Early case assessment refers to estimating risk (cost of time and money) to prosecute or defend a legal case. Global organizations deal with legal discovery and disclosure requests for electronically stored information "ESI" and paper documents on a regular basis. The early case assessment lifecycle will typically include all of the following: Early case assessment software is typically used by attorneys, corporate legal departments, risk managers, forensics teams, IT professionals and independent consultants to help them analyze unstructured electronically stored information.