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AI-Powered Fact-Finding: The Future of Document Review with Cecilia Q&A

Product Spotlight
4 Min Read
By: 
Christina Turner
Posted: 
October 15, 2024
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https://www.csdisco.com/blog/ai-powered-fact-finding-the-future-of-document-review-with-cecilia-q-a

Stop guessing at search terms to identify relevant documents in your data set and find more hot docs faster with Cecilia Q&A, DISCO’s generative AI fact expert. By simply asking questions in conversational language, you’ll receive answers crafted only from the documents in your database — along with ‌citations to the documents that support each response. 

 

Cecilia Q&A replaces the construction of complex search queries and combing through hundreds of documents with direct question-asking and straightforward answers, taking a fraction of the time, so you can deliver better results, quicker.

Since the founding of our AI lab in 2015, DISCO has been preparing for widespread AI adoption. With more than 70% of legal practitioners surveyed in 2024 who are either already using GenAI or planning to do so within the next two years, the time is now. We’re proud to announce that general availability of Cecilia Q&A now extends to the EU/UK.

What is Cecilia Q&A?

DISCO’s Cecilia AI platform brings the power of generative AI (GenAI) to lawyers in a scalable and secure way. While it is currently comprised of six skills (auto review, auto timelines, deposition summaries, Q&A, Q&A (single-doc), and doc summaries), Cecilia Q&A itself helps users find facts and understand key issues faster, and unlocks legal issues that are very hard to prove using conventional search methods.

Using a secure, customized large language model (LLM), Cecilia Q&A makes it easy to learn more about a concept, custodian, or claim, giving you a better understanding of your facts at every stage of the case. The underlying sources can be quickly referenced or tagged for additional analysis.

Think of Cecilia Q&A as your matter expert. It knows the documents of your case inside and out and is great at answering factual questions about the case, like:

  • What was the game engine that powered Fortnite?
  • Did Epic buy Unreal Engine from someone else?
  • When was the Epic Games Store created?

While it’s impossible to completely eliminate all hallucinations and also allow a GenAI tool to keep the creativity that makes its answers so helpful, Cecilia Q&A is hallucination-resistant, providing citations for every answer that you can (and should!) easily review.

Why use Cecilia Q&A?

Accelerate your process by

  • Conducting rapid early risk assessment
  • Shaping case and discovery strategy earlier with better insights
  • Finding the most critical documents in minutes, not weeks
  • Responding faster to the opposing party’s productions
  • Responding on the fly at trial

Leverage GenAI to

  • Jumpstart your theory of the case                               
  • Understand complex issues quickly 
  • Play better defense
  • Investigate difficult issues                                   
  • Improve productivity and performance 
  • Streamline workflows

Does Cecilia Q&A deliver results?

Cecilia Q&A offers the precision and speed needed to deliver fast, accurate results. In fact, users have been able to accelerate fact investigation by 87%.

“Cecilia gave me a very clear, concise answer on a newly raised issue and identified key supporting documents. I was able to figure out in 5 minutes what was happening, why it was important, and make a decision based on it.” 

– Kristopher Wood, Senior Associate, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

What does success look like using Cecilia Q&A?

Cases are won or lost based on facts. These customer examples highlight the way GenAI has impacted their cases.

Investigate difficult issues

When faced with a case involving millions of records, an Am Law 50 firm used Cecilia Q&A to find documents showing misconduct. The behavior was too generic to be described with search terms, but within the first few questions to Cecilia Q&A the ediscovery team found an email stating that the problem had occurred and one party knew about it — leading the case team to the pot of gold.

Understand people and entities

An associate attorney involved in a patent case received 250,000 documents from a busy, high-profile client of theirs with virtually no context or ability to interview the client. The case involved dozens of people and entities unfamiliar to the associate. Using Cecilia Q&A, the associate was immediately able to understand the role each person and entity played in the case, and quickly gained context that accelerated the overall review. 

Find missing hot documents

A lawyer accessed Cecilia Q&A long after their initial document review was completed by contract attorneys. The attorney immediately found multiple hot documents related to several issues, which had been tagged as “relevant” but nothing more. Using DISCO Ediscovery’s in-app functionality to share the documents with the rest of their case team, the lawyer said, “Look at the hot documents Cecilia just found!”

How do I use Cecilia Q&A with additional Cecilia AI skills?

Using Cecilia AI skills in tandem can provide an incredible boost to your process. 

Cecilia Auto Review 🔍

What is it

Cecilia Auto Review is your solution for large-scale document review. Simply provide tag descriptions, like you would with human reviewers. You’ll receive tagged documents – with explanations for each and every tagging decision.

Why it matters

Cecilia Auto Review allows you to complete large-scale document review in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of manual review.

How it works with Cecilia Q&A

Cecilia Auto Review helps you cast a wide net – reviewing any number of documents to identify those that are relevant and you are obligated to produce to the opposing party. Cecilia Q&A, on the other hand, finds the top documents relevant to any question that comes up over the lifetime of the case. Ask Q&A some questions and use the results to write the review protocol you provide to Cecilia Auto Review for your large-scale document review.

Cecilia Doc Summaries 📄

What is it 

With Cecilia summaries, you can instantly get a concise summary of long and foreign-language documents in a single click.

Why it matters

Have you ever had a surprise document sprung on you at a hearing or deposition? Have you ever needed to understand the gist of a foreign language document before translating it? Cecilia doc summaries gives you a quick digest in plain English, so that you can understand the key points without breaking your stride.

How it works with Cecilia Q&A

Use Cecilia Q&A to query your full database about a particular issue and identify potentially relevant documents, then open one of your identified documents and use Cecilia doc summaries to instantly generate a summary. This allows you to gain a good understanding of long, complex, and/or foreign language documents, without reading them in their entirety.

Who has access to Cecilia Q&A?

Cecilia Q&A is available for purchase by all DISCO Ediscovery users.

Embrace the benefits of AI-powered legal tech with DISCO

If you’re ready to join the teams already using GenAI to improve accuracy and turnaround time for document review, check out Cecilia Q&A plus DISCO’s secure suite of solutions for ediscovery, review, depositions, and more. Request a demo.

About the author: Christina Turner is a Senior Product Marketing Manager and has been with DISCO since 2021. She has over 20 years of experience in various marketing roles at both SaaS and fabless semiconductor companies.

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