Technology at Work: A Review of Syngence Services

Late last year, an old case was resurrected after an appeal resulted in our winning summary judgment being overturned. With the equivalent of 54 Bankers Boxes' worth of documents loaded on CDs as TIFF images without any associated indexing or coding, we were faced with the weighty task of processing those documents in a very short amount of time.

The key issues were cost and functionality. We quickly needed usable data that could be manipulated, at a price acceptable to our client. Upon investigating our options regarding either manual or automated coding, we were introduced to the Syngence services by American Legal Copy ' our reprographics vendor in San Diego. We decided to give Syngence a try because their Syndex automated indexing service promised a basic database of information in a matter of days and their Synthetix-related content search feature intrigued us. In addition, we would not have to invest in any new software because they could provide our document index ready for upload directly into our existing Concordance package. This approach kept our staff from having to rapidly learn another new system.

Since Syngence was relatively unknown to us at the time, we also liked the fact that we could give them a portion of our documents for processing as a 'pilot test.' If we had not been satisfied with the results of the test, there would have been no obligation for either Gray Cary or our client to continue the service. The pilot results were satisfactory, so we continued processing the remainder of the collection.

We found that the Syndex automated indexing service was a better alternative to manual coding on this case and quickly provided us with visibility into our database without having to print it. Overall processing took slightly longer than we originally expected because our existing TIFF images were multi-page instead of the single page TIFF images required by the Syndex process. However, Syngence responded to the issue and was able to quickly split the images and continue indexing.

In addition, the resulting text from the OCR was impressive considering these were not perfect images to start with. We were pleased with the results because without any additional manipulation on our part, we had full analytical capability even though some data fields had not been flawlessly recorded. This was essential considering we simply did not have the time or the money to spend cleaning up the OCR.

For example, one of our searches turned up a document that appeared to have been badly mangled in the OCR process. However, upon retrieval, we found that the TIFF image had been made from a very poor quality copy of a newspaper article that had been folded and creased about five times prior to being copied. We realized that the portion of the OCR we thought didn't work well was actually a photo that had been in the center of the article. Further, even though the quality of the TIFF image was relatively poor, Syndex had been able to successfully OCR and capture enough fielded information so that the page turned up in our search results.

But, the real surprise in the Syngence service was searching with their Synthetix related content search tool. I look at it this way ' I can eventually find anything

I want on the Internet because it's easy to use and doesn't require any special queries. Using Synthetix is as close are you can get to being able to put an Internet-type search engine on top of your database.

The technology behind it is actually much more complicated as I understand it, but the user doesn't need to know it. It's a point and click operation that will return pages in your collection that most closely match the 'semantic' content of a target or source page.

We began to more fully appreciate the value of this Syngence service after we spent a good amount of time searching for a document we knew existed using all of our normal search techniques to no avail. Using the 'synthetic document' feature, we were able to easily create a source page for a Synthetix search consisting of two sentences that basically matched the meaning of the text in the document we were looking for. We found the document in question in a mere fraction of the time that we had already spent searching without results.

But, the moment of truth occurs for a litigator when facing a client and attempting to explain the costs of the case. It's imperative to be able to somewhat accurately forecast the cost for each requirement (with the understanding that there will always be some variations) and I view Syngence as one of the services that leads the way in this. More important, the cost of the service won't make your client faint.

Jobs are priced on a per-page basis and include the OCR so you don't need to pay for that service separately. For that per-page price, we received the fully searchable text and a document index comprised of several data fields that included Key Terms provided by Gray Cary prior to processing and a complete listing of all Names in Text.

I anticipate that Syngence services will help us lower the cost of document triage in the early stages of discovery. For example, out of 100,000 pages, you can probably predict that about 70% will be of no value to the case. Do you want to go to the expense of indexing the entire collection? Probably not, but you can't not do it especially when opposing council typically has it all. Using automation allows Syndex indexing to provide the required basic information at a much lower overall price.

I expect that Syngence services will be considered on additional litigation in the future. It offers a viable means of reducing the overall expense of litigation, yet provides the basic data and analysis capabilities to help assess the case early. The bottom line is that providing creative solutions for managing costs to the client is becoming a critical issue in today's economy.

Browning Marean is litigator with over 30 years' experience and is a partner with Gray, Cary located in San Diego, CA. He can be reached at 619-699-2762. More information on the services offered by Syngence LLC can be found at http://www.syngence.com/.

Late last year, an old case was resurrected after an appeal resulted in our winning summary judgment being overturned. With the equivalent of 54 Bankers Boxes' worth of documents loaded on CDs as TIFF images without any associated indexing or coding, we were faced with the weighty task of processing those documents in a very short amount of time.

The key issues were cost and functionality. We quickly needed usable data that could be manipulated, at a price acceptable to our client. Upon investigating our options regarding either manual or automated coding, we were introduced to the Syngence services by American Legal Copy ' our reprographics vendor in San Diego. We decided to give Syngence a try because their Syndex automated indexing service promised a basic database of information in a matter of days and their Synthetix-related content search feature intrigued us. In addition, we would not have to invest in any new software because they could provide our document index ready for upload directly into our existing Concordance package. This approach kept our staff from having to rapidly learn another new system.

Since Syngence was relatively unknown to us at the time, we also liked the fact that we could give them a portion of our documents for processing as a 'pilot test.' If we had not been satisfied with the results of the test, there would have been no obligation for either Gray Cary or our client to continue the service. The pilot results were satisfactory, so we continued processing the remainder of the collection.

We found that the Syndex automated indexing service was a better alternative to manual coding on this case and quickly provided us with visibility into our database without having to print it. Overall processing took slightly longer than we originally expected because our existing TIFF images were multi-page instead of the single page TIFF images required by the Syndex process. However, Syngence responded to the issue and was able to quickly split the images and continue indexing.

In addition, the resulting text from the OCR was impressive considering these were not perfect images to start with. We were pleased with the results because without any additional manipulation on our part, we had full analytical capability even though some data fields had not been flawlessly recorded. This was essential considering we simply did not have the time or the money to spend cleaning up the OCR.

For example, one of our searches turned up a document that appeared to have been badly mangled in the OCR process. However, upon retrieval, we found that the TIFF image had been made from a very poor quality copy of a newspaper article that had been folded and creased about five times prior to being copied. We realized that the portion of the OCR we thought didn't work well was actually a photo that had been in the center of the article. Further, even though the quality of the TIFF image was relatively poor, Syndex had been able to successfully OCR and capture enough fielded information so that the page turned up in our search results.

But, the real surprise in the Syngence service was searching with their Synthetix related content search tool. I look at it this way ' I can eventually find anything

I want on the Internet because it's easy to use and doesn't require any special queries. Using Synthetix is as close are you can get to being able to put an Internet-type search engine on top of your database.

The technology behind it is actually much more complicated as I understand it, but the user doesn't need to know it. It's a point and click operation that will return pages in your collection that most closely match the 'semantic' content of a target or source page.

We began to more fully appreciate the value of this Syngence service after we spent a good amount of time searching for a document we knew existed using all of our normal search techniques to no avail. Using the 'synthetic document' feature, we were able to easily create a source page for a Synthetix search consisting of two sentences that basically matched the meaning of the text in the document we were looking for. We found the document in question in a mere fraction of the time that we had already spent searching without results.

But, the moment of truth occurs for a litigator when facing a client and attempting to explain the costs of the case. It's imperative to be able to somewhat accurately forecast the cost for each requirement (with the understanding that there will always be some variations) and I view Syngence as one of the services that leads the way in this. More important, the cost of the service won't make your client faint.

Jobs are priced on a per-page basis and include the OCR so you don't need to pay for that service separately. For that per-page price, we received the fully searchable text and a document index comprised of several data fields that included Key Terms provided by Gray Cary prior to processing and a complete listing of all Names in Text.

I anticipate that Syngence services will help us lower the cost of document triage in the early stages of discovery. For example, out of 100,000 pages, you can probably predict that about 70% will be of no value to the case. Do you want to go to the expense of indexing the entire collection? Probably not, but you can't not do it especially when opposing council typically has it all. Using automation allows Syndex indexing to provide the required basic information at a much lower overall price.

I expect that Syngence services will be considered on additional litigation in the future. It offers a viable means of reducing the overall expense of litigation, yet provides the basic data and analysis capabilities to help assess the case early. The bottom line is that providing creative solutions for managing costs to the client is becoming a critical issue in today's economy.

Browning Marean is litigator with over 30 years' experience and is a partner with Gray, Cary located in San Diego, CA. He can be reached at 619-699-2762. More information on the services offered by Syngence LLC can be found at http://www.syngence.com/.