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(This article was translated from the print version of ITWIZ article)

kCura is the leader of e-discovery software market. Its software Relativity is being used by major consulting firms, law firms, corporations, and even the US Department of Justice. The company’s founder Andrew (Andrzej) Sieja is of Polish descent. Polish office to provide support to documents search and analytics in the best law firms in the world kCura is the leader of the e-discovery software market.  Its software Relativity is being used by major consulting firms, law firms, corporations, and even the US Department of Justice. The company’s founder Andrew Sieja is of Polish descent. Andrew Sieja is a 40-year-old resident of Chicago. For years, he has visited Poland for family reasons, but now it’s mainly for business. Last year he opened kCura’s new development office in Krakow. He is leading one of the most interesting companies in the software development field. Many corporate giants like IBM and Microsoft may envy him. kCura was founded in 2001. Starting off as a software consulting company, kCura’s team was asked by one of their customers to create software for documents search. When the customer did not buy the product, the company secured the rights on its invention and continued to focus on developing the software. Since 2007, kCura has been developing the e-discovery software. Today Relativity is being used by more than 130 thousand users. The company has offices not only in Chicago, but also in Portland, London, Hong Kong, Australia and - most recently - in Krakow. kCura listed 31st on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology companies in North America. The market value for e-discovery solutions is estimated at $10 billion. Short report instead of 700 million documents The concept of e-discovery is extremely broad – the process is being devoted to search key information across documents, databases, e-mails and spreadsheets. With the help of dedicated software, it is possible to scan and collect relevant documents, which are then getting analyzed and finally end up being used as evidence in a case. The process helps facilitate the work of investigators, lawyers and reviewers. The solution is being used by the law enforcement agencies around the world, including the FBI, antitrust authorities, and law firms. With the current amount of data being generated, its manual collection and analysis would be very time-consuming, if not impossible. The best example is the largest legal proceedings, where kCura’s software was used for search and analysis of 700 million documents. At this scale, we're talking about looking for a needle in a haystack. Teams of lawyers are not able to analyze hundreds of thousands or millions of documents. Meanwhile, e-discovery proportionality can be highly restrictive, sometimes for only a dozen or so pages. e-Discovery software is often used in resolving disputes between two parties. In the United States - still the primary market for kCura - 90% of cases between companies were resolved while utilizing e-discovery technology, instead of the traditional way, to agree on settlements. KCura’s Software Recognized by Gartner kCura already employs 600 people worldwide. In Poland, the company’s office is focused on software development. Their London site is the sales office for Europe. European customers today account for 15% of all signed contracts. The list of clients is impressive, including 195 of the 200 largest American law firms and the Department of Justice. Also, some of the biggest German banks, including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, as well as the Big Four firms, including KPMG and PwC among others. kCura’s software has been used by companies in more than 40 countries. kCura was highly recognized and named the leader by Gartner’s 2015 Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software, the industry report providing analysis of 20 software solutions, including IBM, Catalyst, Microsoft, Symantec, HP and Xerox among others. "The success of our software is based on three principles. First, we are able to analyze a very large amount of data in a short period of time. Second, our solution is extremely flexible. kCura software can process 100 thousand documents as well as 100 million and identify necessary data. Third, our software is user-friendly. Our customers, regardless of their technical background, can always deliver on their projects with the help of Relativity."- says Andrzej Sieja. It is important that Relativity doesn’t require much on-site tech support. In general, Relativity is no different from any other enterprise software in terms of ease of use. The company also provides multiple software certifications to meet the needs of every customer. Future Plans "The e-discovery market is constantly growing. According to industry reports, there’s an evolving demand and business need for software in this field. We’re focused on the continuous improvement of our company’s offering" - says Andrzej Sieja, when asked about the future plans for kCura. For this very purpose, kCura opened a development center in Krakow. The company is working on building a strong team of engineers in the Polish city, to expand the existing global team of tech and business geeks.  The decision in favor of Krakow was made based on the talent pool and proximity to highly acclaimed universities. What does Andrew Sieja think about kCura’s operations in the US, as the company is located in the Mid-West, outside of Silicon Valley? “Proximity to Silicon Valley is important for connecting with investors and benefiting from their on-site consulting. Chicago is a great location – in-between west and east coasts - to keep in touch with our customers and respond to their requests in a timely fashion. While being far from one of the tech capitals of the world, there’s a challenge in finding tech talent. This is one of the reasons for opening development offices around the world, where tech professionals are in abundance,” he says. Big Data Analytics for Lawyers It is worth noting that Relativity is best utilized at certain scale. This type of solution does not fit in a small office, where it is sufficient to hire trainees to go through just dozens of binders. e-Discovery technology is applied to thousands and millions of documents, when data analysis is time consuming.

After learning about Relativity, now I have a better understanding of big data analytics in the legal field. Traceability, cataloging and searching millions of documents - in order to find the relevant matters - has become an indispensable work tool for lawyers, analysts, and investigators. Andrzej Sieja expects the e-discovery market to grow along with the explosive growth of data and legal disputes.

Cognicion LLC is licensing kCura’s award-winning software for their e-discovery and managed document review services, leveraging the advanced analytics and visualization capabilities of Relativity in order to get to the right data faster. kCura, developers of the e-discovery software Relativity, today announced that Cognicion LLC, a subsidiary of Hunton & Williams, has chosen Relativity as their primary platform for e-discovery. Cognicion leverages time-tested project management practices and the advanced capabilities of Relativity to increase the efficiency of e-discovery. “The power of Relativity is easily matched by its customizability, allowing for a level of fine-tuning that is crucial in e-discovery,” said Chris McDaniel, chief revenue officer at Cognicion. “We believe in streamlining the e-discovery process for every unique case, and the robust nature of the platform allows us to do that.” Cognicion also selected Relativity because of its familiarity with law firms and corporations, and the fact that it’s an open platform for the industry to develop applications that further extend its functionality. The team also plans to leverage the complete Relativity Analytics feature set to quickly and easily identify essential data in a case. “We’re often dealing with time-critical situations for our customers, facing a fair amount of data to review in a short amount of time,” said Lorraine Venesky, chief operating officer at Cognicion. “The insight we can gain from Relativity’s data visualization and analytics capabilities throughout the lifecycle of a case helps us get to the truth of a matter much faster.” “With our past few releases, we’ve really focused on improving the way you can search, analyze, and act on data with Relativity—specifically through data visualizations and analytics,” said Nick Robertson, chief operating officer of kCura. “Cognicion is a group that sees a lot of value in leveraging these features throughout e-discovery, and we look forward to helping them deliver a first-class experience with Relativity.” To learn more about Cognicion, visit http://www.cognicion.com  

Chicago-based law firm concentrating on complex commercial issues and disputes brings in kCura's comprehensive e-discovery solution Relativity to gain efficiencies and custom offerings for clients. kCura today announced that Vanek, Vickers & Masini has licensed their e-discovery software Relativity. The boutique firm—located in downtown Chicago— has a national complex commercial litigation practice, and will leverage Relativity for all of its cases: from small cases to cases with millions of documents.

Relativity is a fully-featured e-discovery platform with comprehensive analytics and visualizations that can be leveraged to address every stage of the e-discovery lifecycle in a single system. Relativity also allows users to create and automate custom workflows and make use of fully integrated processing capabilities—so case teams can ingest data and begin review quickly without leaving the system.

“We find Relativity to be unflappable,” said David Germaine, partner at Vanek, Vickers & Masini. “In today’s market, we were seeking the most balanced solution. Relativity allows a firm of any size to handle all cases—small and large—and with the greatest amount of flexibility and scalability available.”

Vanek, Vickers & Masini cited the ease of use and familiarity with the product as a major factor in its decision-making process.

“From the beginning, we’ve architected Relativity as a flexible system that can handle matters of any size or complexity,” said Nick Robertson, chief operating officer at kCura. “We’re excited to be working with Vanek, Vickers & Masini as they make use of those capabilities to provide an even better e-discovery experience to their clients.”

To learn more about Vanek, Vickers & Masini, visit http://www.vaneklaw.com/.

ECA and Investigation is now available alongside today’s release of Relativity 9.4, helping legal teams assess risk and make informed decisions at the start of a matter; the new release also includes 170 enhancements across the platform. kCura today announced the release of Relativity ECA and Investigation—a brand new solution for early case assessment (ECA) and digital investigations. Fully integrated in Relativity, ECA and Investigation allows users to take advantage of all of Relativity’s analytics and visualization capabilities to better understand the context of a data collection. By turning to analytics at any point—including email threading and near-duplicate detection—it’s simple to isolate potentially relevant items, reveal context, and prioritize what’s most important. “Corporations today struggle with large amounts of custodial data. Relativity ECA and Investigation provides a straightforward way to whittle down that data so our attorneys aren’t wasting time on irrelevant information,” said Tina Garbarino, e-discovery manager at NBC Universal. A centralized dashboard provides real-time insight into how an analysis is progressing and customizable templates help guide any workflow. Additionally, it’s easy to share ECA and Investigation data and collaborate with external law firms or service providers that use Relativity. “ECA has been around for a while, so we wanted to deliver an altogether new solution that really adapted to the fact that corporate data is continuing to grow in both size and complexity,” said Dean Gonsowski, vice president of business development at kCura.  “By building Relativity ECA and Investigation seamlessly into our platform, customers can use the most relevant and valuable investigatory features available today—such as analytics and data visualizations—to gain quicker insights and to predict the risks and cost of potential litigation better than they ever could before.” Relativity ECA and Investigation was originally announced at the Relativity Spring Roadshow in London this May as part of Relativity 9.4, which includes a total of 170 new features and enhancements that simplify the process of understanding and taking action on data, such as:

• Bringing analytics visualizations together with document metadata within a dashboard, so users can clearly and easily see how concepts and themes intersect with important pieces of information—providing powerful search and analysis capabilities.
• More granular security controls in Legal Hold to grant unique project and communication permissions to users.
• Improved overall speeds of processing, production, and the document viewer, with storage requirements for processing reduced by up to 50 percent.

For more information about Relativity 9.4, visit this page.  

Ontario-based law firm licenses Relativity for processing through production, including comprehensive analytics capabilities. CHICAGO, IL and LONDON, ON - June X, 2016 – kCura, developers of the e-discovery software Relativity, today announced that Siskinds LLP has licensed Relativity. Siskinds is a Canada-based firm practicing in more than 25 areas of law, and will use Relativity in their class action group to better manage and analyze documents used for litigation and investigations. Relativity is a fully-featured e-discovery platform with comprehensive analytics and visualizations that can be leveraged to address every stage of the e-discovery lifecycle in a single system. Relativity allows users to create and automate custom workflows, take advantage of a complete set of text analytics capabilities including computer-assisted review, and make use of fully integrated processing capabilities—so case teams can ingest data and begin review quickly without leaving the system. “It was important to us to have a robust e-discovery platform where we could manage our data all in one repository,” said Dawn Sullivan, e-discovery counsel at Siskinds. “Having the right tools to find the relevant information is key in a fast-moving practice, and the extensive analytics tools will help us speed up the review process significantly.” Additionally, Siskinds was drawn to Relativity for the accompanying support and vast community built around the product. “I’ve implemented a lot of new technologies, and a huge differentiator for our experience with kCura was the community of partners available to offer expertise and resources, and the level of customer support provided through every step of the process,” said Ryan Bryson, manager of information technology for Siskinds. “It was a seamless transition to migrate our cases to Relativity, understand the existing functionality, and immediately start simplifying the e-discovery process for our own customers.” “We’ve always seen the community around Relativity as being a critical part of our customers’ success with our software,” said Nick Robertson, chief operating officer at kCura. “It’s important to us to foster an engaged and connected community of users—and it’s great that Siskinds is excited to be a part of it.” To learn more about the Siskinds class action group, visit http://www.siskinds.com/class-actions/.