How City of Baltimore Used Logikcull to Speed Open Records Response 10X

Problem Statement

The city’s capacity to handle information requests was curbed by labor-intensive approaches and outdated tools. It was not uncommon for the legal team to deploy off- the-shelf products like Adobe Acrobat to image, OCR and review documents. In fact, a typical review might entail converting electronic documents to paper, reading them page-by-page for sensitive information, redacting confidential material with a marker, and then re-scanning. The process was costly, turning valuable human resources into paper-pushers and proofreaders. Moreover, without a centralized platform where all PIA-related documents could reside and reviewers could coordinate response, the city ran the risk of having records fall through the cracks, or having to go back and pull documents it missed the first time. Having access only to on-premise solutions also meant reviewers could only work while they were in the office, further limiting their bandwidth.

Key Challenges

• Costly review process
• Using multiple off-the-shelf products to review documents
• Missing records due to decentralized process
• Limited to work in office due to on-premise solutions

How Challenges Were Addressed

In Logikcull, Baltimore’s legal team found a scalable cloud-based platform that streamlines and automates what was once a laborious open records response workflow. Whereas the legal staff once spent many hours converting ESI to paper, imaging and OCRing, Logikcull’s drag-and-drop processing automatically converts records to readable PDFs that are organized and fully searchable. “Drag-over” redactions, where users can simply draw a box over the material they’d like removed, are another force multiplier.

Logikcull’s browser-based interface — accessible to all team members, anywhere, at any time from any device — promoted collaboration within the department, and empowered reviewers bound by a 5 o’clock office curfew to literally do their work from anywhere. To summarize, Baltimore’s legal department shaved days off their average records response time, reducing turnaround time from weeks to as few as a couple hours.

The ROI Results of Using Logikcull

Deploying Logikcull as a more efficient and cost-effective way to handle requests for public information response has transformed the Baltimore City legal department in profound ways. With a browser-based platform that is easy to use and accessible department-wide, the legal team has streamlined its workflow, automated labor- intensive tasks, and, in turn, brought more transparency to the process of governing.

• Speeding up response time by 10X
• Streamlined workflow
• Accessible department wide