While the legal profession and the courts were slow to adopt technology as compared to other industries, they have finally caught up. Today, e-discovery, e-filing, and virtual data storage have become commonplace within the legal industry as they have undergone a digital transformation. Attorneys and law firms must adapt to remain competitive. Handling all of the digital information can be difficult for some firms, which is why technological trial support services can be important. Here is some information about how technological trial support services might increase the efficiency of your firm's litigation team, drive its effectiveness, and facilitate more favorable outcomes for clients.

Better Efficiency and Security With e-Discovery

Courts and attorneys have fully embraced e-discovery as a much more efficient means to facilitate the exchange of documents between opposing parties. Electronic discovery (e-Discovery) is a relatively new area of litigation support services that enables law firms, in-house counsel, and outside counsel to search through billions of databases, messages, videos, documents, websites, and presentations to quickly find case-specific information.

Electronic information can take up numerous terabytes, making legal research nearly impossible without help. Fortunately, most digitally stored evidence includes metadata with time and date stamps, recipient information, and author information, which are all important in the context of litigation.

With access to this information, legal research can be greatly simplified through advanced searches, document tagging, production of documents, and redaction of sensitive information more efficiently. Stakeholders can access data remotely and collaborate online without having to meet in person as a case proceeds.

High-quality e-Discovery data hosting also includes certified security measures and regular information backups to protect sensitive data from intrusions and bad actors. Proactive indexing allows attorneys to find relevant documents and case law faster during depositions, trials, or arbitrations for better overall metrics.

With eDiscovery data hosting services, law firms gain the following benefits when preparing for trial:

• Efficient, fast access to key, case-specific information for better functionality
• Faster identification of critical legal issues
• Robust and reliable data storage
• Prevention of data loss due to unforeseen disasters and the protection of crucial documents through backups and virtualization
• Protection of the firm's continuity
• Provision of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI)

The primary goal of e-Discovery data hosting is the creation of a volume of searchable, relevant information that attorneys and law firms can use for litigation purposes. Rather than sifting through large volumes of paper documents in a big paper case, legal teams can search through digitally stored information that is relevant and curated for their specific cases.

Benefits of e-Discovery Hosting Services

Law firms enjoy the following benefits with e-Discovery Hosting Services:

• Ability to streamline discovery while handling multiple cases
• Technology-assisted review and file conversion with the help of experienced IT professionals
• Space savings through virtual storage of documents in searchable forms, including TIFF and PDF documents
• Enables attorneys to quickly gain a better understanding of their case and the evidence involved
• Enhances workflows as cases develop
• End-to-end document review and hosting services provide the ability to search, tag, process, produce, and analyze documents with software applications
• Expedites work that would typically take days for paralegals to complete

Managed IT Services

Legal professionals must meet and maintain high security standards when handling their clients' sensitive, confidential information to comply with professional ethics and regulatory requirements. With many firms now storing the confidential information of clients and intellectual property online, data security has never been more critical.

Firms and attorneys can get into serious trouble when they mishandle confidential client information and expose it to others. Managed IT services help to protect this information, prevent unauthorized access, and avoid data breaches and losses that could undermine a case and harm the firm's standing and reputation.

Managed IT providers offer 24/7 monitoring of a firm's network and devices, including end-user devices that might be connected remotely. Professionals can quickly act to prevent data intrusions and breaches when threats are detected.

Firms can also benefit from the scalability and automation of managed IT services. As a firm grows, its services can scale up with them, supporting the firm's initiatives. New users can quickly be added and granted customized access in real time. Software patches and updates can be automated and conducted when the firm is closed to avoid downtime and disruptions. Managed IT services also provide support and are available whenever something goes wrong.

Trial Support Services and Secure Document Review

When engaged in litigation and preparing for trial, firms and legal departments often need their attorneys to be able to securely review documents remotely to review data and make informed decisions quickly to address the legal matters at hand appropriately. With secured document review legal services, attorneys can access documents from anywhere while ensuring the confidentiality of sensitive, protected information remains secure. Secured document review legal technology allows firms to restrict access and ensure that only those with authorization can access documents and that they can only access the documents they need rather than accessing others. The technology seamlessly integrates with a firm's existing applications to avoid duplicative authentication processes.

Better Security

Secured document review technology services are highly secure and minimize vulnerabilities to prevent intrusions by bad actors. This helps to protect a law firm's sensitive trial documents from data breaches over the network. The technology's security is configured to a specific firm's needs to prevent unauthorized access, data breaches, and data loss. This results in a higher degree of security and control for your legal operations while reducing IT maintenance needs.

Since critical documents aren't stored on the endpoint device, legal tech also protects against data loss caused by device theft. These features provide attorneys and law firms with the flexibility they need during project management, the litigation process, and trial preparation without having to carry voluminous files or worry about the security of the case documents.

Customized Controls

This cloud technology provides customization by the user with separate controls, including the ability to restrict user access rights, preventing people from being able to download data onto connected USB devices, denying the ability to print documents, wholly disabling copy and paste capabilities, and more. These features provide team members with the access they need to documents during negotiations and trial preparation without risking the law firm's security.

Flexible, Efficient Access

With this technology, attorneys can quickly pull up essential documents when needed during trials, arbitration proceedings, motion hearings, or while trying to negotiate settlements with opposing counsel. Attorneys can quickly review essential information from expert witnesses to bolster their arguments, ensuring they are well-prepared for court questioning, debates with opposing counsel, and cross-examinations. Instead of digging through paper files to find the document the attorney needs, they can quickly pull it up on their device in the courtroom whenever necessary.

Technical trial support services give legal professionals an edge as they engage in litigation and prepare for trial. Documents can quickly be accessed while the firm's security remains protected. Digital presentations, negotiations, and arguments can all be streamlined for greater efficiency and effectiveness. If you want to learn more about how technical trial support services can elevate your firm's litigation process, contact us for more information.