Lawyers call their fishing expeditions to find incriminating documents the discovery process. Two Cleveland companies say they have a new product to help attorneys cast a wider net.

Visual Evidence Co., a Cleveland company that produces visual aids to help attorneys make their case to juries, announced that it has teamed with Solutions Business Systems of Cleveland to offer the E-Discovery System.

The new system - essentially a computer server loaded with searching software - is hooked up to a company's computer network. It can then search through the company's computers for documents that will be useful in litigation.

The cost for using the system will run $20,000 or more, depending on the size of the computer network and the number of documents a company needs to find, explained Daniel Copfer, president of Visual Evidence.

The potential clients for the new system include law firms and companies involved in legal battles and looking for an upper hand, Mr. Copfer said. In most cases, its expected customers will lease the system and pay a monthly fee, he said.

Solutions Business Systems was already offering a system for running searches, but Visual Evidence helped the company redesign it and make it "lawyer-friendly" so that attorneys easily use it and run their searches, Mr. Copfer said.

The new product allows Visual Evidence to enter an exploding market, said Manfred Troibner, a trial consultant for the company. Two years ago, seven companies in the United States were offering electronic discovery services. Now, there are 347, he said.

Visual Evidence was founded 15 years ago and has 10 employees, Mr. Copfer said. Mr. Copfer is the brother of Ron Copfer, the president of Fathom IT Solutions Inc. and a leader in the local IT industry.