Ricoh Expands Clients' Capacity for Complex eDiscovery Matters With New Early Case Assessment and Review Capabilities

NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2012  /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh Americas Corporation, a leading provider of digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, today announced that it is dramatically expanding its eDiscovery capabilities for corporate counsel and supporting law firms. The company is offering early case assessment (ECA) and hosted review software, both supported in Ricoh's state-of-the-art data center.

Through a new agreement with Digital Reef, Ricoh clients will experience improvements in high-capacity processing performance and new ECA tools that feature a portal where clients can increase review efficiency by reducing the number of relevant documents prior to conducting a costly linear review. Through a second new investment with kCura, clients gain access to Relativity – the fully featured, Web-based eDiscovery platform for review, analysis and production. Relativity's advantages include its scalability, flexibility and ease of use. Users can create and automate custom review workflows, make use of a complete set of text analytics capabilities including computer-assisted review, and can build applications within the software to manage and search all types of case-related data and information.

Ricoh announced the partnerships today at the LegalTech legal technology event, running through Feb. 1 in New York, N.Y.

The new best-in-class ECA and eDiscovery applications, hosted in Ricoh's data center, significantly expand Ricoh's already comprehensive eDiscovery portfolio, providing powerful new options for the largest organizations and highest case volumes. "It is encouraging to see Ricoh build its services around high-performance Early Data Assessment (EDA) and a well-established review platform," said eDiscovery analyst George Socha, President and Founder of Socha Consulting LLC. "These moves help address one of the market's overriding concerns – reducing the time legal professionals spend trying to identify and analyze potentially relevant documents,"

ECA is the analysis, search, culling and processing of documents prior to detailed attorney review. Ricoh's new partnership with Digital Reef, a leader in IDC's 2011 MarketScape of standalone ECA applications, gives clients the chance to work directly in the software through a portal where they can initiate, conduct or refine the ECA process.

"These partnerships help us uniquely serve customers looking for one eDiscovery partner to handle any and all projects, from the smallest to the largest, from the most document-intensive to the most complex in terms of electronically stored information," said Eric Wangler, Vice President, Legal Enterprise Solutions, Ricoh Americas Corporation. "Our customers have been asking for new, expanded options for eDiscovery, and we're delivering them."

"We welcome Ricoh to the Premium Hosting Partner family and appreciate their approach to providing their clients with a best-of-breed eDiscovery technology stack," said Andrew Sieja, President and CEO of kCura. "We look forward to working with their team."

Ricoh will be showcasing its eDiscovery offerings and its portfolio of legal document services based on the expertise of IKON Office Solutions, a Ricoh company and the technology innovation of Ricoh at LegalTech in booth 2207.

For more information on Ricoh's legal solutions, visit www.ricoh-usa.com/legal.  

See Ricoh in Booth # 2207 at LegalTech NY

About kCura
Recognized as a "Leader" in Gartner's 2011 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant, kCura are the developers of the e-discovery software Relativity, a web-based platform for the review, analysis, and production of electronic data. Relativity has more than 52,000 active users worldwide from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice and 95 of the top 100 law firms in the United States. Relativity also powers Method, kCura's workflow and notification system for managing legal hold and risk assessment processes. kCura helps corporations, law firms, and government agencies meet eDiscovery challenges by installing Relativity and Method on-premises and providing hosted, on-demand solutions through a global network of partners. kCura has been ranked the 42nd fastest-growing technology company in North America on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 and named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune. Please contact kCura at info@kcura.com or visit www.kcura.com for more information.

About Digital Reef
Named a Market Leader in IDC's 2011 MarketScape of standalone ECA applications, Digital Reef is a leading e-discovery software provider helping enterprises, law firms, and litigation support service providers with their largest and most complex eDiscovery matters. Digital Reef's eDiscovery platform is the first truly enterprise-scale eDiscovery solution that manages all legal matters, regulatory inquiries, and corporate investigations. Using the industry's fastest, most scalable and secure grid-based SaaS eDiscovery platform, leading companies have chosen Digital Reef as part of their EDRM system to process, analyze, review, and produce ESI. As a result, they accelerate early case assessment (ECA), increase review throughput, reduce movement of data across multiple tools, and improve the defensibility of their electronic discovery processing. Digital Reef gives businesses an unprecedented control of their information which can be derived from wherever it resides including emails, documents, repositories, and over 400 different types of files, including images.

About Ricoh Americas Corporation
Ricoh Americas Corporation, headquartered in West Caldwell, N.J., is a subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd., the 75-year-old leading provider of advanced office technology and innovative document imaging products, services and software, with fiscal year 2010 sales in excess of $23 billion. Ricoh's fully integrated hardware and customizable services and software help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents. Ricoh Americas Corporation, directly or through its network of authorized dealers, markets and distributes products in North, Central and South America.

© 2012 Ricoh Americas Corporation. All rights reserved. All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Ricoh Americas Corporation