Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/7694
www.iltanet.org The Business of Law 15 The risk associated with a conflict of interest claim can be huge, and as the size of firms has grown, so has the complexity of best practices. Meanwhile, conflict of interest systems have continued to search only a fixed set of structured data sources, namely the matters, parties and lists of physical records. The vast majority of content stored in legal information systems (e.g., documents and e-mail messages), however, is unstructured. Legacy technologies are ill-equipped to provide the scalability and intelligence necessary to tap these sources during an organized conflict of interest process. The risk of ignoring such a large proportion of the firm's information assets may no longer be tolerable for firms that are under increasing pressure to improve their due diligence during a conflicts check. Modern innovations in search technology can help to broaden the due diligence associated with the conflicts search without overwhelming the existing processes or staff. Expanding the scope of searches increases the effectiveness of the conflicts process by exposing potential conflicts that traditional approaches can miss. Conflicts analysts' productivity is enhanced through faster processing power and the advanced clustering capabilities of large results sets, which includes the ability to automatically filter noise results from more relevant results. SearCh TeChnoLogieS for unDerSTanDing The Meaning of unSTruCTureD inforMaTion Innovations in search technology associated with unstructured data have advanced considerably over the last decade. Using sophisticated mathematics, and statistical and machine- learning techniques, computers now understand the meaning of unstructured information. For example, in a conflicts search, these systems are able to understand that a document or record that references "Steve Jobs" may also have relevance to a search for "Apple Inc." Moreover, the system can understand that "Apple Inc." is an organizational name, distinct from the phrase "an apple a day." Without understanding the underlying meaning of the content, expanding the target corpus by 400 percent to include unstructured data would overwhelm the conflicts process and put the firm at a competitive disadvantage. Intelligent techniques to understand the meaning of unstructured data are essential for reducing the noise level in large searches. There is no one search strategy that represents a whole solution to improving the process for conflicts checking. A range of "expanding the scope of searches increases the effectiveness of the conflicts process by exposing potential conflicts that traditional approaches can miss."