What is Fact Search?
Fact search helps users perform an exhaustive search across large numbers of documents in order to identify all evidence related to a certain task or query. This feature allows legal professionals to identify key facts pertaining to their case across multiple documents exponentially more efficiently.
While performing a Fact Search, Eve will apply a new methodology, reading through all documents page by page and generate a table of all of the key facts and quotes from the page that are related to them. These quotes will then be verified (read more about Quote Verification here).
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Run a Fact Search
You can simply ask Eve to “perform a fact search” and include the key facts or topic you are looking for. You can also select 'Fact search' from the Skill menu as shown below:
After selecting, it will prompt you to choose the files to include in your fact search, and then explain the topic for your query⬇️
For example:
🗒️ Example Message: Please perform a fact search for all evidence related to this topic: <TOPIC>. Please search across the following list of documents: <doc 1, 2, 3> |
Step 2: Receive and Review Results
Once you kick off a Fact Search with Eve, you’ll start to receive a table of results, with a summary of the fact found, and the direct quote from your documents sourced for the fact.
Once the query has finished, you can then either:
Click on the row and be brought to the specific page in the document the quote is from
Click on the quoted text in the citation column (via the Green highlight), and be brought to that specific quote
Note that each fact will include quote verification analysis and will be highlighted for easy verification in the source documents. Remember the following:
(Green) Success: Eve was able to successfully identify the quote in the document. Users can click on the quote and then jump to that spot in the document.
(Yellow) Partial Match: Eve was able to identify a similar, but not exact, quote in the document. Users can click on the partial match and then jump to that spot in the document to verify.
Not Found: Eve was unable to find a match for this quote. Users should manually verify the quote in the document.
You can now review all the facts surfaced, and identify key data points to use in crafting your case. Remember that you can always export or save the table of facts to your Matter or to your computer.
Tips and Tricks:
A few tips as you perform “Fact Search” with Eve:
Tip 1: Clearly outline your fact search request, with a detailed topic and list of documents to use
Here is an example of a bad Fact Search request:
🗒️ Example Message: Perform a fact search for all evidence that John Doe engaged in a protected activity
This fact search is vague - it doesn’t specify the exact topic to use, or which documents Eve should look across. Furthermore, it also leaves a lot up to interpretation around the “protected activity” John Doe engaged in
Here is an example of a good Fact Search request:
🗒️ Example Message: Please perform a fact search for the following topic: all evidence that the Plaintiff, John Doe, engaged in a protected activity under the Americans with Disability Act.
Please search across the following documents: Document 1.pdf Document 2.docx* ...etc.
This fact search is detailed, uses the key words “Perform a fact search” and clearly outlines a topic, and a list of documents to search across. This fact search outlines a detailed topic, as opposed to the more vague “engaged in a protected activity” in the bad example
Tip 2: Run multiple smaller fact searches in different sessions, rather than one single long fact search
Here is an example of a bad Fact Search request:
🗒️ Example Message: Please perform a fact search for the following topic: all evidence of a wrongful termination claim in the following documents: <document 1>, <document 2>, … <document 100>
This fact search will take quite a while to complete and it also may result in more than 50 facts being found, which will cause the fact search to stop early.
Here are two example of a good Fact Search request:
Fact Search #1
🗒️ Example Message: Please perform a fact search for the following topic: all evidence in support of a wrongful termination claim related to contacting a customer outside of work being against company policy in the following documents: <document 1>, <document 2>, <document 3>, <document 4>, <document 5>
Fact Search #2
🗒️ Example Message: Please perform a fact search for the following topic: all evidence in support of a wrongful termination claim related to contacting a customer outside of work being against company policy in the following documents: <document 6>, <document 7>, <document 8>, <document 9>, <document 10>
This fact search is broken into many smaller fact searches across different sessions. As a rule of thumb, unless your documents are very small, it's a good idea to break your fact search into multiple fact searches across 5 documents at once. These will all complete more quickly, enabling the attorney to look at the results more promptly. It will also reduce the likelihood that the fact search stops early because it reaches the max of 50 facts found
Notes and Limitations:
Users can only run a fact search on a single topic at a time.
Note: Users can run multiple different fact searches in different sessions at the same time.
In a single fact search, Eve will find a maximum of 50 facts. If she reaches the limit, she will stop running the fact search.
Users will be notified when this occurs. Here are some steps that can be taken in the event Eve reaches the max number of facts found:
Run an additional fact search across the same number of documents, but with a more specific or focused topic
Run multiple fact searches, in different sessions, across the different documents, each with the same topic
Currently, fact search is only supported for uploaded PDFs and word documents. It will not run across files created in Eve or .txt files.