Clearwell Extends Its E–Discovery Platform With New Identification And Collection Module

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — September 13, 2010 — Clearwell Systems, Inc., a leader in intelligent e–discovery, today announced the release of its Identification and Collection Module. Available with version 6.0 of the Clearwell E–Discovery Platform, the new module enables IT teams to easily identify and collect electronically stored information (ESI) while maintaining data integrity and chain of custody. The data can then seamlessly be made available to Legal teams for early case assessment (ECA), review and production. The Clearwell E–Discovery Platform version 6.0 thus serves both IT and Legal teams in a single product, enabling enterprises, government agencies and law firms to streamline workflows and achieve significant reductions in the costs, duration, and risks associated with e–discovery.

“We selected Clearwell for its powerful capabilities which are easy to use. It’s very intuitive and allows you to be productive within hours of implementation,” said a spokesperson at GlaxoSmithKline. “Clearwell’s integrated functionality and excellent reporting capabilities combined with the insightful user interface facilitates greater collaboration between our legal and IT teams.”

“As enterprises look to streamline in–house electronic discovery, they can accelerate their efforts by using a single product that supports the e–discovery process from beginning to end,” said Brian Babineau, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Clearwell addresses this need in its latest release, delivering a single product for identification through production that is intuitive, highly scalable, and offers robust features including case monitoring and reporting across the entire e–discovery lifecycle. An additional benefit of this single, integrated product is that it addresses the often unstated need to facilitate greater collaboration between legal and IT departments.”

E–discovery is an iterative and often complex task which requires IT and legal teams to navigate through ever–increasing volumes of ESI. This task is only made more complex when the two departments are forced to deploy multiple, disparate products which add time and risk to the process. To identify and collect all ESI relevant to the e–discovery matter, IT has traditionally needed to use separate systems for each data source, i.e. forensics tools for desktops and laptops, ExMerge for Microsoft Exchange and Robocopy for file shares. Legal teams must typically wait for IT to extract data from collection images, transfer the data to a DVD, and forward it before then manually uploading the data to a separate tool for analysis and review.

By contrast, the Clearwell E–Discovery Platform version 6.0 offers a single product that addresses the needs of both departments throughout the e–discovery lifecycle. For example, IT can easily target collections from critical data sources including applications in the cloud, then filter and deliver collected content internally with minimal administrative overhead. Legal teams can log in and immediately begin to analyze and review collected data in the same seamless interface. Additionally, because IT and legal teams can collaborate and streamline their interactions using one unified application, they are able to view the real–time status of the entire case — from identification through production — in a single, comprehensive report.

Key features of the Identification & Collection Module include:

• Interactive Data Map: Provides the flexibility to build a data map immediately with Active Directory import or gradually on a case–by–case basis. Users can easily navigate through data sources with an iTunes–like filter and securely manage authentication access accounts.
• Network Collector: Collects directly from critical data sources including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Lotus Domino Servers, file shares, personal computers, and applications in the cloud. Data is collected in a forensically sound manner, with all metadata kept intact.
• Collection Scheduler: Allows users to assign tasks to run during off–hours and schedule recurring collections, providing flexibility and freeing administrative resources. Collection throttling capabilities ensure that server loads are managed and optimized.
• Incremental Collector: Collects only new or modified data for recurring collections with the same parameters as the original collection, saving users the time of having to set up follow–on collections from scratch.
• Collection Templates: Save commonly–used collection settings, including specific directories, filters, preservation stores, and custodian assignments, for reuse during future collections to further streamline the collections process.
• On–Site Collector: Collects data on–site from laptops, PCs, and file shares onto generic USB drives. No end user interaction is required other than simply double–clicking an .exe file, making self–collections from remote devices fast and easy.
• Data Verification: Automatically performs separate MD5 hashes of the source copy and the destination copy. If hashes do not match during the copy process, the data is re–copied until hashes do match, ensuring that every collection is forensically sound and defensible.
• Collection Analytics: Provide a complete portfolio of analytical charts and tables that display the types of data collected for each custodian, delivering real–time visibility into collected or outstanding data and facilitating the immediate remediation critical for defensibility.
• End–To–End Analytics: Generate interactive charts and graphs that offer detailed visibility into data volumes from collection through production. Users can further drill down by custodian or data source or pivot by different stages of e–discovery.

“IT and legal teams want to work together to handle the in–house e–discovery needs of their organization, but this becomes a challenge when they are forced to use multiple, disparate tools that unnecessarily add time and introduce risk into the process,” said Kamal Shah, VP of products and marketing at Clearwell Systems. “With the new Identification and Collection Module, Clearwell now offers a single product for the entire e–discovery lifecycle. As a result, IT and legal teams can collaborate to significantly reduce time and risk, delivering the organization incredible cost savings and a defensible in–house e–discovery process.”

To learn more about the new capabilities, email info@clearwellsystems.com or call 1–877–CLEARWELL.

About Clearwell Systems
Clearwell Systems is transforming the way enterprises, government agencies, and law firms perform electronic discovery (e–discovery) in response to litigation, regulatory inquiries, and internal investigations. The Clearwell E–Discovery Platform streamlines end–to–end e–discovery, providing a single product for identification, collection, processing, analysis, review, and production. Leading organizations such as Clear Channel Communications, Constellation Energy, Cisco, the Department of Health and Human Services, DLA Piper, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, NBC Universal, and Toyota are using Clearwell to streamline collections, accelerate early case assessments, intelligently cull–down data, increase reviewer productivity, and ensure the defensibility of their e–discovery process. Consistently ranked as a leader in independent e–discovery industry surveys and reports, Clearwell Systems is an active participant in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project, The Sedona Conference, and the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC). For more information, visit www.clearwellsystems.com, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/clearwell, or subscribe to the E–Discovery 2.0 blog at http://www.clearwellsystems.com/e–discovery–blog/.