AI is changing how lawyers approach litigation, investigations, and eDiscovery. Tools such as Legora, Harvey, Claude Legal, and Co-Counsel can help lawyers analyze evidence, identify issues, develop search strategies, and produce legal work.

But when a matter involves millions of documents, a fundamental challenge remains: How do you find the evidence that matters without getting lost in the data?

That’s where early case assessment (ECA) comes in. Before AI can deliver meaningful insights, legal teams need to understand their data and focus on the information most likely to move the case forward.

Start with the Data

AI legal assistants and ECA platforms serve different purposes. AI helps lawyers interpret information and develop case strategy, while ECA helps them make sense of large document collections before deeper analysis and review begin.

Reef ECA, part of Reef Discovery, enables legal teams to process and refine large volumes of collected data. Through OCR, deduplication, metadata extraction, and targeted searches, teams can identify key custodians and potentially significant evidence.

This early assessment provides a clearer picture of the available information and helps legal teams make informed decisions about where to focus their efforts.

Connecting Strategy with Evidence

AI can play a role from the outset. Lawyers can use legal AI assistants to analyze pleadings and other case materials, identify key issues, and develop an initial search strategy.

That strategy can then be tested against the underlying data. As evidence emerges, searches can be refined and the investigation adjusted accordingly. AI can also help classify documents, build chronologies, and summarize evidence to support the preparation of legal work product.

Connecting these capabilities creates a more efficient process, with each stage informing the next.

A Construction Arbitration in Practice

A large-scale construction arbitration illustrates how this approach works in practice

An international law firm used Legora to analyze a 140-page draft statement of claim and develop targeted search terms. TransPerfect Legal reviewed and refined the strategy before applying it through Reef ECA across approximately 4 TB of potentially relevant data.

More than one million documents were processed and imaged. The review population was narrowed to approximately 300,000 documents, a reduction of around 70%.

Within three days of receiving the data, counsel had access to early case intelligence. ECI Hub, an AI-powered tool that provides rapid insights into document collections before full review, was used to build a targeted chronology around key claims. The responsive document population then moved into Relativity for review.

Each technology played a distinct role. Legora helped turn the claims into a search strategy, which Reef ECA applied across the data collection. ECI Hub provided early insights, while Relativity supported the subsequent review.

Together, these capabilities helped counsel identify relevant evidence faster and move into review with a more focused document population.

Better Data, Better Economics

Large matters often involve data collected from multiple custodians and systems over several years. Much of that material may be duplicated or have little bearing on the issues in dispute.

Applying AI across an entire collection can increase costs and make it harder to identify relevant evidence. Some tools also have practical limits on the volume of information they can analyze at once.

Deduplication and targeted filtering help reduce unnecessary material, allowing legal teams to focus AI analysis where it can deliver the most value.

There’s a financial consideration as well. As legal AI providers introduce or explore consumption-based pricing models, the amount of data submitted for analysis can directly affect costs. Processing unnecessary material can quickly become an avoidable expense.

At the same time, reducing the review population must not come at the expense of relevant evidence. A defensible approach to document identification and review remains essential, regardless of the technology involved.

The Right Tools, in the Right Order

An effective legal technology strategy starts with understanding how different tools can support each stage of a matter.

AI legal assistants can help shape case strategy, while ECA makes large data collections more manageable. From there, AI-powered analytical tools can uncover insights that inform the review process.

This connected approach helps legal teams move from raw information to a clearer understanding of the evidence, with greater efficiency and control over costs.

As AI becomes more integrated into legal workflows, the quality and relevance of the underlying data will remain critical to its effectiveness.

The question is whether you're giving AI the right data to deliver meaningful results.

Reef ECA can help legal teams do exactly that, complementing their existing legal technology stack.

To learn more, contact the TransPerfect Legal team.