We’ve written a custom utilities package which is a local NuGet package and is available to all our developers. NuGet is a package manager for Visual Studio and allows us to include a lot of code and functionality from the start. Our internal package is hosted on a network drive and makes sure that each developer has access to the most up-to-date version of the package.
Through developing Relativity applications, we discovered this package contains a lot of the Relativity actions that we perform frequently – mostly likely repeatable code that we use in multiple projects. For example, this Relativity package has functions to:
- Get the version of Relativity we’re working with.
- Get the workspace ID of our RTK.Manager workspace, mentioned above.
- Add items to a job queue.
- Handle the configuration settings in the RTK.Manager workspace.
The Utilities Package also handles licensing and configuration values for all our Relativity applications. We are able to fine-tune any instance-wide values, like the log level for a specific application, and prevents us from having to hard code any values in our software. It gives us peace of mind when deploying to other instances of Relativity that there is nothing hard coded that may break the application.

Recognise when history repeats itself: Logging

Later versions of Relativity have logging functionality available through the APIs but occasionally we must develop and support software for older versions (the oldest version of Relativity we currently support is 8.2). For these older pieces of software, we must use our custom logging functionality.
Again, we have an RDO in our RTK.Manager workspace which makes it easy for users to see each entry in the logs without having to run any SQL queries. We have functions in our Utilities Package that allow us to log to this RDO.

If at first you do succeed – test, test, test again: Testing

Finally, we must perform thorough testing on our Relativity applications before they can be deployed to customers. We have found that the best way to do this is to abstract our business logic from our Relativity functionality as much as possible. We can then run unit tests on our business logic and use end-to-end testing for any Relativity interactions.

Anexsys’ experience in developing Relativity applications has given us a good grounding in the fundamentals and some useful tips and tricks for writing these types of software.

Whether you’ve never written anything more complex than a simple SQL script, or you’ve been writing software for Relativity since the first Event Handler Framework, we’d love to hear any lessons you’ve learned on your development journey. Get in touch!

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01
Jun 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys gains place on pan-government eDisclosure service framework

The eDisclosure service framework is available for use by a wide range of bodies, including central government departments and their arm's length bodies and agencies, non-departmental public bodies, NHS bodies, and local authorities.

Electronic disclosure, or eDisclosure, is the process of identifying, acquiring and processing sometimes vast quantities of electronically stored information for review, analysis, production, and ultimately presentation in judicial proceedings. The eDisclosure service framework means that public bodies, from policing to social care, could access private sector support and skills from a pre-contracted, pre-approved list of suppliers without undertaking their own independent full-length procurement exercises.

“We are thrilled to announce our place on this important eDisclosure service framework” Eleanor Pyemont, Anexsys’ Managing Consultant lead on public sector services said. “Having spent the first decade of my career as a public servant, and been hands-on in implementing eDisclosure services on the client-side, I am passionate about the innovation and savings that eDisclosure expertise can bring to the public sector. By bringing in highly-technical expertise via the eDisclosure service framework, public sector leaders can focus their expenditure on outcomes for the public, releasing important time and money to their public-facing operational services - where it matters most to their service users”.

The eDisclosure service framework will allow public service leaders from across the UK to access end-to-end services for a full-range of potential scenarios; from public inquiry disclosure to responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. “Our work with public sector clients to date has been extremely technically and intellectually rewarding,” said Jon Chan, Anexsys’ Director of Technical Services, “our teams have relished the opportunity to use their technical insight, and innovative problem-solving strategies to solve the unique data challenges facing the public sector. We can’t wait to do more.”

“Information Governance - understanding what data you have, where it is and how it is managed - is a cornerstone for public service use of eDisclosure services”. Eleanor continued, “Many public-sector institutions have extensive organisational histories; their individual legacies and the rapid evolution from a paper-based to a digital world has created significant challenges for everyone. Leaders are often managing vast volumes of data across many sites, and numerous systems in diverse formats. This can make responding to statutory and legal obligations very challenging and resource intensive. We are ready to use our expertise to take on that challenge through the eDisclosure service framework and help leaders focus on the areas where the public want them most”.

The eDisclosure service framework covers the full range of Government Security Classifications, enabling even the most sensitive areas of the public sector to access the innovation and expertise of the UK’s growing legal technology sector. “The public’s confidence in all areas of the public sector, from health to policing, is based on trust and security. Second-to-none information security of private sector partners plays a critical role in building that trust - now more than ever.” Jon continued, “Our HMG Security Checked consultants, as well as our ISO 27001, and Cyber Essentials certifications demonstrate our commitment and understanding of information, physical and human resource-related security.”

For more information about eDisclosure, contact one of our eDisclosure team for an informal discussion.

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04
May 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys achieves ISO 27001:2013 certification throughout five UK cities

Anexsys today announced that they have achieved the demanding global standard of information security best practice, ISO 27001:2013.

Anexsys provides a full range of litigation support services to law firms, corporations and public sector organisations across the UK, Europe and Middle East. With offices in London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds and Birmingham, Anexsys now boasts ISO 27001 accreditation in every location.

Anexsys have embedded an outstanding suite of controls at the heart of their business to systematise their response to any and all information security concerns.

Rob Crowley, Managing Director comments: “We are extremely pleased to have achieved ISO27001 alongside our recent Cyber Essentials certification. We have always taken the most rigorous approach to information security throughout our services; gaining ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials throughout our entire operation is testament to the security and quality of service we provide to our clients.”

Anexsys has a growing multi-disciplinary Information Governance service, enabling public and private sector organisations to both manage their information risk whilst maximising the value and impact of their information assets. Having the ISO 27001 accreditation means that Anexsys’ customers can be assured of a stringent approach to information security and that risks have been mitigated.

“The ISO 27001 standard requires excellence in every area of information security. We are proud to have our commitment to our clients’ information security formally recognised,” said Jon Chan, Anexsys’ Director of Technical Services, adding, “To have ISO 27001 alongside our UK Government Cyber Essentials and ISO 9001 accreditation sets us up for a really bright start to 2017/18.”

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02
May 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys gains Cyber Essentials certification

Anexsys has gained Cyber Essentials certification, helping to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks. This certification demonstrates that they take cyber security seriously and have taken essential precautions.

Risk management is the fundamental starting point for organisations to take action to protect their information. However, given the nature of the threat, Government believes that action begins with a core set of security controls which all organisations should implement.

The Cyber Essentials scheme has been developed by Government and industry and covers the basics of cyber security in an organisation’s corporate IT system.

Cyber Essentials certification defines a set of controls which, when properly implemented, provide organisations with basic protection from the most prevalent forms of threats coming from the Internet. It provides a clear statement of the basic controls all organisations should implement to mitigate the risk from common internet based threats. Implementation of these controls can significantly reduce the risk of cyber-attacks.

*Anexsys have since received Cyber Essentials Plus*

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26
Apr 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys opens secure premises in Manchester to support regional expansion

Anexsys, a leading independent legal technology and consultancy organisation, have opened a new 6000 sq. foot office in the centre of Manchester to support Anexsys’ regional expansion. The new secure premises have been designed with security and future business expansion in mind.

The office features a large open plan reprographics facility, dedicated eDiscovery and forensic labs, scanning and document review rooms, and a highly secure evidence safe. The building is protected by an advanced alarm system, 24 hour CCTV, alongside an audited swipe card entry system.

“Anexsys is one of only a handful of eDiscovery and forensic providers in the regions, and the only one to hold Relativity Best in Service and ISO27001,” Louise Jackson, Head of Technical Services Manchester said. “Our new office will enable Anexsys to better support growing client demand, and to facilitate our expanding portfolio of services, including secure document scanning and legal document review.”

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29
Mar 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys sponsor Women in The Law and Business Event in Manchester

WOMEN IN THE LAW AND BUSINESS UK, HAVE ANOTHER RESOUNDING SUCCESS WITH THEIR “BOLD FOR CHANGE” MESSAGE ON DIVERSITY, DELIVERED FROM PRESIDENT OF THE SUPREME COURT IN MANCHESTER

Honourary guest speakers Angela Holdsworth, Lady Neuberger & The Rt. Hon Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court

Women in The Law and Business UK impress yet again with their first event of the year. The Rt. Hon Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court and Angela Holdsworth, Lady Neuberger, both acted as guest speakers during the event. Rt. Hon Lord Neuberger’s resolute message on acting “bold for change” on diversity was met with resounding applause. The sell-out event hosted guests from the Judiciary, the Bar, as well as Solicitors and Legal Academics. The event took place on Thursday 16^th March 2017 at the Midland Hotel, with some calling it “the hottest ticket in town”! Attendees included; The Recorder of Manchester, HHJ D Stockdale, Mrs Justice Geraldine Andrews, HHJ Henandez, HHJ Manley, HHJ Goddard QC, HHJ Nicholls (first female judge in crime at Liverpool CC), HHJ Lesley Newton (Resident Family Judge for Manchester), Sir Mark Hedley (retired High Court Judge). Some of the solicitors in attendance included: Ros Bever of Irwin Mitchell, Melanie McGuirk of Panonne and Charlotte Percy of Slater and Gordon Lawyers. Other special guests included Marnie Millard (Managing Director of Vimto), Karen Campbell-Williams (Partner of Grant Thornton), as well as other various members within both Commerce and Arts industries.

Women in the Law and Business UK was established back in 2012, and has since then had an impressive list of guest speakers. Some of which include; Lady Hale of Richmond (Deputy President of the Supreme Court), Mrs Justice Cox, DBE (President of AWB), and Lady Justice Hallett, DBE (Vice President of the Court of Appeal). Their events are open to members of the judiciary, the Bar Solicitors, in house Counsel and academics in the Law.

Sally Penni, practicing Barrister of Kenworthy’s Chambers, acted as the evening’s host. During the honorary guest speaker’s speech Rt. Hon Lord Neuberger spoke about the importance of diversity within the Judiciary, which was then followed by an informative Q and A from the audience. This touched on topics such as the next steps that needed to be taken to ensure this bold change ensued. The over-arching message throughout the event was to be “bold for change” on diversity, which happens to coincide with the recent celebration of International Women’s Day a week prior.

The music was provided by Manchester’s very own Inspirational Voices, Songs of Praise - Choir of the Year 2016, a community gospel choir which included both Nigel Poole QC of Kings chambers (MLA 2016 Barrister of the year Finalist) and Wayne Ellington (Choir Founder and Director).

The evening was concluded with a raffle, with prizes donated by Paula Jamehia from PIB Insurance, Investec Wealth and Investment, The Botanist, Slater and Gordon Lawyers, Contact Theatre, Royal Exchange Theatre, Esther Pet Photography and Evidential 3D modelling. Prizes included; a golf lesson, Jo Malone beauty products and candles, a Slattery chocolate hamper plus much more. The total money raised by the event was £1068 which will be donated to; Breast Cancer prevent, Royal Free Hospital and RMCH.

Ben Soothhill, Louise Jackson & Paul Cooper from Anexsys Manchester

Sam Hillas of the Supreme Court, Alison Barnet of Blackstones Solicitors, and Sam Kendrick from Anexsys

Women in The Law Guests and Sponsors

To find out more about or join Women in the Law UK and find out about their upcoming CPD events please email womeninthelaw2012@gmail.com

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08
Mar 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys Continues Relativity Best in Service Status

Anexsys, a leading independent legal technology and consultancy organisation, announced that they have again achieved kCura’s Relativity "Best in Service" designation, which recognises Relativity Authorised Partners who provide an exceptional Relativity experience for end users.

Anexsys, with sites in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester, is a leading legal technology and consultancy business supporting law firms, government departments and corporations throughout the UK and Europe.

“We’re thrilled to continue working with Anexsys as a Relativity Best in Service partner,” Steve Couling, vice president of international at kCura said. “Achieving this distinction is no easy feat; re-certifying shows dedication and a continuity of excellent service.”

Through a voluntary audit, Relativity Best in Service partners demonstrate their expertise and experience hosting projects in Relativity. kCura evaluates these partners’ individual data centres in three areas: technical infrastructure, customer service and product expertise. Additionally, Best in Service partners meet a set of requirements for duration as a hosting partner, size of Relativity installations and core Relativity certifications.

“As one of only seven Best in Service data centres based in Europe, I’m delighted that we have retained the Best in Service designation for the second year running,” adds Jon Chan, technical director of Anexsys. “We are committed to offering our customers an exceptional Relativity experience, enhanced by our dedicated in-house software development team. I look forward to announcing additional innovations built on top of Relativity over the next six months.”

Anexsys provides a full range of litigation support services, including digital forensics, forensic collection by professionals with expert witness experience, data processing, document hosting, managed document review and hard copy services. Anexsys also builds innovative software to extend, enhance and magnify the capabilities of Relativity, with applications listed on the Relativity Ecosystem.

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03
Jan 17’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Legal technology and consultancy firm Anexsys expands its operational reach following acquisition of K2 Legal Support

Anexsys, part of the Hobs Group, have acquired legal support company K2, creating the largest dedicated legal print and scanning business in the UK.

Anexsys provide leading e-Discovery, digital forensic services, managed hosted legal systems as well as printing and scanning for a range of legal, corporate and Government clients. Anexsys has existing facilities, in London and Manchester. K2 operate out of Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. The acquisition of K2 will allow Anexsys to continue to support law firms locally, and offer extended coverage for national law firms.

Rob Crowley, Managing Director of Anexsys, said: “K2 have built a fantastic reputation in the legal print industry over the last ten years. I’m delighted that K2’s experienced team will be joining us and that we will be able to provide national coverage of new and existing services.”

Rob adds; “Existing K2 customers can expect a seamless continuation of legal print and scanning services along with access to a range of exciting additional services and benefits offered by Anexsys and the Hobs Group. I’m especially looking forward to working with the existing K2 customers and helping them explore e-Discovery, hosted Relativity and our proprietary software Documentfolio, an intuitive e-Bible collation tool, created by our in-house software development team.”

For more information contact one of the five Anexsys offices.

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12
Dec 16’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

James Duckenfield announced as new CEO of the Hobs Group.

James Duckenfield has been appointed as the new CEO of the Hobs Group. Kieran O’Brien will continue his involvement with the company as a non-executive director.

James has already signaled plans to increase both geographical coverage and improve capability with the Hobs Group. James comments: “I’m excited to have taken over the reins from Kieran O’Brien. He has built a great company with a bright future. We’ve ambitious plans for both organic and inorganic growth and I want to see the Hobs business almost double by 2020.”

Since the beginning of September, James has been travelling the country to learn the Hobs business. “I’ve been delighted to find lots of passion and dedication to our customers. Our people really are our greatest asset; it’s our team’s dedication to excellent service and quality that has enabled the business to grow and gain a superlative reputation. There’s huge potential so watch this space for more news!”

The Hobs Group offers a wide range of services, however many customers don’t always know about all the parts of Hobs Group. The synergies might not be obvious; resolving this will give the Group a big boost. James has already created a new website, HobsGroup.co.uk, to help start this familiarisation. There is also a strategic intent for all four parts of the company:

Hobs Repro, our printing, content management and display graphics business, will increase its geographical coverage and customer share in existing cities. Inorganic growth will also come from acquisition of revenue or capabilities where we believe there is a strategic need
Hobs On-Site, our facilities management business, is looking for strategic partners to grow its managed print rooms and managed/digital mailroom business
Hobs Studio, our 3D printing and visualisations business, will achieve both organic and in-organic growth primarily in the AEC sector but we are considering additional verticals
Anexsys, our legal reprographics and e-Discovery/e-Disclosure business, will increase its geographical coverage especially in e-Discovery and digital forensics. We will protect our IP and sell it with other legal systems as a managed service.

About James Duckenfield

James Duckenfield has joined us from Xerox where he was running four US businesses in their HR Services organization. Previously James was Xerox’s Chief Innovation Officer, Consulting and Analytics Services and joined Xerox through the sale of his business, NewField IT which he co-founded in 2003. NewField IT is an international consulting, analytics and software business focusing on workplace and print optimization.

James has worked in the print industry for most of his career starting at Kodak and then running Ricoh’s production printing and graphics colour businesses and founding Ricoh’s Imaging Systems Business in the UK.

James is a Liveryman of the Stationer’s Company and a graduate of Imperial College where he read Chemistry.

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05
Oct 16’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys to support Queen Mary University London in training the next generation of students in eDisclosure technology

Anexsys will be delivering a series of lectures as part of a new eDisclosure masters course run by the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University London starting this week.

Over a series of 11 weeks, students will be walked through the core features of the leading eDisclosure review platform, Relativity whilst working through a scenario which covers understanding electronic data, filtering it, application of searches including the use of analytics technologies, designing and implementing a review workflow, resulting in the generation of presentation bundles.

Led by Professor Ian Walden, this is a groundbreaking course and the first of it's kind outside of the US which sets to arm future lawyers with the practical experience they need in order to sit in front of a review tool, and to work effectively. With electronic documents being a central part in the majority of contemporary disputes.

Alongside the practical sessions, students will be exposed to a number of guest speakers and thought leaders from across the eDisclosure industry including Chris Dale of the eDisclosure Information Project, Marie Clare O'Hara, partner at Bevan Brittan, Andrew Haslam, eDisclosure Project Manager at Squire Patton Boggs, Maggi Healey (who also designed and has worked tireless to bring this course to life) a former litigator now at The Review People, and Michael Wheater, barrister at Hardwicke Chambers.

For more information, contact us at info@anexsys.com or view the full press release here.

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28
Apr 16’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

We’re showcasing the RTK Suite of Relativity Integrations at the London #RelativityRoadshow

Anexsys to Showcase RTK.Message, RTK.eBible and RTK.ExcelRedact at kCura’s Relativity Spring Roadshow in London

Anexsys to share one-on-one demos of RTK.Message, RTK.eBible and RTK.ExcelRedact at annual Relativity Spring Roadshow

Press Release – CHICAGO, IL – Thursday 28 April, 2016 – Anexsys today announced they will be demoing RTK.Message, RTK.eBible and RTK.ExcelRedact, which extends the capabilities of Relativity, to attendees of the Relativity Spring Roadshow in London on May 3. Demos will be held at the evening reception of the Roadshow at the Grange St. Paul’s Hotel beginning at 8 p.m.

The well-adopted RTK Suite of applications built on Relativity solves a number of every day challenges, including handing messaging data from applications such as Bloomberg and Social Media, as well as creating portable, off-line exports of documents, and native redaction workflows for Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Technical Director, Jon Chan, said “Anexsys’ consultants spent a lot of time with our clients supporting them on electronic discovery matters and are exposed to many of the daily challenges our clients face. Our in-house software developers have been working hard this year to add additional functionality to our existing features, as well as respond to demand for new products which solve previously unsolved problems. At Anexsys, we pride ourselves on our ability to create custom products which utilize the powerful Relativity platform and we look forward to showcasing these to an international audience at the London stop of the Relativity Spring Roadshow.”

Relativity is a platform that allows litigation support professionals, independent consultants, and third-party software providers to design, build, and integrate applications to extend its functionality. The RTK Suite of products is featured in the Relativity Ecosystem, which includes best-in-breed integrations and highly customized products for customers to pick and choose the solutions that best suit their unique workflows.

“It’s great to see Anexsys continually building applications to make e-discovery more efficient for our customers,” said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of kCura. “We’re really looking forward to connecting with our UK community next week in London, and it’s exciting that Anexsys will be joining us to show off the platform in action.”

Learn more about the Relativity Spring Roadshow.

About Anexsys

Anexsys was established in 2004 and has become one of the leading independent suppliers of litigation support and document management solutions to law firms in the UK. With offices in the 3 main legal centres of London, Manchester and Bristol, we have an unparalleled UK reach and are also able to service clients based in Europe and the Middle East. Anexsys’ Relativity environment is hosted in a secure, London-based ISO27001-accredited datacenter which is monitored 24x7 and regularly security tested. Anexsys’ team is made up of a mixture of ex Big 4 managers, technologists and litigation support professionals to ensure that we are able to place the right team on your engagements. We’re one of only a handful of providers remaining who provide hard copy services, through to data processing, hosted review and managed document review services. Anexsys Solutions provide a range of complementary services including the provision of fully managed Relativity solutions and infrastructure support, as well as bespoke software development using the Relativity platform.

About kCura
Recognized as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2015 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant, kCura are the developers of the e-discovery software Relativity. Relativity has more than 130,000 active users in more than 40 countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice and more than 190 of the Am Law 200. kCura helps corporations, law firms, and government agencies—numbering more than 10,000 organizations—meet unstructured data challenges by installing Relativity on-premises and providing hosted, on-demand solutions through a global network of partners. kCura has been named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for five consecutive years. Please contact kCura at sales@kcura.com or visit www.kcura.com for more information.

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25
Nov 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Managing Duplication in eDisclosure

The volume of duplicate documents which remain following standard deduplication is a common cause of frustration for legal teams, particularly when faced with vast volumes of documents and tight review deadlines.

The level of duplication can appear exaggerated when the family relationship of documents is overlooked, causing further frustration and confusion as to why seemingly duplicate documents are presented for review more than once.

This article considers approaches and solutions available to help manage and eliminate duplicate documents. Some are ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions built into popular document review platforms, others are customised solutions which require technical input from skilled technicians.

Standard Deduplication

The standard approach to de-duplicating data in eDisclosure is to compare MD5 hashes (the equivalent of a digital fingerprint) at a family level, either on a custodian or global basis. By way of an example, a parent document (eg. an email) and its attachments are considered collectively as part of the deduplication process. Identical documents are attributed with identical MD5 hashes.

As the name suggests, family level deduplication analyses duplication as between complete families of documents, excluding duplicate families and ensuring only one copy of a family survives processing and is published for review. The process is largely automatic, requires very little human input and allows for large volumes of duplicate documents to be automatically culled.

A degree of duplication will almost always remain following standard deduplication, particularly where identical email attachments have been received, forwarded and otherwise circulated as part of different email chains. Such circulation and receipt of documents may be highly relevant (for context reasons) to a review. The more aggressive item-level deduplication will remove more documents as part of the deduplication process at the expense of context, for example only presenting one copy of an attachment to different emails.

A range of factors also exist which can undermine standard deduplication; many associated with the ways in which organisations manage information, including the use of email archiving systems (eg. Mimecast) and document management repositories (eg. Filesite). These can impact upon the content of documents and cause different MD5 hashes to be generated for seemingly identical documents.

Custom deduplication

Where seemingly duplicate information is escaping the deduplication process, a customised approach can be applied to defensibly eliminate this information, reduce reviewable document counts and help manage the costs of the disclosure process.

The first stage in this process involves a technician interrogating data to identify the reasons why documents are escaping deduplication.

The most common examples we experience are caused by email archiving or storage systems which strip out attachments, insert references or otherwise adjust the text of a document. Duplication then fails, for example, as between an email recovered from an archived source and one recovered from a live mailbox, despite the obvious similarities between the documents.

It is usually straightforward to identify sample documents for comparison and a simple review of metadata can identify obvious characteristics which have undermined deduplication. As innocuous as it might sound, the simple act of a storage system adding unique identifier strings to an email subject, for example as filesite does, can mean two seemingly identical emails not being considered duplicates.

Obvious characteristics aside, archiving software can also strip out attachments and add text to the body of documents. Missing attachments are relatively easy to spot, however document text should be analysed with greater care and subjected to more rigorous testing.

Document text can be compared by running it through a ‘diffing tool’ (this article assumes everyone has a favourite) to identify differences. If the tool identifies valid differences between the documents, then you are out of luck and the documents are not duplicates. However, you may succeed in identifying text laid down by software which can validly be ignored for the purposes of deduplication.

The solution

With causes identified, a customised process can be applied to the documents which disregards the identified differences between the documents which previously undermined deduplication. New data is generated exclusively for this purpose, with no original metadata being compromised and native documents remaining untouched.

The original deduplication process will have been applied during data processing and it will be typical to refine this process using another platform, for example SQL or a custom built software solution.

SQL

SQL has a useful function which allows hashes to be generated according to selected characteristics of a document. By the time duplication issues are encountered, data has typically been loaded into a database for review, therefore using SQL to address duplication has the obvious advantage that the data is already in a convenient format and requires little organisation before the process can be applied.

There is a limit to the amount of information can be hashed in SQL though, so you may have to be selective over the information used. The more information you look at, the better the accuracy of the custom process, therefore SQL may become too “loose” an approach, in which case custom built software will be preferable.

Custom software

Generic pieces of software exist which will generate document hashes, however at Anexsys we have the expertise to create customised software to do this, with the following advantages:

complete control over the process
transparent and defensible
capable of independent validation
no size limitations, the process can consider as much data as necessary to validly complete the process, allowing you to set as high a duplicative standard as required

“Off-the-Shelf” Solutions

A range of ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions also exist to help manage or eliminate duplicate and near-duplicate information. Anexsys are a Relativity ‘Best in Service’ provider, therefore this article naturally focusses on the solutions offered by Relativity, which include the following:

Email Threading

Email threading is a process which identifies the longest or most complete email in a chain (the ‘Inclusive Email’) and allows the shorter components to be excluded from review, thereby eliminating any unnecessary review of duplicate information. It is a defensible approach to eliminating duplicate information because information is only excluded when it is otherwise known to be included.

In practice we have seen email threading reduce reviewable volumes by between 10% to 50%.

Although there is an emerging trend of parties adopting this methodology, where parties are unwilling to exclude documents on this basis, email threading can still be applied to group similar information together, allowing for a more contextual review and assisting with consistency in decision making.

Near Duplicate Analysis

Relativity’s analytics function can detect similar documents on a contextual and textual basis. Similar documents are grouped together and ranked by similarity. As with email threading, such a process can assist to group documents together and assist with a contextual review, however where a high degree of similarity is identified between documents, exclusions may also be possible.

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29
Oct 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys: What It Means To Be Best in Service

Anexsys are proud to have received our Relativity 'Best in Service' accreditation recently. This accolade is something the team have worked incredibly hard for and to be recognised by such a well established software partner shows how vigilant our experts are.

The accreditation also says a lot though about the service we provide to our clients. I wanted to write a short piece showing how end users can benefit from using 'Best in Service' providers over non-accredited companies and the added reassurance they can take from doing so.

The process to achieve 'Best in Service' measures performance from a technical and end user perspective. I have listed below a number of criteria we must adhere to in order to be successful as well as a brief description of how this benefits you as a client.

LATEST VERSION OF THE PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD INSTALLED

This allows your supplier to regulate and monitor their Relativity environment more closely. This includes measuring optimum efficiency levels, response to tickets and how their users are interacting with the platform. All of this increases the team's ability to address queries and client needs.

MINIMUM AVERAGE DELIVERY METRICS SCORE 80% OVER THE PAST 3 MONTHS

A consistently high delivery metrics score can reassure clients as to the attentiveness and skill of a firm's experts. When this is achieved you can be sure that you are in safe hands. It is also a way kCura ensure Relativity partners are held accountable to how good they are at providing the service to end users. It's eDisclosure's version of TripAdvisor!

ONE RELATIVITY CERTIFIED ADMINISTRATOR AND ONE RELATIVITY INFRASTRUCTURE SPECIALIST ON STAFF

These are qualified experts who have gone through further rigorous testing by kCura to ensure they are capable of maintaining complex review environments whilst providing clients with support and innovation. At Anexsys we have 4 RCAs and 2 Infrastructure Specialists who, altogether, had to complete a minimum of 480 hours of training just to attain the qualification. This is accompanied by several years hands on experience running Relativity environments and plenty of knowledge on how best to deliver what our clients need, on time and with confidence.

AVERAGE USER COUNT OF OVER 100 UNIQUE NAMED USERS

Nothing speaks for a company's capabilities more than their track record with existing clients. This minimum user figure is designed to show two things: firstly, that your team has the ability to handle large volumes of reviewers and their various set ups; and, secondly, that the volume of users has grown over your partnership period. If that wasn't enough, kCura also ask for a minimum of 7 client references so they can find out for themselves how satisfied your clients actually are.

So, the next time you are looking for an eDisclosure partner make sure to check out their Relativity status to give both you and your clients peace of mind about who is supporting you on such an significant part of your litigation.

Lydia is a Consultant at Anexsys and can be reached at: lydia.hawthorn@anexsys.com

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07
Oct 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys Recognised as Best Service Provider Solution Finalist in Relativity Innovation Awards

Anexsys Recognised as Best Service Provider Solution Finalist in Relativity Innovation Awards

Annual competition honors customers who are building outstanding applications and integrations on top of Relativity

Press Release – CHICAGO, IL – 07 October 2015 – Anexsys today announced that they have been named a finalist for the Relativity Innovation Award for Best Service Provider Solution.

Part of Anexsys’ RTK suite for Relativity, RTK.ExcelRedact is the only product in the Relativity Ecosystem that provides native Excel redaction capabilities. By eliminating the need to create TIFFs and manually apply redactions, or to have lawyers navigate the various hidden features of Excel, RTK.ExcelRedact dramatically streamlines the redaction process—then producing the redacted Excels as TIFFs or native spreadsheets.

Jon Chan, Director of Technical Services at Anexsys, says, “This is the second year running we’ve been shortlisted as a Relativity Fest Innovation Awards finalist and we’re thrilled that our products continue to be recognized for their innovation and added value to Relativity, both for the community and our customers. Our custom development team is incredibly talented and works daily to solve our customers’ toughest technical eDiscovery challenges, and I'm proud that their hard work has been recognized in this way.”

Anexsys is a UK-based Relativity Best in Service provider, and builds innovative solutions on top of Relativity, as well as provides a full range of litigation support services and consulting to law firms and corporations. The RTK suite is available to license via Anexsys’ UK-hosted Relativity environment, or via the Relativity Ecosystem for installation within customer-hosted environments.

kCura, developers of the e-discovery software Relativity, will recognize finalists and announce winners during a special ceremony at Relativity Fest, held October 11-14 in Chicago. This year, the annual user conference brings nearly 1,500 users together for a three-day event featuring engaging panel discussions, hands-on labs, breakout sessions, and insights from both kCura staff and Relativity end users.

The Relativity Innovation Awards celebrate and showcase the best custom solutions created by the Relativity community. Judges selected solutions that use various application integration points to display a full use of the Relativity APIs’ capabilities to streamline processes, solve complex workflow needs, and create an altogether new solution that positively impacts their business strategy.

“It’s awesome that Anexsys extended Relativity to address a common pain point faced during review—redacting Excel documents in their native format,” said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of kCura. “Their native Excel redaction solution is a great fit to be a finalist in this year’s Relativity Innovation Awards.”

About Anexsys

Anexsys was established in 2004 and has become one of the leading independent suppliers of litigation support and document management solutions to law firms in the UK. With offices in the 3 main legal centers of London, Manchester and Bristol, we have an unparalleled UK reach and are also able to service clients based in Europe and the Middle East. Anexsys’ Relativity environment is hosted in a secure, London-based ISO27001-accredited datacenter which is monitored 24x7 and regularly security tested. Anexsys’ team is made up of a mixture of ex Big 4 managers, technologists and litigation support professionals to ensure that we are able to place the right team on your engagements. We’re one of only a handful of providers remaining who provide hard copy services, through to data processing, hosted review and managed document review services. More recently, Anexsys has launched the RTK line of custom Relativity integrations which extend and complement the features within Relativity, and more details can be found on the Relativity Ecosystem page.

About kCura
Recognized as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2015 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant, kCura are the developers of the e-discovery software Relativity. Relativity has more than 120,000 active users in more than 40 countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice and more than 190 of the Am Law 200. kCura helps corporations, law firms, and government agencies meet e-discovery challenges by installing Relativity on-premises and providing hosted, on-demand solutions through a global network of partners. kCura has been ranked the 175th fastest-growing technology company in North America on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 and named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune. Please contact kCura at sales@kcura.com or visit www.kcura.com for more information.

Jon Chan

+44 (0)203 217 0300
jon.chan@anexsys.com

Press Contact

Mike Gilhooly
(312) 216-5951
mgilhooly@kcura.com

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02
Oct 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys announced as RelativityFest innovation award finalist

The team at Anexsys are delighted to have been selected as finalists for the RelativityFest innovation awards for RTK.ExcelRedact, a revolutionary product which provides a way to natively redact and produce Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

RTK.ExcelRedact addresses two distinct challenges faced when redacting Excel spreadsheets:

1.) Using traditional redaction tools for redacting Excel spreadsheets can result in the same problems encountered when trying to print Excel. Even simple to moderately complex spreadsheets can result in TIFFs with hundreds or even thousands of pages, which are either blank, or contain data which is separated from column headers, and other related data.

A common solution is to have a vendor or paralegal manually create TIFFs; a process which can easily take around 10 minutes per spreadsheet, so when you have even 50 or more, this can be an expensive, time-consuming and error-prone process.

2.) Manually redacting spreadsheets using Microsoft Excel is dangerous and complex. Many law firms resort to a more manual approach to native redaction, which involves opening up the spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel, and manually redacting content. There are many facets of Microsoft Excel, and it is likely that a lawyer may not necessarily be aware of all of the functionality used within that spreadsheet. This could include formulae, hidden columns, rows or sheets, frozen panes, pivot tables, charts, comments, headers and footers. filters. macros, external data sources and much more.

Even if the lawyer is able to identify, search and reveal this content, there is the risk that redacting even a cell may break upstream formulae.

RTK.ExcelRedact is fully integrated with Relativity and is easily installed via Relativity’s Application Deployment System. Once installed, the application contains securable layouts and workflow objects to support the native Excel redaction workflow, including a custom Excel viewer from which redactions are made. Keywords can be applied, and full regular expressions are supported to search and redact phone numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and anything else that can be represented by a search term or regular expression.

When redacting, RTK.ExcelRedact takes care of all the hard work in identifying hidden content and automatically unhides rows, cells and exposes other hidden content. The final redacted native Excel is restored to the original format with original filters, and other hidden content re-applied.

RTK.ExcelRedact is the flagship product in the RTK suite of Relativity integrations, where the entire RTK Suite was shortlisted as a finalist in the inaugural RelativityFest Innovation Awards in 2014.

RTK.ExcelRedact is available via Anexsys’ UK-based hosted Relativity environment, as well as to purchase for installation in to your own Relativity environment.

View our entry for the RelativityFest 2015 Innovation awards here (http://snack.to/b7jlv0q5).

ExcelRedact1

This screenshot shows RTK.ExcelRedact’s proprietary Excel viewer which allows for native redactions to be applied. We’ve also toggled on the formatting and unhidden all hidden content. The area on the right of the screen shows a list of applied redactions which can be used for quality control purposes. The ‘toast’ in the top right is displaying that the redactions have been applied and saved to the database.

ExcelRedact3

This screenshot illustrates the submission of a document for Excel redaction using a Document layout in Relativity. It also shows configuring a Automatic Keyword Redaction Set which is going to search for a Social Security Number regular expression and automatically redact all instances.

Anexsys' team will be at RelativityFest 2015. To arrange a meeting please email solutions@anexsys.com

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25
Aug 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys recognised as Relativity Best in Service partner

Anexsys recognised as Relativity Best in Service partner

Relativity Best In Service Blue RGB 300ppi

UK supplier of Legal Technology and Document Management Solutions is recognized by kCura as offering exceptional Relativity service

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 17 AUGUST 2015 – ANEXSYS, a leading independent supplier of legal technology and document management solutions in the UK, today announced that they have earned kCura's Relativity Best in Service designation, which recognizes Relativity Premium Hosting Partners who provide an exceptional Relativity experience for end users.

Anexsys provides a full range of services to law firms and corporations across the UK, Europe and Middle East, ranging from data collection, electronic data processing, hosting, managed document review, and managed eDiscovery services from offices in London, Manchester and Bristol. Anexsys also develops integrations to the Relativity platform, which are made available to customers of Anexsys’ Relativity platform, as well as being available for purchase and deployment onto hosted Relativity environments.

Jon Chan, Director of Technical Services comments: “I’m thrilled that Anexsys has been awarded Best in Service. We work exceptionally hard to provide a first class client experience through a responsive, consultative service which is underpinned by a first-class ISO 27001 accredited infrastructure.”

“Anexsys’ commitment to mastering Relativity is backed by an experienced technical management team, dedicated software developers, legal professionals and consultants. Anexsys is unique in providing hard copy services, digital forensics, eDiscovery consultancy, hosting, managed review and managed services, alongside developing integrations to Relativity,” Chan said.

Through a voluntary audit, Relativity Best in Service partners demonstrate their expertise and experience hosting projects in Relativity. kCura evaluates these partners’ individual data centers in three areas: technical infrastructure, customer service, and product expertise. Additionally, Best in Service partners meet a set of requirements for their duration as a hosting partner, size of Relativity installations, and core Relativity certifications.

“The Relativity Best in Service designation requires dedication to exceptional customer service and the ability to provide an outstanding Relativity experience,” said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of kCura. “We’re pleased to recognize Anexsys for their commitment.”

Anexsys was established in 2004 and has become one of the leading independent suppliers of litigation support and document management solutions to law firms in the UK. With offices in the 3 main legal centres of London, Manchester and Bristol, we have an unparalleled UK reach and are also able to service clients based in Europe and the Middle East. Anexsys’ Relativity environment is hosted in a secure, London-based ISO27001-accredited datacenter which is monitored 24x7 and regularly security tested. Anexsys’ team is made up of a mixture of ex Big 4 managers, technologists and litigation support professionals to ensure that we are able to place the right team on your engagements. We’re one of only a handful of providers remaining who provide hard copy services, through to data processing, hosted review and managed document review services. More recently, Anexsys has launched the RTK line of custom Relativity integrations which extend and complement the features within Relativity and more details can be found on the Relativity Ecosystem page.

About kCura
Recognized as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2015 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant, kCura are the developers of the e-discovery software Relativity. Relativity has more than 120,000 active users in more than 40 countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice and more than 190 of the Am Law 200. kCura helps corporations, law firms, and government agencies meet e-discovery challenges by installing Relativity on-premises and providing hosted, on-demand solutions through a global network of partners. kCura has been ranked the 175th fastest-growing technology company in North America on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 and named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune. Please contact kCura at sales@kcura.com or visit www.kcura.com for more information.

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30
Jun 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Redacting native Excel spreadsheets for eDiscovery

In many modern disputes, crucially relevant information is held in Excel documents which can range in size from the simplest of documents displaying basic financial information to vast reporting documents containing hundreds of sheets, thousands of rows and columns, complex proprietary formulae and hidden cells.

Managing the disclosure of information from within these spreadsheets can be one of the most frustrating challenges of a disclosure exercise and can result in large legal teams and vendors engaging in time-consuming and expensive exercises:

imaging or printing excel documents (which can be costly and typically produces less than satisfactory results due to the well-known problem of printing spreadsheets in a presentable way);
spending hours drawing black boxes across content spread across many pages;
repeating the exercise because a spreadsheet hasn’t imaged or printed in a helpful way which has made it impossible to accurately track the location of the irrelevant and relevant rows or columns; and
disclosing largely useless spreadsheets which are difficult to interpret and impossible to manipulate.

Anexsys have developed RTK ExcelRedact to help lawyers take better control of this process, reduce cost and ensure compliance with eDisclosure and eDiscovery rules which favour the disclosure of native format documents.

RTK ExcelRedact allows users to:

redact excel documents in a near-native representation, removing the need to image or print documents at great expense;
redact sensitive keywords and figures on a ‘Search and Redact’ basis (including automatically locating and redacting social security numbers, date of birth information, and other personal information);
apply redactions on a ‘Click to Redact’ basis, including black redactions, white redactions, and text based redactions.
review and redact hidden data (such as hidden columns) which is automatically revealed by our solution;
review and redact comments and embedded objects revealed by our solution; and
control whether formulae should be flattened or disclosed.

In addition, at the end of the process users have the option to disclose documents as redacted natives (with or without formulae), or in a TIFF or PDF format. We even update the text post-redaction so you can disclose the text safe in the knowledge that confidential content has been removed.

RTK ExcelRedact was developed in response to our experience of complex disputes where multiple reviewers spent many weeks completing redaction exercises (detached from a review platform) to great frustration and with average results. It is ideal for a range of disputes, in particular those where sensitive but undisclosable proprietary formulae are present in spreadsheets, for example pharmaceutical or finance disputes. RTK ExcelRedact is available as a fully integrated Relativity solution and will shortly be available as a standalone solution.

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19
Jun 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Predictive Coding Explained

The objective of review in in e-discovery is to identify as many relevant documents as possible, while reviewing as few non-relevant documents as possible (Da Silva Moore). This is known as achieving the highest possible recall (proportion of all relevant documents identified during a review) and precision (proportion of relevant documents within the reviewed set).

Keyword searching and linear review have traditionally been adopted as the default approach to disclosure. Although keywords are inherently biased thereby naturally excluding a proportion of relevant documents or necessitating the review of increasing volumes of irrelevant documents, lawyers have been relatively slow to adopt alternative approaches. However, predictive coding, a technology which automates portions of an e-disclosure document review, is now starting to gain popularity in the UK as an approach to disclosure.

What is predictive coding and how does it work?

Predictive techniques are commonly applied to analyse data in order to assess risk and make future predictions. They are not unique to the legal world - common everyday uses include credit scoring, fraud identification and risk underwriting and they have been widely adopted in a variety of industries including accountancy, insurance, banking, financial services, pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

Predictive coding systems apply complex algorithms which, based upon their analysis of review decisions, identify similar documents which are prioritised for review. In doing so, they aim to limit the review of irrelevant documents and enable relevant documents to be captured as efficiently as possible, thereby improving recall and precision.

A predictive coding exercise typically begins with a senior lawyer training an algorithm by reviewing a ‘seed set’ of example documents. The algorithm analyses the characteristics of these documents, learns from the lawyer’s decision making and thereafter seeks to identify similar documents and rank them by their likelihood of relevance.The most highly ranked documents can then be prioritised for review. This review continues until the system fails to return any further relevant documents or when the proportion of relevant documents becomes so low that continuing the review becomes disproportionate.

As in any disclosure exercise, a predictive coding methodology should be supported by an appropriate validation and quality checking regime so that decision making can be justified and each stage of a project independently verified.

Comprising the seed set

How the seed set should be comprised is up for debate, as is the length of time that should be taken to train the algorithm and the extent of any quality control regime that should be adopted in order to validate the process.In comprising the seed set, predictive coding in its most straightforward form will focus upon a randomly generated set of documents. No keywords are run and the system is left to present example documents to the senior lawyer unhindered by bias. Relying on a randomly generated set of documents as the starting point is sometimes a step too far for most lawyers and could be seen as a blind leap of faith in the algorithm. The risk being that it appears more difficult to validate how the algorithm has been trained and from project to project its ability to stand up to scrutiny is uncertain.

As such, some lawyers are preferring to adopt a middle-ground ‘hybrid approach’ where the seed set is comprised of a mixture of keyword responsive, other searches and randomly selected documents.

Advantages of Predictive Coding

Senior lawyer engagement at an early stage in the process
Improved Accuracy
Fewer irrelevant documents reviewed
Higher proportion of relevant documents identified
Faster access to the most relevant documents
Lower costs

Disadvantages of Predictive Coding

Questionable ability to deal with multiple-issues or degrees of relevance
Training by under confident or techno-phobic users may undermine the process
Questionable ability to cope with the evolution of relevance throughout a review
Won't eliminate the problem of a rogue reviewer
Questionable ability to deal with documents containing little or no text
Questionable ability to cope with foreign language documents

Dominic Tucker is a Senior Consultant at Anexsys Ltd, a leading provider of outsourced eDisclosure and litigation support services to law firms, corporations and government departments.

Further Information

Subscribers to Lexis®PSL Dispute Resolution can read Dominic Tucker’s full and more in depth analysis of Predictive Coding including of the hybrid approach recently endorsed by the Irish High Court in Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Ltd & ors v Quinn & ors [2015] IEHC 175.

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12
Jun 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

FIFA corruption investigation: what’s in the data and how to find it

News broke on Wednesday and Thursday this week that Swiss authorities have raided Fifa’s headquarters to obtain computer data relevant to ongoing criminal investigations into alleged corruption surrounding the 2010, 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments. Data was obtained from individuals including Sepp Blatter, Jerome Valcke (Sepp Blatter’s right-hand man) and Fifa’s head of finance.

Over the coming days, Swiss investigators will face a series of challenges as they seek to manage this data and attempt to identify the most relevant and incriminating documents. As they progress their investigation, a variety of techniques will become available to them which could help in quickly identifying these documents.

Collecting the data

Reports are conflicting as to whether data was captured by the authorities or handed over voluntarily by FIFA, however either approach raises important issues that arise in any eDisclosure exercise. Data collections must be correctly scoped and implemented with appropriate procedures in place to document the process and protect the forensic integrity of data. Scoping should identify the key custodians as well as the devices and computer systems used. A poorly planned and implemented collection could undermine the entirety of the investigation. The goal is to collect data in a proportionate manner which ensures that nothing is missed or modified. This is to avoid accusations of deliberate evidence tampering or spoliation, as well as the risk that incriminating data may later be deemed inadmissible as evidence.

In serious cases such as this where fraud and corruption are in issue, it is common for data to be collected by means of forensic imaging. This is the most complete option of forensic collections, undertaken by skilled technicians, which involves taking a perfect copy of a device, computer or other electronic media. The technique protects against data being modified whilst also collecting deleted items which can be missed by other techniques.

An advantage to forensic imaging is that the Swiss authorities would effectively ‘have everything’. As the investigation evolves, different lines of enquiry develop and new characters emerge, investigators will have no need to waste time performing further collections. Conversely, a disadvantage to this approach is that a collection may be too wide and investigators may be faced with a vast volume of completely irrelevant documents. (More on dealing with this below).

In less serious cases other collection options exist which are less disruptive and therefore more practical. A collection must always be forensically sound and properly documented, however it is not uncommon to undertake a more targeted collection which focusses upon copies of key email accounts and shared working folders. Such an approach would be inappropriate in the present circumstances as it would rely upon Fifa pointing the Swiss investigators towards relevant documents, opening the investigation to allegations that important and incriminating data has not been collected.

Processing the data

Before the Swiss authorities can get into the documents and progress their investigation, the collected data must be processed. Depending upon the processing software used and the volume of data collected, processing could take many days to complete.

In a nutshell, processing (1) extracts documents from container files (for example, emails from mailboxes), (2) extracts metadata values from documents including author, title, dates of creation etc.., and (3) organises this data into a format capable of upload to a modern document review platform.

The processing stage will provide investigators with the first insights into their data and their first opportunity to identify any shortfalls or gaps. Does the data reveal any issues posed by Fifa’s data retention policies? Is data missing from a particular date period? Have emails been archived in a separate archiving system and not collected? How many documents have each of the key custodians yielded and are further collections from key advisors or assistants going to be necessary?

Given Fifa’s size, the scope of the investigation and the rate at which modern organisations create data, investigators could not unreasonably expect to be faced with millions if not tens of millions of documents to sift through. This is not unusual and a variety of technologies and techniques exist to assist investigators to quickly identify the relevant documents.

Investigating the data

The first task after processing will be to take defensible steps to cull the volume of documents. Of course, no data is actually deleted, it is simply put to one side and not looked at by investigators at this stage. Should the course of the investigation require, it remains readily accessible.

As a first step, there will be a range of filetypes that can be immediately removed including system generated files which are unlikely to be useful to investigators in the present case. These system files could become useful however, should access to information or systems become an issue. Duplicate documents can also be excluded at this stage and date ranges applied to exclude documents from entirely irrelevant periods. With key exclusions applied, the documents and their metadata will be transferred to a review tool, for example kCura’s Relativity platform, where keywords can be applied and further analysis of the documents undertaken.

Given the global nature of Fifa’s business, applying keyword search terms is likely to involve iterating terms in multiple languages and alphabets. This isn’t a problem and modern platforms have been designed to cope with this. Carefully crafted keyword searches can assist to quickly identify important documents, however, the first drawback to keyword searching which the Swiss investigators will encounter is that fraudsters won’t necessarily speak directly of their fraud, rather use a range of discreet vocabulary and terminology to either disguise their acts or at least make them sound legitimate. The classic example being the Enron investigation where Star Wars terminology was adopted which was unlikely to have been identified by the keyword approach.

The second drawback is that despite investigators’ best efforts in culling data and applying the most carefully crafted keywords, they are still likely to be faced with an almost insurmountable volume of documents to review. The reality is that modern data volumes have eroded the circumstances in which keywords can be applied in isolation to other techniques. In modern document heavy cases, we commonly advise our clients on a range of solutions to tackle the issues posed by enormous document volumes, including:

Predictive coding

Perhaps the most high profile of available approaches, predictive coding systems apply a complex algorithm which learns from review decisions to identify similar documents and prioritizes these for review. The aim of the technology is to improve the recall and precision of a review exercise. Recall being the proportion of all relevant documents identified and precision the proportion of relevant documents in the reviewed set. Predictive coding can help to drastically reduce the volume of non-relevant documents reviewed, whilst returning a higher proportion of relevant documents discovered.

Structured and Unstructured Data Solutions – enabling a contextual review

The Swiss investigators will have a combination of structured and unstructured data available to them. By unstructured data we primarily mean the range of office documents including word, excel and pdfs. By structured data, we’re referring predominantly to the range of formal financial reporting documents including bank statements and transaction reports.

Review platforms can be calibrated to facilitate a contextual review by allowing an investigator to focus upon key transactions or trades. Documents can be associated to specific events, trades or transactions and presented to investigators in context. Such an approach is not only ideal for the Swiss investigators, but can be readily applied in a variety of cases, including rate rigging and insider trading.

Email Threading

To assist with the review of correspondence between key individuals of interest, investigators could apply an email threading process across Fifa’s data. The process identifies all emails within a chain and selects the longest example of a chain for review, removing the need to review all emails in the chain individually.

We have seen email threading reduce reviewable volumes by between 10% to 50%.

Clustering & Conceptual searching

Clustering can be applied to identify groups of conceptually similar documents. Creating clusters requires little user input, however, once created, clusters require reviewing in order to determine their usefulness and identify the most relevant clusters to prioritise these for review. The process is particularly useful when dealing with unfamiliar data.

Duplicate and near-duplicate analysis

When a damaging or incriminating document has been found, an investigation can be expanded by reviewing duplicate or near-duplicate copies of that document in order to track its progress around an organisation or amongst a group of individuals in order to demonstrate custodianship and knowledge.

Our experienced team of eDisclosure consultants regularly advise upon solutions to document heavy eDisclosure exercises. Anexsys are also unique in employing a team of skilled software developers to develop customised solutions when the circumstances of a case require it.

For further information on any of these techniques and other effective approaches to document heavy eDisclosure, contact a member of our eDisclosure team on +44 (0) 203-217-0300 or email info@anexsys.com

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04
Jun 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys announces DocumentFolio: a next generation eBible solution

Anexsys, a leading litigation technology, digital forensics and legal process outsourcing provider has announced today the release of DocumentFolio, a proprietary eBible solution developed in-house by Anexsys.

DocumentFolio collates electronic documents into a searchable, elegant, branded application enabling end-users to view, search and print documents from a convenient and easy to use interface. Designed to meet the requirements of legal industry, DocumentFolio creates searchable electronic bibles from a standard legal index in a matter of minutes.

Unlike competing solutions that require the costly manual hyperlinking of documents in an index, DocumentFolio semi-automates the hyperlinking process, dramatically reducing the time and cost of creating an eBible. The resulting eBible is fully encrypted and portable and can be shared via a variety of media including CD/DVDs and USB devices, as well as online via an FTP site or web portal. There's also no need for a timely data copying exercise - DocumentFolio supports the indices created by legal teams in native Microsoft Word format.

Jon Chan Director of Technical Services at Anexsys says, “we built DocumentFolio from the ground up in collaboration with a leading international law firm. Using the latest technologies and a modern web interface, DocumentFolio offers our clients an easy to use, portable and secure application for presenting, viewing and searching documents. I’m excited to make DocumentFolio available to our customers, either as a service - backed by our experienced eDiscovery and scanning teams, or for purchase as an in-house solution.”

DocumentFolio is available as a service from Anexsys or for purchase in-house by law firms and corporations.

For more information about DocumentFolio or to arrange a demo contact Anexsys via solutions@anexsys.com or +44 (0)203 217 0311.

Visit our eBible services page here

Visit the DocumentFolio product page here

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11
May 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Early Data Assessment (saving you time and money)

Early Data Assessment (saving you time and money)

The concept of early case assessment (ECA) has existed for several years, with definitions varying wildly. For the context of this article, we are going to discuss our methodology of early data assessment, which we will define as the process of looking at case data as early as possible, and how this approach can save you time and money.

Assuming identification and data collection has already taken place, before you can start an electronic document review, data must first be processed. After this data processing stage, some or all of the processed case data will be migrated to an eDiscovery review platform. As the volume of electronically stored information has rapidly increased - in order to reduce costs - a number of techniques are usually introduced to reduce the dataset prior to review. These reduction techniques typically include de-duplication, file type filtering, date range filters and keyword searches.

Most data processing tools have not been designed for use directly by lawyers, therefore the process of reducing a dataset is usually undertaken by your eDiscovery vendor on your behalf, which can have various drawbacks: Firstly, the introduction of a middleman disconnects lawyers from the process; and, secondly the process must compete for system time with the other processes being run by your vendor, including virus scanning and various qc checks. Both of these factors limit the scope for sampling data and refining keywords, date ranges and filters which are applied, potentially resulting in the loss of important or highly relevant documents.

Data hosting

The primary motivation for removing data as early as possible (beyond reducing the number of documents requiring review), is to reduce data hosting costs. The on-going monthly cost for hosting data can ultimately be one of the most expensive technology elements of an eDiscovery exercise.

Hosting large volumes of data on a monthly basis will soon mount up large costs. Even if data has been significantly culled during data processing, data reduction techniques used during processing could be overly inclusive, due to lawyers delegating this work to their eDiscovery vendor.

A different approach

Immediately after the data processing phase, our clients can choose to make all of their de-duplicated case data available for review in Relativity. Rather than loading the native files (which comprise the bulk of the cost for data hosting), we offer the option to load just the text and metadata of documents into Relativity. With this text and metadata loaded into a review platform case teams can start the process of refining their data set without incurring any data hosting costs.

Our clients can iterate through search terms, conduct a basic review of their documents and apply a variety of other filtering criteria, all within context of their case data, without middlemen and with the database available 24/7. Decisions to remove documents can be defensibly justified and the risk of indiscriminately removing important documents is significantly reduced, as lawyers are in control of this process. The data reduction phase can continue for as long as necessary, and incurs no data hosting fees. Importantly all of this work is being performed in the familiar Relativity interface.

Once the final dataset for review has been identified, we simply publish the native files that you require into Relativity, and suppress those that are no longer important. If the scope of your case changes, the additional native documents can be quickly migrated to Relativity ready for review.

Benefits

Our approach to early case assessment offers real time benefits, granting you earlier access to your data and providing more time to manipulate search terms and sample data before the full data set is available for review.

Case studies

Our client, a leading international law firm, was instructed in relation to a regulatory investigation which required compliance with strict deadlines in respect of search term reporting and agreement of search terms with the regulator. Our approach to early case assessment provided our client with access to their data a week ahead of the full database becoming available; a period during which they were able to apply, sample and refine their keywords in order to reach agreement with the regulator. With the review set properly defined, their review team began reviewing documents as soon as the full database became available.

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08
May 15’

Rob Crowley - Managing Director

Anexsys is the new name for Hobs Legal Docs Ltd

11^th May 2015

Anexsys is the new name for Hobs Legal Docs as new range of custom software and services are launched

Hobs Legal Docs Ltd, a leading litigation technology, digital forensics and legal process outsourcing provider, is being re-branded as Anexsys as part of a comprehensive programme of development and investment that will see the introduction of a suite of innovative, value-adding products.

Anexsys offers a range of outsourced solutions including eDiscovery, computer forensics and reprographics services to customers throughout the UK and Europe, as well as supporting clients from the US and the Middle East.

In addition to the company’s core services, Anexsys is unique in the United Kingdom and among a small number of litigation technology providers globally in developing standalone software solutions and integrated Relativity applications to assist law firms, corporations and Government departments to manage document heavy disputes and investigations.

The rebrand is the final stage in a year-long programme of investment, restructuring and recruitment under the leadership of directors Rob Crowley and Jonathan Chan, formerly managers within Ernst & Young’s Forensic Technology & Dispute Services department.

Anexsys’ proprietary software is developed in-house, helping to solve challenges from native document redaction and automated data processing, to the streamlined creation of eBibles and online witness statement management. The company also works directly with end clients to build problem-solving custom software.

Rob Crowley, Managing Director of Anexsys, says, ‘I am looking forward to expanding our range of services under the Anexsys brand to include managed eDiscovery services and outsourced document review. Our aim is to differentiate by offering a diverse range of technical services, highly skilled staff from a range of specialist backgrounds and a genuine passion and understanding of technology.

Anexsys will continue to offer a full range of market-leading technology and reprographics services to our clients, as well as adding additional services to our portfolio. We are committed to providing transparency, exceptional client delivery, best of breed technology and innovative solutions.’

Note to editors:

About Anexsys Limited

Anexsys Limited – www.www.anexsys.com - is a company within the Group of Hobs Reprographics plc - www.hobsrepro.com

Anexsys Ltd, formerly Hobs Legal Docs Ltd, was set up in 2004 and offers dedicated outsourced services to law firms, corporations and the public sector, operating from secure sites in London, Manchester and Bristol. The company provides a full range of services including data collection, computer forensics, data processing, document hosting, managed services, outsourced review and reprographic services.

For more information please contact:

Annabel Hillary, 07884 430862, annabel@prwhenyouneedit.co.uk

Mary-Jane Greenhalgh, 07866 722051, maryjane@greenhalghpr.co.uk

Anexsys News & Blog

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Government Business website article highlights the benefits of eDisclosure platforms for DSARs and FOIA requests

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Consilio Closes Merger with Xact Data Discovery

Combination of data management capabilities with deep technology and industry expertise will deliver a more complete client experience

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XDD Acquires Paralaw UK Limited to Expand Managed Reviewer and eDiscovery Services Talent Pool in UK

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Consilio and Xact Data Discovery Agree to Combine Strengths to Deliver a More Complete Client Experience

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Hobs Group’s Anexsys attracts US buyer

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eDiscovery: The Solution to FOIA Requests?

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Anexsys Becomes a RelativityOne Silver Partner

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Remote Review at Anexsys Lens

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Anexsys Directors Featured in the Legal Technologist

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Redactions – Doing it the right way

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Two sides of a DSAR

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