SMB’s Dispute Resolution team used LitiGate to trace a key actor across a document-heavy case with a complex and protracted history.
The team were handling an inherited case with a long and complex history and needed to get clarity on the story so far, and its key actors, within a short space of time. The case was document-heavy and the team needed to quickly identify and digest all relevant information relating to a particular individual and their actions to date.
SMB’s lawyers used SmartSearch and Chronologies to track and explore all relevant mentions of this key actor in the case story. LitiGate’s Chronologies tool offers instant identification and extraction of key data points (down to the sentence level) from across the case, each one traced to its source document. In tandem, the Actors feature extracts the names, aliases, and mentions of key players, as well as the appropriate links between them. Using Actors as a filter in Chronologies generates an instant overview of the relevant player(s), at the document and/or sentence level. The Alias feature ensures that all permutations of an actor’s name are caught, for maximum coverage.
The team were able to work at an even more granular level using LitiGate’s SmartSearch tool. SmartSearch allowed them to explore all mentions of the individual and quickly drill down using date range, category and type filters. The SmartSearch tool, based on NLP modelling, is designed to pick up same-or-similar results, again ensuring that nothing key is missed even when spellings may vary or typos may exist in source documents. With LitiGate, time spent on knowledge elicitation is reduced significantly as all case documents become searchable automatically.
To quickly establish the procedural position on this recently-inherited case, the team used LitiGate to generate a Chronology of all Court Orders and their associated events.
SMB saved hours of trawling and were able to quickly identify and document all relevant mentions of a central player in the story of the case. The team were also able to quickly get a handle on the procedural position and upcoming Court deadlines.
SMB is a dynamic West End Firm, recognised as leaders across a range of practice areas. SMB’s Dispute Resolution team have expertise ranging from property to film & media to professional negligence.