GoldFynch may well be one of the most intuitive and affordable options when it comes to cloud-based document review platforms. Compared to others, GoldFynch does not offer a plethora of advanced and intricate features, but since the vast majority of litigators don’t need predictive coding or text analytics, GoldFynch is an optimal choice. Most lawyers just need an easy to use, affordable, and capable alternative to reviewing emails inside their own Microsoft Outlook software … and GoldFynch could be exactly what they need.
A relative newcomer to the eDiscovery market, GoldFynch has uniquely positioned themselves to take advantage of the most modern and cutting-edge technology available for today’s web browsers, and they have effectively leveraged the capabilities of the collective cloud. The lower pricing in no way indicates lower quality, it just means that GoldFynch can pass on the savings to you and your clients.
GoldFynch may well be one of the most intuitive and affordable options when it comes to cloud-based document review platforms.
Uploading & Processing
Once you’ve created a case in GoldFynch, you are presented with a no-frills dashboard containing action buttons on the left side.
The first button you need to click is “Files” that allows you to upload data into GoldFynch. Thankfully the entire process is a simple drag and drop function, so if your client has sent you a PST file or a collection of PDF files, you can simply open your web browser and drag those files over.
There’s only a minimal amount of processing performed on your data, so after you upload data you may need to go through and delete any extraneous files that don’t contain data, such as Windows system files. This is easy to do in the post-upload screen.
Brilliantly, GoldFynch keeps the folder structure intact for any PST files that you upload so you can see exactly how messages were being stored by your client or custodian.
Search & Review
The next step for most users is to click the “Search” button which takes you to a nice, clean interface with a search box at top. You can start typing search terms to search the content of your files, or you can search in specific metadata fields such as the To or From fields of email messages.
As you start typing search queries in the large search box at the top, you’ll immediately start seeing results appear similar to what you see when you start a search in Google. If you click on a document from here, it will open in your web browser and all of your search terms will be highlighted in the document.
GoldFynch has uniquely positioned themselves to take advantage of the most modern and cutting-edge technology available for today’s web browsers, and they have effectively leveraged the capabilities of the collective cloud.
In the far right of the search box, your search terms get saved as little colored buttons. When you add additional search terms, they’ll get added to the right side as well, providing you at a glance with the parameters of your current search. Because of this unique feature, you can quickly perform a “search within a search” by simply adding additional keywords and keep track of the current search by glancing at those buttons. If you need to delete a search term, just click the tiny “X” on the button.
If you are searching within a specific folder of documents, you’ll see that folder appear as an extra button in the far right of the search box as well, with a different color. This is extremely helpful to ensure you’re searching in the correct area.
GoldFynch has discovered that 80% of the searches performed in their platform are done through the simple search box at the top, but they also offer an Advanced Search option for users when they want to go a bit deeper into their data. The Advanced Search component allows you to build complex search queries with multiple search parameters.
The Advanced Search view is nice and colorful and allows you to drag around your different query structures to ensure you are creating the exact search strings that you need.
Viewing Documents
For all of the electronic files you upload to Goldfinch, the platform will create a PDF rendering of those files and extract out any locations, dates, people’s names, and more, which are revealed on the right side. You can click on any piece of this information to reveal it in your document. If your documents are not searchable, GoldFynch will perform OCR and extract out the information.
The document viewer for email messages shows you what folder the message came from so you can see it in context. In addition, GoldFynch will show you the attachments to messages and they have promised that email threading will be arriving some time in 2018.
GoldFynch allows you to tag your documents in a free-form manner, similar to the way you may add a hashtag on Twitter. You are free to use whatever nomenclature that will be helpful for you to track which documents are relevant, confidential, hot/important, or completely irrelevant for your matter.
You can also bulk-tag files when you perform searches, so that you can quickly mark a group of files as irrelevant.
If you’re a smaller firm that has been using Microsoft Outlook to review PST files collected from clients, or a PDF viewer to open each TIFF image from a production set, you would be well-served to give GoldFynch a try to see how it can vastly improve your workflow.
Exports & Production
When you’re ready to produce documents, you simply click the Production button on the left panel to start the production wizard. You first find the set of documents you plan to produce, and then you’ll walk through the steps to create a production set that can be shared right from within the system, or downloaded to be sent by other means.
Pricing
There’s one area where you can apply the word “disruptive” to GoldFynch – their pricing.
GoldFynch’s pricing is per case, so this may not be the best option if you plan to load multiple cases. But it’s perfect if you only have 2 to 5 cases per year and you need an easy way to pass on the costs of the service to your client.
If the total amount of data that you upload for a single case is less than 512 MB, your use of GoldFynch is completely free for that one case. Now the caveat is that the case size is based on “uncompressed” file volume after uploading your data to the GoldFynch servers, which can sometimes be a little larger than the PST that your client sent you. In other words, a single PST routinely expands out to a larger size when it goes through the processing stage.
Up to 1 GB of data, your case in GoldFynch only costs you $10 per month. Up to 3 GB of data, your case will only cost you $25 per month. GoldFynch offers a fantastic pricing slider on their website so you can see exactly what you should expect to pay each month. For example, if you have up to 5 GB of data in your case, you will only pay $35 per month.
Even better, if you are done with your case, or your client stops paying you for your hard work, you can simply download the data from GoldFynch and delete the case (although you won’t be able to keep your tags).
This unique and accommodating pricing structure is absolutely fantastic for mid-size and smaller firms that perhaps have never used an eDiscovery platform before, but need something to use that is quick and affordable so they can get up and running. There’s very little risk in trying out GoldFynch for free.
Conclusion
If you’re a smaller firm that has been using Microsoft Outlook to review PST files collected from clients, or a PDF viewer to open each TIFF image from a production set, you would be well-served to give GoldFynch a try to see how it can vastly improve your workflow.
Who Is GoldFynch?
Founded by three University of Iowa graduates, Ross Johnson, Anith Mathai, and Amanda Johnson, GoldFynch is their brainchild (the parent software company is Mazira). Based on multiple requests from lawyers and paralegals, the three founders created GoldFynch to be a simple, cloud-based alternative to the clunky and frustrating software already existing on the market for litigation support.
Why You Should Consider GoldFynch…
- Offers an unrivaled and economical pricing structure on a per case basis, based on the amount of data you hold in each case per month.
- Reveals the folder structure of PST files so you can visually see the folders that clients were using in their own Microsoft Outlook.
- Extracts any dates and locations found in documents and displays that information in the right-hand panel for quick review.
- Queries in the Advanced Search window can be moved around to obtain the intended search.
Try Out GoldFynch For Yourself!
You can try out GoldFynch on a 5 GB case, free for 30 days! Or for bigger cases you can enjoy GoldFynch with a $35 credit for the first month. Click here to start today!
