Recommind logo Recommind announced their InSite Legal Hold product on October 20, 2008, which is designed create indexes for search on identified ESI before it is collected. This way culling can happen before the data is collected, reducing the amount of data to be processed. Andrew Conry-Murray provides some useful information to use along with the product page and press release.

There are several interesting features with this product. First, the data is crawled and the search index is created for initial analysis without the need to first collect the ESI. The ESI is collected and placed on hold only after the initial assessment. Secondly, individual messages can be extracted from container files, e.g. individual email messages can be extracted from PST files. While many e-mail archive vendors are working with organizations to eliminate PST files, this product can search and collect individual files within PSTs.

Notably, this product does not appear to handle Legal Hold Notification Management as offered by exterro, Autonomy, and now Guidance Software.

There are some open questions:

  • Early Case Assessment: Andrew writes that “Counsel identifies the custodians (that is, the people that have potentially relevant data in their possession), data sources, and date ranges. The Insite software connects to the data sources, scans and indexes files that match the search criteria, and brings back the information in HTML format.” This raises two questions:
    1. How ideal is it to narrow the ESI to custodians, data sources, and date ranges? Recommind mentions there’s no need to copy data to a central repository; however, central repositories can be extremely scalable and allow Early Case Assessment without the limitations of custodians and date ranges. Combined with fast search capabilities, this can provide more comprehensive Early Case Assessment. Can InSite also work with large amounts of data without the need to restrict data before it is searched?
    2. Is there an option to bring back data in native format?
  • Structured Data: The product page mentions an ability to capture structured data; however, the data sources listed are limited to “laptops/desktops, file share servers, email servers, email archives, enterprise document management systems such as Livelink™, and Microsoft SharePoint™.” Typically, these repositories hold unstructured data. Structured data is normally applied to database systems, ERP, CRM, etc. What structured data can InSite handle?
  • Third-Party Repositories: Andrew writes that InSite will move the collect the content and move it to third-party repositories. Which back-end repositories are supported?

The product looks interesting for reducing collection costs, but it is also behind in certain areas. Other products in this space can perform remote forensics to locate deleted files and institute legal hold on disconnected laptops (presumably when the user does not have administrator privleges). I’m interested to hear how comprehensive the Early Case Assessment and structured data capabilities are.


Website: recommind.com
Management: Robert Tennant, CEO
Funding: $7.5M (Latest: $7.5M, October 2008)
Investors: Kennet Partners