Patent ID: 8484069

Claim:
A system for forecasting discovery costs comprising: a memory; and a processor, the processor configured to implement instructions stored in the memory, the memory storing executable instructions, the processor comprising: a trend engine that receives historical facts relating to past and current discovery and generates at least one of a plurality of models modeling discovery cost forecasts based on the historical facts; and a forecasting engine that receives the at least one of the plurality of models and current facts, generates a discovery cost forecast for a current discovery process based on the at least one of the plurality of models and the current facts, including automatically switching between the plurality of models based on quality assessments of the plurality of models, estimates values of key lifecycle indicators that indicate a degree of advancement of the current discovery process, adjusts the values of key lifecycle indicators based on monitoring event patterns of the current discovery process for inactivity, and adjusts the discovery cost forecast based at least in part on actual status of the key lifecycle indicators received from a user, the discovery cost forecast being adjusted using a weighted average of a plurality of prediction tracks that are weighed to determine which one of the plurality of prediction tracks is most likely to reflect a current state of the current discovery process based at least in part on the lifecycle indicators, wherein each of the plurality of prediction tracks represents a model of dependencies between parameters of a matter as they exist at points in time during a lifecycle of the current discovery process.