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Moving from Unstructured to Structured Data

By Jeff Cox
May 01, 2022

Data is everywhere. From the Zoom calls you're on, to the emails you send, the documents you work on, and the legal system you interact with, unstructured data is inherent in everything law firms and legal departments do. To make the most of this growing gold mine of data, law firms and legal departments must invest in better structuring of their data.

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Unstructured vs. Structured Data

Unstructured data populates the world around us. Everything we do or say is replete with data points that can be analyzed and used, from voice messages and emails, to PDFs and spreadsheets. Any type of raw, uncategorized data is considered unstructured, meaning that a computer cannot uniformly receive, analyze, and find patterns in the data without additional work.

Conversely, structured data is "data that uses a predefined and expected format." Once bucketed into predefined categories, data can be entered into computer systems, where large amounts of data can be analyzed to find key insights and stored for future use.

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