Be Part of the Change: Using Legal Technology Skills and Services to Enable and Encourage Change

Our vision at Cimplifi is to build a continually evolving and inclusive culture by investing in our people, listening to our clients, and advancing our technologies while retaining our core values. In keeping with our promise to cultivate open dialogues, share best known programs, implement bias education, and engage in inclusion and diversity strategies, we are proud to be a Justice for Change partner and want to take this opportunity to promote and recognize the invaluable work the Justice for Change program does in communities around the world.  In addition, the Justice for Change program has increased employee morale by empowering our team members to utilize their skills to make a positive impact.

Recently, Kristen Floyd, chairperson of the Cimplifi DEI committee sat down with Josh Witty, associate director of training and senior project manager at Cimplifi who leads our efforts in the Justice for Change program, to discuss the initiative.  Keep reading to learn more about how to get involved and the positive impact programs like this have on our justice system.

Kristen: Hi Josh, let’s talk about Justice for Change.  For those that are not familiar with it, please explain the program.

Josh: Justice for Change is a program developed by our partners at Relativity to leverage their software and ecosystem to address racial and social justice issues in our communities.  Organizations such as Cimplifi are doing work on behalf of social justice and racial equity by serving as hosting partners to nonprofit organizations and law firms’ pro bono teams using RelativityOne to organize and search for documents and help support the case strategy.

K: How did Cimplifi get involved?

J: Cimplifi project manager, Michelle Broxman, reached out to our CEO to see if we could explore getting involved when the Justice for Change program was announced at Fest back in 2021. We were thrilled to find out that participating was easy to get started and if we did not have any pro bono cases, we’d be matched with a nonprofit organization that applied to the program and Relativity approved as a recipient of the Justice for Change grant.

Since joining the program, Cimplifi has been selected to host matters for two organizations.  One of those organizations is the MacArthur Justice Center (MJC). We partner with Relativity to provide eDiscovery services such as hosting, project management, and support for important social-justice related litigation. We are proud to support these organizations and have already begun to see the impact our team is having.

Speaking on behalf of Marc Zamsky, our CEO, and our entire leadership team, we loved the mission of the Justice for Change program and know how important it is to have access to the resources necessary to support a legal strategy and to be able to discover the truth.  Sadly, many cases and just causes do not have the funding and knowledge to be successful; the Justice for Change program is addressing that. It’s our honor to be a small part of this program and be able to work towards a positive outcome of something that had a discouraging beginning and does not get enough support and recognition.

K: Can you speak more about what the hosting partner role is? What are we doing exactly for an organization like the MacArthur team?

J: Our role is managing workspace environments in RelativityOne for the MacArthur Justice Center’s legal professionals that review and code documents that eventually are produced for court. We support the needs of that process and any questions and requests that may arise from it. While Chicago is a main hub, we are proud to support the MacArthur Justice Center’s nationwide team of attorneys, paralegals, and co-counsel firms with hosting and eDiscovery professional services for overflow work and ultimately act as an extension of their team.  The Justice for Change program taps into skills and capabilities Cimplifi already offers–now it’s simply more accessible to organizations promoting justice in their communities.

K: What kind of expertise do we bring to these cases that otherwise would not have this type of support?

J: We’ve been able to provide a lot of analytics support to the MacArthur team.  Many of their cases have a large amount of data and various types of documents, so being able to compare documents and determine what is unique or does not need to be reviewed again has saved their team a lot of time and resources.

K: What happens to a case/cause that does not get the right resources such as technology to prepare for a case or fight a cause?

J: When a case does not have the right resources such as technology to provide the lift on review and document reduction, the worst-case scenario is that it could result in a case being lost and the injustice that started this case will continue.

K: Tell us about a case/project you were able to work on with the MacArthur team that you are proud of.

J: While we believe that every matter we’re supporting is important, those cases related to wrongful conviction have long-term implications.  I recall one case being hinged upon evidence from devices that were marketed as being able to pinpoint the original location of a shooting. The case revolved around a man alleged to be wrongfully accused of shooting an individual because the device incorrectly indicated the origination of the gunshots. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, we collaborated with MJC to gather and analyze data that would eventually determine that the device software itself had a very low statistical rate of accuracy and was therefore extremely unreliable. It was concluded that the man was accused was not actually in the suspected area at the time.

K: How does someone get involved in Justice for Change?

J: There are a few ways a hosting partner for Justice for Change can get involved. For any of our law firm clients with pro bono cases they would like to submit to the program, we can support their application and connect with the Relativity team. Additionally, for nonprofit organizations without access to RelativityOne, after applying to the program, they can be matched with a partner like us. To learn more about Justice for Change, you can contact Relativity at [email protected]. If you are an organization ready to leverage eDiscovery tools and expertise on your case, we encourage you to apply for help using this form.

To learn more about the MacArthur Justice Center, please visit their website.