|
||||||||||||
Lexbe Releases Web-Based Litigation
Case Analysis & Document Management Service
Instant online sign-up is unique to litigation support industry
HOUSTON, TX, APRIL 18, 2007
Lexbe today launched its flagship service,
Lexbe.com, a web-based
case analysis and litigation document management service, at the Electronic
Discovery and Digital Evidence Institute in Houston, TX. Lexbe Online for
the first time marries the case management tools of robust case analysis
software, and the online document access features of a powerful litigation
repository, all at an affordable price starting at $79/month. Features
include web-based access, SSL security, document search, retrieval &
organization, objective and subjective coding, case and document notes, fact and
issue analysis, dynamic timeline generation and shared case calendaring. With the same ease as
searching with Google.com, lawyers
and other members of litigation teams can use Lexbe.com to quickly,
reliably and securely manage litigation via the Internet.
An ironic result of the computer age has been an exponential
increase in the number of documents saved and potentially available for
discovery in litigation. 
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), over 95% of new documents are created and stored electronically, and 60 million emails
were sent a day in 2006, over double the amount sent in 2002. The
average employee in an organization accumulates over a gigabyte (approximately 1,000
megabytes) of email and other documents, which would require 25,000 pages to
print and 10 boxes to store. The amount of digital information that
organizations create is not expected to level out, but instead to increase 600% between 2006 and 2010 (IDC).
To keep up, computerized document management is becoming a necessity to deal with the mass of information in many cases. While in the past, a few electronic documents could be printed out and manually reviewed along with paper-based documents, this is no longer practical. Attorneys increasingly need to work with documents electronically and have sophisticated tools available to search, organize and manage email and other electronic documents in a case. e-Discovery technology spending is predicted to grow from $1.4 billion in 2006 to more than $4.8 billion in 2011 as enterprises realize that they have no choice but to prepare for electronic discovery (Forrester).
Gene Albert, a founder of Lexbe and a lawyer, said: "All these additional electronic documents have changed litigation, with cases today involving many more documents than in the past. Everyone expects a large case to require electronic litigation management tools. For example, defendants in the Enron case produced at trial over a million pages of exhibits, or about 400 boxes if printed. The trial exhibits in a case typically represent only a fraction of total documents reviewed by a litigation team, so the Enron case undoubtedly required the review of several million pages."
"But smaller cases are now requiring electronic litigation management tools as well. A case that might have involved only a box or two of documents a decade ago, and been easily reviewed in paper form, may now produce a CD's worth (7 box equivalent) or even a DVD's worth (40 box equivalent) of electronic documents. With this many pages, manual review in paper form is unworkable. So lawyers are now looking to computerized litigation management systems to allow for more effective review and handling of the increasing stores of digital documents. This changes the centuries-old practice of lawyers storing litigation-related documents in boxes in a room and reviewing them manually in paper form. With electronic access, lawyers can search for keywords and review many more documents than could ever be looked at in paper form."
"The increase in electronic documents is driven in large part by our increasing reliance on email for our communications. Much of what might have been communicated in person or by phone in the past, and not saved, is now recorded in email, stored on servers and backup media and available for later litigation. Lawyers love to look at email, as these contemporaneous, informal communications are often much more frank and revealing than letters or documents. Email has become increasingly important and often critical in litigation."
The growing mass of discoverable electronic documents has also lead to escalating legal regulation. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended in December of 2006 to require that electronic information be routinely retained and provided in discovery in federal cases. Many states are enacting similar e-Discovery laws. Attorneys and clients potentially now face sanctions if they do not properly manage electronic documents in a case from its beginning.
The increased use of computers has also driven the virtualization of work practices in most law offices. Lawyers and staff now operate in teams in which many of the participants work at least part of the time from home or from different cities. An American Bar Association 2006 survey found that 81% of attorneys now use laptops at home, in travel or in transit, up from 72% in 2005. Online access to litigation documents becomes critical in this work environment to allow team members convenient access from home or other remote locations. According to Albert: "The freedom of mobile computing is particularly important to Gen Y attorneys who have grown up with ubiquitous internet access and expect that they should be able to access litigation materials anywhere, anytime. Younger attorneys in particular consider it hopelessly archaic to be told that they can only do their work at the office because of the need to review boxes of paper versions of documents."
In response to these developments, Lexbe has developed and released its flagship web-based case analysis and litigation document management service, Lexbe.com, to allow lawyers to access and manage case information and documents from any web-based computer. Lexbe Online uses a software-as-a service (SaaS) approach, so law firms can use Lexbe without the need to purchase computer hardware or software, or retain or dedicate IT support personnel to install and maintain a litigation management system. One advantage of Lexbe's web-based approach is instant sign-up. A lawyer can begin using Lexbe within minutes of a decision to proceed, through an online sign-up process unique in the litigation support industry. This compares favorably with the months that it might take to set-up equipment, and install and configure software in the traditional method of purchasing litigation management software.
Albert added: "Our low monthly cost and lack of set-up and minimum fees makes Lexbe Online an attractive solution for the small or medium-sized firm that does not want to dedicate the resources to run a sophisticated litigation management system in-house. The hefty price tags of many traditional litigation software systems are only the 'tip of the iceberg' of the costs required to install and maintain the required hardware and software, and train personnel to use these systems. Our per case/per month billing model means that firms buy and use litigation management capacity only if and when they need it. Our charge is based only on the number of pages, so all litigation team members can use Lexbe Online without the financial penalties of per-user licensing."
"Lexbe Online also differs from traditional litigation support products by incorporating Adobe's Acrobat™ PDF viewer. Lawyers more and more are working with PDF-formatted files in their offices and for court filings. But older electronic litigation management systems usually are built to work best with older image formats like TIFF. The newer PDF file format is easier to use and viewing documents with Acrobat™ means that litigation team members do not need to learn another program, as almost everyone is already familiar with Acrobat™. Lexbe also allows litigation team members to directly upload PDF files to their Lexbe Online account, thereby reducing vendor digitization costs. The Lexbe Online service automatically performs optical character recognition (OCR) on all PDF files uploaded, making the entire content of files searchable"
"Security is rightfully an important issue for attorneys in using any outsourced service", said Karsten Weber, another founder and the architect of Lexbe.com. "We've designed Lexbe Online to meet the stringent privacy standards of banks and other financial institutions, including Secure Socket Level (SSL) encryption of all documents viewed over the internet, firewall technology, and password integrity protection. Lexbe Online also allows secure sharing of files, notes and attorney analysis by sending an email that links to secure access on Lexbe, improving on the common, but insecure, practice of sending confidential legal information as an attachment over the public internet."
Lexbe Online also allows attorneys to keep private or shared notes linked to key documents, as well as a calendar of key litigation events. Litigators additionally can track all of the facts and issues of a case online, link to relevant documents and generate dynamic litigation timelines. Lexbe includes a 'briefcase' function to permit users to download case documents to their laptop to address the situation in which internet access will potentially be unavailable.
Pricing is flexibly based per case, per month, determined by the number of pages in Lexbe Online. Prices begin as low as $99 a month for a case with up to 5,000 pages (about two boxes). A case with 25,000 pages (about 10 boxes) is $250 a month, and a large case with 100,000 pages (about 40 boxes) is only $600 a month. There are no per user license fees and clients can authorize as many litigation team members as they want to access the Lexbe system as part of a case. New customers can access Lexbe through a 30 day, fully functional free trial.
About Lexbe
Lexbe is a web-based case analysis and document management service. Lexbe
Online uniquely combines the document access features of a powerful litigation
repository, with the management tools of robust case analysis software.
Plus, it is PDF-based and automatically performs optical character recognition
(OCR) on all documents added to the system. Features include web-based
access, SSL security, document search, retrieval & organization,
objective and subjective coding, case and document notes, fact and issue
analysis, dynamic timeline generation and shared case calendaring. Lexbe is completely browser-based, and
does not require any software installation or IT support. A
fully-functional 30-day free trial is available for new customers, and can be set
up online in minutes. For more information contact us at 800-401-7809 or visit Lexbe.com.
Contact
Gene Albert
3801 N. Capital of TX Hwy
Suite E420/152
Austin, TX 78746
512-377-9004
800-401-7809 (toll-free)
Lexbe.com