Litigation Coding

Our extensive experience in legal document coding protocols allows us to work with you to develop your own critical objective fields and data. Our detailed methodologies are the cornerstone of our processes and procedures and they provide you with a fail-safe guarantee as to how we manage your important materials. We have been able to ensure that our operators maximize throughput ensuring fast turnaround times for coding. Our coding practices are designed to ensure the highest levels of accuracy and consistency with your coded data.

Document Coding or Indexing

The process of cataloging or indexing documents so as to be easily retrieved, sorted, reviewed, or prioritized. High quality coding protocols are built on a framework of effective design, standardized conventions, highly trained coders, appropriate technology and multiple levels of quality control.

Locating a key fact in a matter of seconds from volumes of documents requires an expertly coded litigation database. To guarantee accuracy and expedite database assembly, Electronic-Data Discovery can capture date, file type and limited issues at scan time for an extensive data set that contains all key facts. Our comprehensive coding service includes:

• Data Capture
• Determination of Physical or Logical Document Breaks
• Optical Character Recognition
• Bibliographic Coding
• In-Text Coding

Data Capture -Ever increasing case loads require efficiency be maximized at every level. At Electronic-Data Discovery, we can save valuable time by capturing data during the imaging process. Simultaneously, this data can be objectively coded for delivery into a fielded database. Depending on your instruction, we then enhance the database by performing additional bibliographic and in-text coding.

Determination of Physical or Logical Document- Multi-page documents residing in electronic form can easily become problematic if not properly organized. Electronic-Data Discovery unitizes these document types within your document population according to the search parameters you specify. Throughout the coding process, Electronic-Data Discovery staff uses strict rules to assign document boundaries in order to perform logical document unitization. If a large number of batched document types exist such as a set of manuals, we will set document boundaries per your instruction for the most efficient use of these documents within your database.

Optical Character Recognition -In order to search the text within imaged files, it is necessary to convert these files into readable text. Electronic-Data Discovery uses optical character recognition (OCR) to convert this imaged text into computer readable ASCII text. This important step enables you to search all of your documents for key words or phrases, giving you a more efficient and powerful litigation database. Our experienced Electronic-Data Discovery team takes the steps necessary during the imaging process to obtain the best possible capture of the original document in order to later conduct a successful OCR conversion.

Bibliographic Coding - Locating important facts about a document's origin can be time consuming and frustrating. Electronic-Data Discovery uses bibliographic coding techniques to help expedite your sort and review process. We capture the creation date, author, recipients, document type, document title, signature and organization of origin. Based on your needs, fields can be added or deleted. We can also customize your database with codes that apply specifically to your case.

In-Text Coding -Finding multiple references of a name or organization within your document population can help you build a more effective case. At Electronic-Data Discovery, we use in-text coding to extrapolate this data for rapid sourcing of every reference. Names of individuals and organizations along with other key words or phrases within the body of each document are coded based on your instruction.

Many times data and names are found in various formats (i.e. John Smith, Mr. Smith or John A. Smith) within the same document population. At your discretion, Electronic-Data Discovery uses data and name normalization procedures to uniformly assign the same reference throughout the database. This process guarantees optimal database search capabilities with no reference overlooked.

Subjective Coding - Coding documents based on subjective interpretation, rather than the verbatim capture of words or terms. The subjects may be represented in shorthand "code" form to facilitate searching, sorting and reporting.

A field is a single piece of information about a document in the database. The following are examples of fields in a typical litigation support database:

• Begin & End Bates
• Document Date
• Document Type
• Name of Author / Recipient / CC with Organization details
• Document Source
• Document Characteristics
• Begin & End Attachment Ranges

Electronic-Data Discovery has created databases for a variety of clients and projects.

• Pharmaceutical Litigation
• Patent Litigation
• Insurance Litigation
• Labor/Employment Litigation
• Criminal Investigations
• Environmental Litigation
• Construction Litigation
• Anti-Trust Litigation
• Contract Disputes