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01 September 2018 / Kelly Atherton
Categories: Features , Profession , Technology
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Power tool

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Kelly Atherton discusses how TAR works & why it matters for legal professionals
  • Technology-assisted review tools can support legal professionals in achieving significant time and cost savings.

Technology-assisted review (TAR), an algorithm-based method of classifying documents based on coding input from case subject matter experts (SME), is a powerful tool that can save time and significantly cut costs by reducing the amount of human review needed to locate relevant documents in a data set.  

The adoption of TAR is no longer the exclusive domain of large law firms and Fortune 500 companies. The technology is accessible to mid-size and independent legal practices. However, fear surrounding how this technology works and a lack of understanding of how such technologies can be integrated within existing review workflows is still creating a barrier to adoption for some legal professionals.

How TAR works

TAR, also known as predictive coding, computer-assisted review, or supervised machine learning, is an iterative and interactive process between the SME(s) and the TAR software. The SME reviews and codes electronically stored documents as either relevant or not and submits these coding examples

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