Mountain View, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/29/2011 -- Clearwell Systems, Inc., a leader inintelligent e–discovery, today announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has extended its contract for the Clearwell E-Discovery Platform. ICE issued a past-performance letter certifying that Clearwell meets the terms and conditions in the Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW covers capabilities critical to e-discovery, including search functionality, review functionality, case management, export and production. Clearwell is being used in the electronic discovery litigation process to assist ICE attorneys in processing, reviewing, analyzing and producing electronically stored information.
The past-performance letter issued by ICE certifies: “The Clearwell E-Discovery Platform procured under the subject contract meets the government’s needs and performed in a satisfactory manner.”
Specifically, Clearwell has satisfactorily met the following requirements as outlined in Contract HSCETE-09-F-00064:
General Review Functionality:
1.1. Native / Image Document Review: Ability to review files in native format and image format.
1.2. Mixed Media Formats: Support for review of mixed media formats including audio and video.
1.3. Admin Created Fields/Tags: Ability to create fields/tags that can be associated with documents and objects subject to review. Application provides functionality for bulk tagging.
1.4. Integrated Document Viewer: Integrated document viewer that allows users to open and display a variety of documents in their native format without the need for the original application that was used to create the document.
1.5. File and Object Properties — Metadata Search: Functionality that enables users to search on metadata of files and objects.
1.6. Web-Based Application: Web-based document review. Review should be available without the need to download and install client software or agent.
1.7. Off-Line Document Review: Documents and objects subject for review can be downloaded for offline review.
1.8. Bates Numbering: Functionality that provides users the option of bates stamping documents and objects. Functionality to retain set of bates-stamped un-redacted documents.
1.9. Document Redaction: Ability to make redactions to multiple documents in bulk as well as on an individual basis.
1.10. Redaction Commenting: Ability to create comments and codes associated with redactions and allow users the option to include the code or comment when documents are published.
1.11. De-Duplication/Un-Dupe Functionality: Functionality to de-duplicate multiple data types to reduce workload. Product also provides the ability to un-dupe data. This also applies to the processing of emails.
1.12. Page-Specific Review: Ability to jump to a specific page of a document for review without the requirement to traverse the entire document.
1.13. Back-up and Restore Functionality: Ability to backup reviewed documents and be able to restore backed-up documents in case additional reviews or new litigation matter requires access to previously reviewed documents.
1.14. Audit Trail / Chain of Custody: The ability to track all user actions through the entire document review and production process.
1.15. Integration with Concordance Document Review Software: The use of Concordance by attorneys within the Department of Justice (DOJ) requires any potential document review software used by ICE attorneys to allow for a collaborative review process between ICE and DOJ attorneys. The software must provide a seamless offline transfer between the two groups and allow ICE and DOJ attorneys to be
able to review work performed by each group and perform additional review work.
1.16. Maintaining Authentication between ICE Document Review Software and Concordance: Hash values used to verify the authenticity of data should be maintained during the transfer of data between ICE and DOJ attorneys.
Search Functionality
2.1. Keyword Searches: Ability to locate documents and information based on specific keywords.
2.2. Boolean, Proximity, and Fuzzy Searches: The ability to use the Boolean operators “AND”, “OR”, “NOT” in searches. Proximity search which allows for searches based on the proximity of words in a sentence or a paragraph.
2.3. Wildcard Searches and Results Based on Possible Variations:Support for wildcard characters in searches and provides results for all matching variations of the wildcard search.
2.4. Multiple Query Searches: Functionality to run multiple queries simultaneously and provide results for the entire search as well as for the individual queries.
2.5. Search Filters: Ability to filter the results of searches by individual queries or variations.
2.6. Search Report: Search reports that track and document the execution of searches.
2.7. Hit-Highlighting: Highlight search terms in result set. This feature should be available for textual documents as well as email.
3. Email Review
3.1. Files and Attachments: Ability to review attachments to emails and identify duplicate attachments associated with multiple emails, search across emails and locate all emails that are associated with particular attachments. Attachments to emails can be exported separate from email associated with attachment.
3.2. Discussion Threads: Link related messages into chronological threads which capture the entire discussion. Ability to analyze the content of emails as well as the metadata.
3.3. Advanced Searches: Advanced searches based on custodian, senders, recipients, subject.
4. Case Management
4.1. Case Configuration: Allows administrators to create cases, perform group management, classify groups, cases, or document sets by topic, review sets, create tag categories, and values. Role based administration — ability to specify roles and permissions for users.
4.2 User Management: Manage user accounts, limit views and actions of users. User accounts are configurable by case administrators. Ability to tag documents individually or in bulk and assign these to individual attorneys for review.
5. Export — Production
5.1. Privilege Log: Application automatically creates a privilege log of all privileged documents for opposing counsel’s review.
5.2. Production in Multiple Formats: Export documents in PDF, EDRM XML, text, and image formats (TIFF, JPEG.) Users can separate attachments from emails, password protect results, preserve original folder hierarchy, and control the number of files created.
“As indicated in their past-performance letter, ICE has benefited from using the Clearwell E-Discovery Platform to streamline its e-discovery needs,” said Aaref Hilaly, CEO of Clearwell Systems.
“Clearwell is committed to helping ICE and the Department of Homeland Security achieve its mission, and ensuring that the product continues to deliver for the agency, as it has thus far.”
About the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. Created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 47 foreign countries.
About Clearwell Systems
Clearwell Systems is transforming the way enterprises, government agencies, and law firms perform electronic discovery (e–discovery) in response to litigation, regulatory inquiries, and internal investigations. The Clearwell E–Discovery Platform streamlinesend–to–end e–discovery, providing a single product for identification, collection, preservation, processing, analysis, review, and production. Leading global organizations such as AEGON, Bombardier Learjet, Clear Channel Communications, Constellation Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, DLA Piper, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NBC Universal, OfficeMax, Time Warner and Toyota are using Clearwell to streamline legal hold notifications, automate collections, accelerateearly case assessments, intelligently cull–down data, increase reviewer productivity, and ensure the defensibility of their e–discovery process. Consistently ranked as a leader in independent e–discovery industry surveys and reports, Clearwell Systems is an active participant in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project, The Sedona Conference, and the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC). For more information, visit http://www.clearwellsystems.com, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/clearwell, or subscribe to the E–Discovery 2.0 blog at http://www.clearwellsystems.com/e–discovery–blog/.