Catalyst CR Certification Review

At the beginning of the month I embarked on a trip to Washington, D.C. for the first certification for eDiscovery document review software.  Through a collaboration between The Posse List and Catalyst, the first certification of its kind was offered free of charge.  I also must mention that Clutch Group allowed use of its review space.  I intend to break down the certification into four segments: trainers, training, software and exam.

The trainers were Suzanne Shea and her colleague (I plan to update name here, I don’t have notes on me).  They were very courteous, accessible and informative.  After the class I was having some technical problems reviewing documents on the web in preparation for my exam.  Suzanne would get back to me promptly concerning any problems and questions.  I especially commend her for this since the class was free and there was probably little incentive for her to be so attentive.  I must say, she and her colleague were first class and I was very pleased with their professionalism.  TRAINERS: A

The training session itself went pretty well.  The trainers had sufficient knowledge of the software from a document review perspective.  I had a few questions that addressed a more administrative aspect of the software that weren’t answered to my satisfaction.  However, the certification materials clearly stated it was intended for reviewers, not administrators.  The training was also a bit unorganized.  The trainers had to continue to load more documents because not everybody had samples of all type of docs.  This tended to stunt the training a bit.  I, personally, followed along well though and learned a good deal about the software.  TRAINING: C+

The software was fairly advanced from a reviewer’s standpoint.  I know Clutch Group uses this software in its training of its employees, as it has also gained increased market share within the industry.  It didn’t necessarily provide new technology, but it gives more flexibility to the administrators.  Reviewers, given the proper authorization, are able to review equiset matches and do bulk redactions.  Bulk redactions aren’t anything new, but never before have I seen an actual document reviewer have the ability to make them.  It also allows the reviewers to make specific queries with a vary intuitive search model (which also provides a handbook on how to run targeted searches).  Catalyst CR is definitely on the cutting edge in saving costs, by passing more responsibility onto the reviewer, thus saving time and double-billing.  It also has a very cool translating function (which costs extra).  One minor thing against it is the loading time and ability to extract attorney names from email addresses.  SOFTWARE: A-

The open-note exam was comprised of 35 multiple choices to be completed in one hour.  The questions were by no means easy, but could be readily found within the materials.  A score of 70% or higher was considered passing.  As Suzanne noted in the training, there was a high percentage passer rate.  The exam was solid but I think the format was not ideal.  If you are to be certified in a review, you should be made to review.  Anyone can look up answers, but how is someone as an actual reviewer?  Basically, how much time does it take me to complete a function?  The exam needed a review aspect to truly grant a certification as a reviewer on the software.  EXAM: C

 Catalyst did a nice job with its first attempt at a certification class.  I don’t think it’s fair to criticize too much, since this was the first company to step up and offer such a training – and for free to boot!  Hopefully they take steps to streamline the training, work out the kinks and modify the exam.  To me, if intuitive testing based on review performance is not implemented, you can’t truly give a certification for review.  When anybody can pass (reviewing experience or not) the exam by looking up the answers while missing 10 out of 35 questions, the credibility is lost.  As an employer, I want certifications to mean something.  I want to use such certification to distinguish between reviewers.  Let’s not make this like law school and just send people home with a piece of paper.  Let’s make it about the industry.  Let’s give incentive for those who spend some time on the software learning it and then taking a challenging exam. 

OVERALL: B

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