Text Processing Vendors as Shark Bait
April 22, 2008
I’m nervous around attorneys or, as the English say, solicitors. The Content Wrangler offers a useful discussion of why legal eagles are circling content processing and text mining vendors. Please, read the original post “Automated Intelligent Document Classification, Data Extraction and Search Tools for Legal Pros”.
The essay appears to be a contribution from A2iA. The tag paragraph for the essay says that A2iA “is the worldwide leading developer of natural handwriting recognition, Intelligent Word Recognition (IWR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) technologies and products for the payment, mail, document and forms processing markets”. Note: the company’s Web site plays music, so you may want to mute your speakers before navigating to the landing page.
The key point in the essay, from my point of view, is:
Any automated solution must be at least as accurate and error-free as the manual processes it replaces. As accuracy is equally important to successful discovery, due diligence, investigatory or redaction efforts, this is an important advantage of DocumentReaders [nb, A2iA’s product] automated solution.
A defendent facing a life sentence would probably agree that accuracy is sometimes helpful. On the other hand, some legal professionals may disagree under certain circumstances. Speed is also important. Overworked lawyers need ways to pack more billable hours into the work day.
Recommind, Stratify (now a unit of Iron Mountain), and other content processing vendors have found ways to tap into the rivers of money that flow through the mahogany corridors of major law firms. I’m open minded about A2iA. You will want to check out systems available from Brainware and ZyLAB, both companies who made the final 24 in the Beyond Search round up.
I did not include the company in Beyond Search, nor do I have an entry in my list of companies in the text and content processing business. I have added A2iA, however. If you want a useful run down of why counselors have a thirst for systems that can make sense of large quantities of text, tuck this discussion in your files.
My research suggests that legal matters generate so much information that even well-padded clients are reluctant to pay for real-live people to read, analyze, and annotate paper. Digital systems, therefore, are not the first choice, but the only choice due to quantity and costs.
Vendors peddling to law firms may want to check their shark cage. Flawed technology can bite back in interesting ways.
Stephen Arnold, April 22, 2008
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