Case study: Bird & Bird delivers smarter, faster, more flexible investigations using Nuix
International law firm Bird & Bird formed an in-house digital forensics team using Nuix Enterprise Collection Center and Nuix Workstation to collect, process, cull and interrogate data before sending it for legal review. This allowed the law firm to handle in-house terabyte-scale cases with many data sources, gain deeper knowledge of clients’ data, and streamline its discovery processes with fewer data exchanges between parties.
Read the full case study to learn more about how Bird & Bird benefitted from using Nuix.
SUMMARY
International law firm Bird & Bird previously worked with external providers to perform data collection and processing for investigations, compliance tasks and legal cases. In 2020, the firm’s Warsaw office formed an in-house digital forensics team that used Nuix Enterprise Collection Center and Nuix Workstation to collect, process, cull and interrogate data before sending it for legal review. This allowed Bird & Bird worldwide to:
- Handle in house terabyte-scale cases with many evidence sources
- Gain deeper knowledge of clients’ data and offer greater flexibility on pricing
- Streamline its discovery processes with fewer data exchanges between parties.
CHALLENGE
Rapidly growing financial and technology markets have created surging demand for legal services, including internal investigation, regulatory compliance and litigation. International law firm Bird & Bird faced a common challenge in scaling its resources effectively.
“The firm would get the requirements from a client and then go back and forth with an external provider who did the collection and processing and uploaded the resulting data to our on premise review platform,” said Jakub Kur, Head of Forensic Technology at Bird & Bird Poland.
“Using an external provider can reduce your ability for flexible pricing options for a client. In addition, you may miss out on the latest trends and be limited in building new and innovative services.”
SOLUTION
In mid-2020, Bird & Bird recruited a team of data forensics specialists in Warsaw who had worked together for nearly a decade at advisory firm PwC. This team’s extensive experience with Nuix technologies made Nuix an obvious choice. “I’ve been using Nuix since version 4 – we knew how it worked and what we could achieve,” said Kur.
Bird & Bird offices around the world can now draw on the Warsaw team to collect, process and analyze electronically stored information (ESI). The forensic specialists use Nuix Enterprise Collection Center to gather ESI from client sites, including loose files and PST files, as well as data from email servers and cloud sources.
“We don’t have to rely on our clients knowing how to extract data from their systems,” said Kur. “We can give them a hard drive; they plug it in and run a batch file and it collects everything for them.” The team then uses Nuix Workstation to process, cull and interrogate the data – along with forensic images from mobile devices – before loading relevant items into its secure review environment.
RESULTS
Bird & Bird can now handle cases with many evidence sources and large data volumes, relying on its own resources and capable of handling complex processes. The firm can deliver more sophisticated client services with greater flexibility on costs
DATA VOLUMES NO LONGER A PROBLEM
With an internal forensics team using Nuix software, Bird & Bird can confidently tackle complex cases with large volumes of data
and many sources of ESI.
“We’re not afraid of terabytes now, we don’t worry that it’s too much data for us,” said Kur.
Even with large data volumes, Bird & Bird can still ensure it only passes a small volume of relevant documents to the lawyers for review.
“We use Nuix to remove immaterial items, deduplicate, use keyword searches, analyze email threading and track the data sources so reviewers can see who the important custodians are,” said Kur. “During processing we typically reduce the data by 40% and after applying contextual searches it can be cut down by 80 or 90% before the review.”
TECH-SAVVY SERVICE AND FLEXIBLE PRICING
Bringing data collection and processing in-house has allowed Bird & Bird to take a more technology focused approach to delivering client services.
“An external provider can do deduplication, optical character recognition and other basic analysis, but doing this work in-house allows us to get much deeper information,” said Kur.
“We can look into why there are so many immaterial items or whether they’re looking at the right sources. This gives us additional knowledge and control over the process so we can add more value for the client.”
Controlling the fees paid to external providers has allowed Bird & Bird greater flexibility on pricing its client services.
“By bringing in our team and using Nuix software, the firm can offer greater flexibility in pricing with the client,” said Kur.
MORE EFFICIENT PROCESSES
Eliminating the number and complexity of handoffs between the firm, its clients and external service providers has also streamlined the discovery process.
“Throughout the process, we know exactly what’s going on,” said Kur. “Sometimes if you’re handling a sophisticated discovery you might want to know exactly how the email threading works or adjust the deduplication options. Now we can just ask a colleague and get it done right away.”
