Blackfords LLP
“Ubertas immediately understood our requirement and provided the solution with the desired urgency. From our initial contact, in deploying the NUIX solution and through the support they provide, they have been invaluable to enabling us to deliver for our client.”
Naureen Shariff, Senior Solicitor, Blackfords LLP
About Blackfords LLP
Blackfords LLP are one of the UK’s top-ranked solicitors for Serious Fraud, Crime & Regulatory Law, with a Boutique Child Care, Divorce & Mediation team.
They are a specialist White Collar & Serious Crime practice. With offices in Croydon, London, Cardiff and Woking, the lawyers at Blackfords LLP operate throughout the UK.
Background
The Prosecution was brought by The National Trading Standards Agency (NTS) and concerned so called ‘copycat’ websites alleging a fraud of £30M. The NTS investigation commenced in 2013 with the premises raided in 2014.
Capture of all IT assets at the start of the investigation comprising c20.6 million digital items. NTS indexed all evidential data using NUIX which was intended to assist the defence in searching the digital material.
Initially an 18-count indictment against 5 defendants, the Case finally came to court in April 2017.
Client Requirement
An e-discovery platform in which electronic data can be sought, located, secured and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a criminal case. The Prosecution imaged and had administration access to the evidence in NUIX Web Review.
Five (5) defendants were each represented by five (5) different law firms each of which required individual & unfettered access to unique data-sets of the same evidence without the Prosecution Team seeing the findings of the Defence Teams.
Blackfords LLP contracted with Ubertas Consulting to deploy a standalone NUIX solution on behalf of themselves and the other five (5) law firms.
Challenge
Blackfords LLP, working alongside a wider group of criminal law firms acting for the defence, required immediate access to evidential data held by the prosecuting body.
The data resided in an isolated, on premise deployment of the NUIX eDiscovery suite where evidence had already been collated and pre-processed.
With the trial date approaching, Blackfords LLP contacted Ubertas to deploy a Cloud based NUIX solution in order that the data could be quickly made available across a widely dispersed team.
Approach
Speed of deployment, data integrity and solution security were fundamental to Blackfords LLP requirement given the nature of the data and the environment in which it was being utilised.
Ubertas built and launched a range of AWS compute, storage and network services on which the NUIX solution would reside.
Evidence was securely migrated from its source to the AWS London Availability Zone by AWS Snowball, a hardware device and data migration process, capable of encrypting and securely transporting the 7.5TB of data for this project.
Once the data was successfully migrated to AWS, Ubertas configured the NUIX solution and provided secure access to the user community.
Users could access the solution in less than 2 weeks from the inception of the project. Following its deployment Ubertas continue to monitor and support the solution via its Service Desk.
Benefits
Speed of Deployment
AWS compute, network and storage services were available in hours. The migration of the large data set was managed using AWS Snowball. The entire NUIX solution was available within 2 weeks.
Security
Data encryption within AWS and during its journey from its source to the Cloud was managed using AWS services. With AWS the solution is subject to the highest industry standards of physical and digital security.
Service Quality
Blackfords LLP could focus on the evidence rather than the IT. Ubertas managed the implementation, providing clear communication and manage the end-to-end solution through its service desk.
Why Ubertas Consulting
Ubertas Consulting is a Cloud consultancy specialising in Amazon Web Services.
Our mission is to assist companies in driving innovation and building new capabilities through embracing Cloud-native technologies and modernising with AWS.
As a leading Advanced Tier Services Partner, our consultancy services span the breadth of AWS technologies and range from advisory through to full implementation as we assist customers in applying the foundations of Well-Architected to migrate and operate their mission critical workloads in the Cloud.
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