Nuix eyes legal sector as eDiscovery demand skyrockets
Risk, compliance and security software firm Nuix has turned its attention to the legal sector in an effort to help time-poor legal professionals discover information and data from a range of different formats, including documents, social media, and email.
The company recently launched a software-as-a-service (SaaS) service called Nuix Ringtail, which provides eDiscovery software and services for organisations that have little time to discover data the traditional way.
"People are overworked with little time to sift through mounds of information with anything resembling efficiency. Our customers have told us that it's essential for their eDiscovery platform to handle large data volumes at speed, and without failing. It also needs to be easy to use, learn, deploy, grow, and manage," says Nuix's global head of eDiscovery and information governance solutions, Shane Jansz.
Speaking to TechDay, Nuix Asia Pacific - Japan CEO Paul Muller adds that it has been more than a decade since businesses switched from paper correspondence to digital documents, and email became eDiscovery.
"Now eDiscovery must encompass so much more than email and documents. If you haven't looked at text messages and online chats, digital images, mobile devices, data in the cloud and social media, you're not getting the whole story. But this makes the volume of data so much greater – from a few gigabytes to hundreds or even more," he explains.
To cater to customers' needs, Nuix developed Ringtail, which runs on AWS, in order to help businesses stay ahead of the data curve.
Those in the legal sector can't continue to rely on keyword searches and manual document reviews, Muller says. Instead, they need to understand how technology can help them deal with the massive volume, variety and velocity of data involved in discovery.
But eDiscovery isn't just for litigation – it is useful for any organisation that deals with internal investigation, regulatory response, and compliance. They need the same capabilities: To ask questions of data, and to get answers quickly and thoroughly, Muller says.
"The regulatory environment is constantly changing, especially regarding privacy of personal data, with increasingly stringent laws such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Australia's Notifiable Data Breaches rules. In addition, many industries are facing, or have recently faced, Royal Commissions and other formal government inquiries that place enormous pressure on them to find answers and respond within days or even hours," Muller continues.
"In this new era, the ability to quickly find the truth from any data is business critical. The need for effective eDiscovery technology can only grow – there will always be more data to manage, protect and understand, and more reasons to scrutinise it. Having clear visibility to data will have to become the norm in future.
Research from MarketsandMarkets suggests that the eDiscovery market was worth US$11 billion in 2018, and is projected to grow 10% annually through to 2023. That growth is being driven by demand for better data analytics, amongst other capabilities. Nuix is keeping up with the growing eDiscovery market. The Sydney-based firm now has more than 2000 customers across more than 75 countries.
Nuix is also involved in Singapore's recently announced Tech-celerate for Law programme, which is an interesting case of how data can be used and insights gained within the law sector. As part of the programme, legal professionals can use the LegalComet eDiscovery Cloud powered by Nuix.
"The Minister for Communications in Singapore just launched the program on 15 May but already one major law firm has taken up the solution from LegalComet and Nuix," says Muller.
"This program is a great example of how government can support law firms that don't have the budget or technology know-how to choose the right solutions to increase their productivity and efficiency. It also shows how seriously the government in Singapore is taking eDiscovery technologies.
