The document discusses a legal document indexing project completed by Suprawin for a mid-sized law firm client. Suprawin developed a solution to index over 40,000 scanned documents within 4 weeks using Visual Basic and SQL. The solution involved documenting user requirements, coding document metadata parameters according to the requirements, extracting data from scanned documents using optical character recognition, and delivering the indexed documents with 99.95% accuracy.

1. 1
LEGAL DOCUMENT INDEXING
INDUSTRY APPLICATION CLIENT
Legal Mid size attorney
Legal Data Attribution
TECHNOLOGIES NO. OF MAN DAYS OUTPUT
Visual Basic & SQL 40,000 Docs
222 Man days
The client had a legacy document management software application
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and was constrained due to inadequate document search ability and
retrieval features
The client approached us for a solution that could improve the docu­
•
ment search and retrieval efforts
Problem Definition On an examination we found that the client had not defined ade­
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quate document indexing parameters for multi dimensional search
and retrieval
Most of the search parameters were generic in nature thereby mini­
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mizing the probability of finding the right document set
CLIENT REQUIREMENTS
The midsize law firm had over 40,000 scanned documents in the form of images pertain­
ing to a particular law suit. The client had approximately 4 weeks to archive these docu­
ments in a manner that would facilitate quick search ability and presentability. The key
challenge that the client faced was completing the task in a short turnaround time. It was
at this point that the client approached Suprawin’s offshore team through their local imag­
ing partner.

2. 2
LEGAL DOCUMENT INDEXING
STL’s SOLUTION
STL proposed and implemented a phased solution with clear and measurable objectives
for each step:
Phase 1: User requirement documentation
The creation of a successful metadata is certainly a collaborative effort between the law The key to a suc­
cessful DMS initia­
firm and the coding service providers. While as a DMS product provides certain indexes
tive is in the coding
by default; there is a strong need to customize specific keywords attributed to each docu­
of the metadata.
ment type in an organization for instant retrieval of documents. Therefore it is imperative
However; the crea­
that the Law firm take the responsibility of articulating their search and retrieval parame­
tion of a successful
ters and rule through a clearly defined requirement document. Attorney offices need to
metadata is cer­
focus sharply on this phase of the project where most of the bottlenecks creep in.
tainly a collabora­
On the basis of client requirement, style guidelines related to each of the document attrib­
tive effort between
utes like: document type, document title, document date, author name, recipient name, cc
the law firm and the
name, were documented. In addition, rules pertaining to the logical document determina­
litigation coding
tion were also documented for reference purpose. service providers
Phase 2: Coding of document index parameters
The following process illustrates the structured process that Suprawin follows while build­
ing the metadata pertaining to document archival system.
INPUT
The client provided us with 40,000 scanned multi page TIFF images. The files were up­
loaded by the client on their FTP site and provided us with the required access.

3. 3
LEGAL DOCUMENT INDEXING
PROCESS
Logistics
The logistics involved creation of tracking records that identify all the files downloaded
from the FTP site. Once the files were downloaded, with the help of the provided DAT files
the images were loaded in to the LANCER application
Extraction / Verification
The DAT file that acted as an input was extracted using LANCER, an internally developed
patented tool. The extracted Data was verified based on SLA requirements. This was the
The effective imple­
first QC stage. The rejected records were moved back to the production process for fur­
mentation of a DMS
ther indexing ensuring minimal errors and were subjected for another round of QC. The
relies on two impor­
approved data was moved to Quality Assurance (QA) process. tant factors:
Quality of
Quality Management •
Scanned Image
Quality management is one of the critical processes for any/ every project at STL. Quality
Accuracy of in­
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checks were performed at two levels. First at 60% and second at 30% of data. As a qual­
dexing/ meta­
ity management process quality check was performed on all attributes. A random testing
data
methodology was adapted for accuracy & precision of all the attributes and to give quality
output.
Information Systems Security Process
The client documents being critically confidential, the entire process of securitization of the
client’s data was in compliance with BS/ISO: 27001:2005
OUTPUT
The final output was delivered to the client in the form of a CSV format with 99.95%
accuracy.