DFYReview · Early access

Document review that runs on local computers.

DFYReview is review without a server: search, read, code and produce on the computers your team already has.

Load a production you made with DFYCollect, or one you received — any standard load file, with its images, natives and text — and start reviewing right away.

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Nothing to install

One computer, or a team

No database to set up, no server to rent and nothing to configure. A matter is a folder on the computer that holds it.

On your own computer

Copy the folder or run the installer, and DFYReview opens in its own window. Load a production and start reviewing.

As a team

One computer shares its matters on the office network. Colleagues join it with a code and their own account, and see only the matters they are given. Everyone codes at once, and a change made by someone else is never silently overwritten.

Start to finish

How a review runs

From a production arriving to a production going out, in one program.

Load

DFYCollect's production, or another party's Concordance or CSV load file with its page images, natives and text. Each native is checked against the producing party's hash. Where no text came, DFYReview reads it from the native or the pages, and says which.

Search

Keywords in the same syntax DFYCollect collects with, so a search means the same in review as it did in collection: fields, date ranges, phrases, and every load-file column by its own name.

Search by meaning

When the words aren't known, describe what you're looking for in a sentence. The documents closest in meaning come first, each with the passage that matched.

Review and code

Read the produced pages, the text with every hit marked, and the native beside them. Code one document, its family, its identical copies, or every result of a search at once.

People

Everyone who sent, received or wrote the documents, and the documents that connect any two of them.

Produce

Mark what goes out as you review. DFYReview checks the marking, then numbers, stamps and writes the production, with its privilege log.

The application

What it looks like

Every frame is from the public Enron email collection as DFYCollect produced it. Click a picture for the whole screen.

The DFYReview review screen: a list of 15 documents found by the search subject:raptor AND date:2001-09; below it a position report email open on its Document Text tab with the search term marked, its coding row, and the Family panel showing the email with its summary spreadsheet. The list's last column shows each document's production marking, designation and volume. — **Review, where most of the time goes.** The list, the document and its coding on one screen, with the search's words marked in the text. The last column shows how each document is marked and which productions it has gone out in.

DFYReview's review screen searching by meaning for 'the chief executive resigned': the closest documents listed first, each with the passage that came closest, and the first one open with that passage shown above its text. — **Search by meaning.** "The chief executive resigned" finds the letter after Skilling's departure. It runs on the computer's own processor with a small model that comes with DFYReview, and nothing is sent anywhere.

The DFYReview People screen with Rick Buy and Sally Beck ticked: a graph linking the two of them to the four position reports they both received between 22 October and 4 November 2001. — **Who communicated with whom.** The four position reports Rick Buy and Sally Beck both received. None of it is guessed: it's read from the load file's sender, recipient and author columns.

The History tab of a document in DFYReview: the reviewer adding two categories, a note and the Confidential designation, and beneath it a bulk coding that added the Responsive tag and marked the document Produce, with the search that chose it. — **One document's history.** Every change to its coding: who, when and what changed, down to the bulk coding that marked it for production and the search that chose it.

DFYReview on two screens: the review list filling one window, with a bar at its foot naming the document shown elsewhere, and that document in a window of its own beside it, with its coding, its text and its metadata. — **Two screens, if you have them.** *Pop out* puts the document in a window of its own and the list takes the other screen. Pick a row and the window follows; code in the window and the list shows it.

When it goes out

Producing, from the same screen

A production is checked before anything is written, and kept afterwards exactly as it went, so its numbers, checks and log can be given again.

Marked as you review

Produce, Produce redacted, Withhold as privileged or Not produced, each with a designation. Every matter starts with Confidential and Attorneys' Eyes Only, and the firm adds the levels its protective order uses, each with its own wording for the stamp.

Checked before anything is written

Family members left out, copies of a produced document marked differently, privileged documents without a description, natives missing or changed. Anything that would stop the production is fixed, or overridden with a reason that is kept.

Numbered and stamped

Natives and text, or TIFF, JPEG or PDF pages stamped with their number and designation. Families are numbered together, and a withheld attachment keeps its place with a slip sheet.

Redactions removed, not covered

Drawn on the pages during review and burned into the images when produced. The text that goes out is read from the redacted pages, and the privilege log lists everything withheld or redacted.

DFYReview's Production screen: a TIFF volume, VOL002, numbered on from ENRP0000016 with each page stamped and a protective-order endorsement, spreadsheets kept native with a placeholder page, and a privilege log. Below, what the checks found. — **The checks before a production.** A TIFF volume numbered on from the last one, with what the checks found: family members left out, and documents that already went out in an earlier production.

DFYReview redacting an email: the coding row marks it Produce redacted with a privilege basis and description, and below it the email's page with two see-through boxes drawn, one over a request to counsel labelled Privileged – attorney–client and one over an address labelled Personal information. — **Redact, then produce.** A request to counsel redacted as privileged, and an address as personal information. The boxes are see-through during review, so what each covers can be checked.

What you can stand behind

The record it keeps

Who decided what, and when, without anyone having to remember.

Every change, with who and when

Each coding decision is kept with who made it, when and what it was before, and for bulk coding, the search that chose the documents.

A change made outside it shows

Each change is chained to the one before, so an edit made outside DFYReview breaks the chain, and it's checked every time the matter opens. Someone with the matter's files could rebuild the chain after an edit, so keep an exported record elsewhere: that shows what the record was when it was exported.

Who opened what, if you want it

An access log, off until it's switched on, records who opened each document. Switching it on or off is itself recorded.

One file when you need it

The whole matter's record — coding, history, access and productions — exports as a single file.

Current limits, stated plainly

DFYReview has no generative AI: nothing summarises, answers questions or writes for you. For AI-assisted review, see DFYAI. Beyond that, these are the limits worth knowing before you decide.

Windows only

Platform

DFYReview runs on Windows 10 and 11. A Windows 10 computer may need Microsoft's WebView2 runtime, and DFYReview says so when it starts.

One computer holds the matters

Sharing

Matters live on that computer's own disk, and colleagues work through it over the office network, so it has to be on while they review. A matter on a network folder is refused.

Meaning covers the opening

Search by meaning covers each document's subject and about its first 360 words. The whole text can be prepared too, but on a large matter that takes many hours. Keyword search always covers every word.

A licence for some features

Licence

Showing native files as pages, reading the text of scans, and producing page images require a licence.

No transcription

Media

Audio and video load and can be opened, but what is said in them isn't transcribed, so it can't be searched. DFYAI can transcribe them.

Very slow documents

Viewing

A document that takes more than two minutes to turn into pages is replaced by a page saying it could not be shown as a PDF. Its text, metadata and native file are still there.

Evaluating it properly

Four guides, on request

Getting started, reviewing and coding, working together, and producing: DFYReview as it is today. Ask us for them, and we'll talk through what you're looking for.

Ask for the guides Talk to us