Amid rising complexity and constrained resources, legal teams are adopting new frameworks that unify oversight, improve insights and unlock institutional knowledge.
CCBJ: The legal industry is at an inflection point with rapidly evolving data landscapes and rising demands for efficiency, transparency and control. Consilio has introduced Aurora as a next-generation solution to redefine e-discovery. What critical industry challenges does Aurora directly address? And why is its introduction a pivotal moment for the legal industry?
Michael Pontrelli: Sure. From a macro perspective, what we have seen and continue to see, is that legal teams face exponentially growing data volumes while their resources remain constrained and timelines are tightened. Everyone is being challenged to do more with less. We also know this because we recently released our fifth annual global survey called, “Beyond the Gridlock: Overcoming the Challenges of Modern Legal Work.” In it, we found that nearly half – 48 percent of respondents – ranked overwhelming work volume as the biggest challenge they face. Amid this heavy workload, legal professionals also cite growing budgetary constraints, rising infrastructure and enterprise software costs, rising e-discovery costs, global complexities and headcount freezes as additional headwinds. We’ve continued to see the sheer scale of workload forcing many legal professionals to focus on fixing the here and now, which our research quantitatively reinforces to enable them to allocate their efforts and resources toward innovative, new technologies that can one day lessen their workload.
Specifically, I consistently hear about the frustrations caused by data trapped in disparate platforms and repositories. Aurora changes that paradigm completely. We heard our clients and we listened to them. As an industry leader, we acted and developed Aurora, our digital enterprise platform by providing a single point of control and visibility across their entire portfolio. Legal teams can track the progress of all matters, manage resources efficiently and access powerful cross-project insights from one intuitive interface.
There are three critical pain points that Aurora directly addresses. There’s the forced choice between standardizing on a single platform, losing control, or fragmenting across multiple solutions.. Valuable insights and work product are trapped in platform silos, requiring teams to start from scratch with each new matter. And unpredictable and escalating technology costs, particularly with public cloud solutions. Aurora takes a fundamentally different approach by positioning as a digital enterprise platform that sits upstream from review platforms. Rather than being another review tool, Aurora creates a central control layer that preserves platform choice while maintaining unified visibility. Aurora transforms scattered information into a reusable knowledge base, allowing access to past work product and insights across all matters.
Historically, e-discovery platforms have forced clients to choose between control and flexibility, often sacrificing one for the other. Aurora is positioned as a breakthrough that eliminates this trade-off. What fundamental shifts in platform architecture and strategy enable Aurora to provide unprecedented autonomy while maintaining the governance and security essential to legal workflows?
The industry has traditionally operated on the assumption that you must choose between standardization for control or flexibility for freedom. Conventional platforms typically force this trade-off, adopt a single system for unified controlor use multiple specialized tools at the cost of fragmentation. Consilio has taken the approach of leveraging any proprietary or Consilio-enhanced solution that solves our client challenges. We’ve built Aurora on this foundational design principle.
Aurora rejects this binary thinking by fundamentally separating data management from review tool selection. This separation is achieved through Aurora’s DataCore, which provides a secure data foundation with complete governance, while the Aurora Portal delivers unified visibility. The Aurora Portal gives complete transparency and control through one interface to manage all platforms, all matters and all workflows. By maintaining a unified data strategy independent of review tools, legal teams can select the optimal platform for each matter while preserving portfolio-wide intelligence.
Performance at scale is a non-negotiable factor for modern e-discovery. Consilio has made significant investments in private cloud infrastructure to support Aurora. How does this technological foundation differentiate Aurora’s ability to process massive and complex data sets while ensuring enterprise-grade reliability and speed?
Consilio has built a global private cloud infrastructure, specifically engineered for legal data workloads, not a general-purpose environment. The purpose-built infrastructure delivers three critical advantages. First, enterprise-grade security with complete data sovereignty in the client’s chosen jurisdiction. Next, consistent, predictable performance that doesn’t degrade during peak usage periods. And finally, cost predictability without the surprise charges common in public cloud models.
Our data centers are strategically positioned globally to support matters while ensuring data residency compliance. Aurora’s architecture leverages massive parallel processing capabilities designed for the extraordinary data volumes in modern litigation. By owning our infrastructure optimized specifically for legal workloads, enabling capabilities that would be prohibitively expensive in generic cloud environments.
The increasing complexity of data ranging from structured databases to ephemeral messaging platforms has made traditional e-discovery tools inadequate. How does Aurora redefine the way organizations handle data diversity and what technological advancements set it apart from previous generation solutions?
Aurora addresses data complexity through a three-layered approach. First, unified ingestion that standardizes diverse data inputs from more than 100 distinct sources. Next, intelligent processing that structures and enriches information and finally, flexible outputs that deliver data to the right tools for specific tasks.
Our data core technology has been refined over more than a decade, processing data across thousands of matters annually. Rather than focusing all data into a single format, Aurora preserves critical, contextual information while standardizing access. We’ve built Aurora to leverage metadata intelligence, allowing meaningful connections between disparate data types. This approach enables Aurora to rapidly incorporate new data types as they emerge without requiring platform-wide redesigns.
New architectures reject the binary of control versus flexibility, offering legal teams nuanced strategies tailored to matter complexity.
AI and machine learning have transformed legal technology, but their implementation has often been met with skepticism regarding trust, transparency and reliability. How has Aurora’s advancing AI and e-discovery in a way that enhances human expertise rather than diminishing it? And what safeguards are in place to ensure responsible AI drive decision making?
This is a great question. Consilio views AI as an amplifier of human expertise, not a replacement. And we call this “Expert-Led AI”. Getting data ahead of review platforms in Aurora DataCore is a fundamental step in unlocking AI leverage. Clients locked into other platforms are having to meter their data in order to aggressively control spiraling costs, which defeats the purpose of AI.
Aurora’s AI integration follows several key principles, the right AI tool for the right task (task-appropriate AI), human oversight at critical decision points and transparent AI operations that explain their reasoning. We’ve designed Aurora to create a virtuous cycle where AI suggestions improve through expert feedback. Specific AI applications in Aurora include AI Investigate for pattern discovery across large data sets, AI Summarize for efficient document analysis and Contextual AI for identifying relationships between seemingly disparate information. Our approach ensures AI remains a trusted advisor rather than an opaque decision-maker. For more advanced AI workflows, such as running AI-powered document reviews, our experts can step in to guide and help deliver positive outcomes.
Beyond its technological innovations, Aurora represents a fundamental shift in how e-discovery services are delivered. How does this platform mark the evolution of Consilio from a technology provider to a strategic partner helping legal teams achieve more consultative and outcome-driven engagements?
Aurora will be transformational as we work in Aurora together. Aurora transforms our service delivery from transaction-based to outcome-focused by creating a continuous advisory relationship. Our teams now serve as strategic partners who can leverage portfolio-wide insights rather than matter-by-matter technicians. Aurora enables our consultants to provide data-driven recommendations based on cross-matter intelligence, proactively identify opportunities for process optimization and deliver a consistent service experience regardless of matter type or technology choice. Aurora’s AI capabilities augment our team’s ability to identify patterns and insights across massive data sets.
The platform’s unified visibility empowers both clients and our service teams with the same real-time information. This shared view creates a collaborative environment where our experts can focus on strategic guidance rather than routine coordination or tasks.
Unlike many industry incumbents that have been built closed ecosystem, Consilio has deliberately designed Aurora to reject the walled garden approach. Why is vendor lock-in a major barrier to innovation and client success? And how does Aurora’s open architecture ensure legal teams have the flexibility and choice they need for the future?
We have our clients’ best interests at stake, and it really is about optionality. We believe client optionality is crucial because legal matters have unique requirements that no single platform can optimally address. Innovation occurs across the industry, not just within one provider. And technology selection should be driven by matter needs, not vendor constraints.
Aurora’s architecture reflects this philosophy through vendor-agnostic data management that works with multiple review platforms, open APIs that enable integration with best of breed tools and flexible deployment options, including hybrid models. Our business model aligns with this approach by charging for value delivered rather than data volume, not penalizing clients for using multiple technologies and supporting client choice in AI models rather than forcing a single option. This flexibility is particularly important as AI rapidly evolves. Aurora lets clients leverage emerging innovations regardless of source, which is truly powerful.
With an increasingly globalized client base, e-discovery solutions must not only scale, but also adapt to constantly shifting regulatory and geopolitical landscape. How has Aurora been designed to accommodate the complexities of cross-border data governance while still delivering a seamless and intuitive user experience?
Consilio supports global e-discovery and document review operations for our global corporate and law firm clients. Aurora was designed from the ground up with this context in mind, for global operations with regional data centers ensuring compliance with data sovereignty requirements, configurable workflows that adapt to jurisdiction-specific procedures and multi-language support throughout the platform.
Our architecture employs a “global core, local implementation” approach that maintains consistency while accommodating regional variations. Specific features addressing global complexity include jurisdiction-aware data handling rules, privacy by design capabilities including automated PII detection and customizable security controls that can be tailored to regional requirements. Consilio’s global consulting team provides expertise in navigating regional complexities and our 24/7 follow the sun support model ensures client assistance regardless of time zone. Aurora’s unified interface presents these complex capabilities through a consistent experience, hiding the underlying complexity from users while preserving the power to address regional requirements