This post is based on a talk by Logikcull COO Patrick Barry on simplicity as innovation, presented today as part of the Summit on Legal Innovation and Disruption.
In 1983, the discovery process was simpler. Before the digital era, an attorney conducting document discovery could simply meet with her client, gather physical documents, and begin reviewing them.
Yes, it involved bankers’ boxes. Yes, sometimes redactions needed to be made by hand, with a giant marker, and Bates stamps required actual stamps. Yes, it might not have been the most speedy or efficient practice. But the process was simple. It was straightforward. It made sense.
Fast forward thirty-five years later and the typical discovery process is anything but simple. For large corporations and other data-rich organizations, discovery can trigger a byzantine labyrinth of processes, as litigation holds are placed, custodians and repositories identified, vendors evaluated and procured, data analysis and culling procedures performed, etc. In such cases, it’s not unusual for a "simple" process to end up looking something like this:
This approach to discovery is great for vendors and experts, who’ve leveraged this complexity into a billion-dollar industry. For most legal professionals, though, it’s miserable.
Indeed, many lawyers would prefer a return to the straightforward discovery process of an earlier era—minus today’s document loads.
Of course, there’s no going back to the 80s.
But what if we could bring that simplicity to today’s overly complicated processes? What if we could make the discovery process as simple as upload, search, download? What if we could cut out the middle man? What if you didn’t need certifications or training to operate discovery software? What if it was so intuitive anyone could use it?
What if you empowered, rather than befuddled, reviewers?
At Logikcull, that’s what we’ve set out to accomplish. The key is simplicity—a North Star that has guided many transformative user experiences.
Take, for example, finding information on the internet. In the earlier days of the web, it could be incredibly frustrating to discover websites. Search engines like Lycos, AltaVista, and Yahoo! were an exercise in maximalism. Cluttered, confusing imitations of the Yellow Pages, they made navigating the web much harder than it needed to be.
Google’s primary innovation was stripping out all that extraneous and distracting noise—by focusing on the problem the user was trying to solve when they use Google: just getting information. Not building a website, not signing up for a forum, not shopping for a new computer. Just getting answers to your questions.
Consider the amount of “googling” you do today. Nearly all the world’s public knowledge stacked up before you, a seemingly insurmountable amount of information to get through, yet accessing it is as easy as asking a simple question. It’s simplicity, accomplished by powerful, complex technology that is simultaneously incredibly straightforward to use.
Now imagine an eDiscovery tool that was as focused on solving the primary problem eDiscovery poses—the need to, defensibly and accurately, review and produce documents—a solution so powerfully simple that it can be used by legal professionals with a wide range of experience and sophistication, from the tech-savvy lit support guru to the family law attorney who rarely handles discovery.
That’s the goal of Logikcull: to strip away overly complex processes; to remove the need for downtime, slow processing, and expert services; to create an interface that makes finding, organizing, and reviewing documents incredibly easy; to make discovery as easy as upload, search, download—and at speeds that are virtually instant.
Of course, not every tool is appropriate for every use. Highly complex cases, those involving billions of documents and armies of lawyers, may merit highly complex tools, with six-figure price tags and the accompanying bells and whistles.
But for high velocity, high frequency cases, those difficult tools aren’t necessary. Indeed, difficult products cost you money in the form of inefficient processes, expensive experts, and increased risks that things will go wrong.
For the vast majority of cases, what is needed is simply simplicity.
To see how Logikcull can help simplify your discovery process, sign up for a demo today.
