The clearer and more specific your search, the better your results.
Intelligent Search reads plain language, so describe the documents you need the way you would brief a colleague.
Intelligent Search combines two kinds of search in one search bar. Keyword search finds exact terms, names, and Boolean strings. Intelligent Search finds documents by meaning, even when they never use your words. Switching between them takes one click.
This guide covers how to structure a search, patterns that work well, how to narrow results, and how to check what comes back.
When to use Intelligent Search
Intelligent Search works best during review on a refined set of documents, not on a raw data dump. Cull first with deduplication, filters, and Boolean searches, then use Intelligent Search on what's left.
Think of it as choosing the right filing cabinet, not the whole file room.
How to structure a search
Strong searches combine two or three of these parts: what kind of document, who is involved, what it's about, and when.
| Part | What to include | Example |
|---|---|---|
| What kind of document | Communications, correspondence, contracts, financial statements, documents authored by | "Correspondence…" |
| Who | People by name, or parties by role | "…between the project manager and the general contractor…" |
| About what | The substance, described the way you'd explain it to a colleague | "…about delays to the foundation pour…" |
| When | A date range in plain language | "…between March and June 2024" |
Start with one or two parts. Add more only if your results are too broad. A search that combines every possible condition at once is harder to troubleshoot than one you build up step by step.
Recommended search patterns
These patterns work well for common review tasks. Replace the bracketed parts with details from your matter.
| When you want to… | Try this pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Find what two people discussed | Communications between [person] and [person] about [topic] | Communications between the CFO and outside auditors about revenue recognition |
| Prepare for a deposition | [Person]'s correspondence about [topic] | Jane Doe's correspondence about the vendor contract renewal |
| Find documents by author or custodian | Documents authored by [person] about [topic] | Documents authored by the plant manager about safety inspections |
| Focus on a time period | Communications about [topic] between [month/year] and [month/year] | Communications about the product recall between August and October 2023 |
| Find a concept, not a keyword | Describe the conduct or situation | Pressure on employees to approve expenses without review |
| Find a specific kind of document | [Document types] for [entity] for [period] | Balance sheets and income statements for Acme Corp for fiscal years 2022 to 2024 |
| Identify sensitive content | Documents containing [category of information] |
Documents containing personal contact information of non-parties Note: Auto-redactions in NextGen are best-suited for redacting PII across document pages. |
| Map outside parties | [Role] involved in [subject] | Subcontractors involved in the east wing renovation |
When you need an exact phrase, a Bates number, a defined term, or a negotiated search term list, switch to keyword search.
Narrowing your results
If your results are too broad, refine the search you have rather than starting over.
- Build on your search in the chat panel. Copy your search into the chat panel beside your results and add a condition, such as "only from 2023" or "only final versions."
- Name the exact document types. A search for "financial statements" can return anything related to money. "Balance sheets and income statements for [company] for [years]" is much more precise.
- Find what you don't need, then set it aside. Search for documents to exclude, such as newsletters, marketing emails, or invoices. Tag or folder them in bulk so you can leave them out of your review.
- Use keyword search for precise filtering. Keyword search can filter on any document field. Use it when you need exact terms or need to work within specific folders.
- Combine both methods. For important review work, run a keyword search and an Intelligent Search on the same question and compare the results.
When keyword search is still the right tool
Keyword search is deterministic: the same search returns the same results every time. Intelligent Search can make mistakes, so match the tool to the task.
- Weed out with keyword search. Use it to remove what you know you don't need before you search by meaning.
- Find what keywords miss with Intelligent Search. Use it to surface hot documents about a deponent, a topic, or an area of the business.
- Rely on keyword search for privilege review, exhaustive responsiveness review, and redaction. These tasks need deterministic results.
- Use Intelligent Search as a quality-control check. It can help answer "did I miss anything?" but shouldn't be relied on alone. Trust, but verify.
Checking your results
Intelligent Search shows you why each result appeared, so you can confirm it before relying on it.
- Why this matched. Click "Why this matched" on any result to see a short explanation of how it relates to your search. The explanation is AI-generated and meant as a review aid. Always confirm it against the document itself.
- Match composition. The bar above your results shows how many came from keyword matches, AI matches, or both.
- Document viewer. When you open a result, the explanation appears in the side panel, and exact keyword matches are highlighted in the document.
- Saved searches. Save searches that work well so you can run them again. You can keep a saved search private or share it with everyone on the case.
Good to know
- Intelligent Search returns your top 1,000 matches by meaning. The most relevant documents appear first, and relevance decreases further down the list. A more specific search makes better use of those 1,000 results.
- Intelligent Search covers everything indexed in your database. It can't yet be limited to a single folder or run within a previous set of results. For folder-specific work, use keyword search. Intelligent Search is available to Standard, Advanced, Power and Basic users, who have access to every folder. It isn't available yet to Reviewer or View Only users.
- Intelligent Search reads document text. It covers emails, PDFs (including scanned PDFs with OCR text), Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, and attachments. Images without readable text and audio or video without transcripts are not included.
- It doesn't learn from your activity. Your searches and review decisions are not used to train the model or build a profile of your behavior, and your case data stays within Nextpoint's private cloud environment.
- You remain the reviewer. Intelligent Search speeds up finding documents, but it doesn't replace attorney review. Confirm results before using them in productions, privilege decisions, or filings.
Help and feedback
If a search isn't returning what you expect, contact Nextpoint Support. Include the search you ran and what you were looking for, and we'll help you refine it.
Your feedback shapes what we build next. Tell us which searches worked well, which didn't, and what would make Intelligent Search more useful in your review.
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