#eDiscovery cost control tips

[emarawork2015]

Tips For Finding The Best Ediscovery Staffing Services

By Charles Olson

The need for legal technology and technologists could not have come at a better time in history. When you have to present electronic data in a legal case, getting that piece of evidence admissible is not an easy thing. The process through which this electronic data is retrieved to the delivery in the courts requires proper Ediscovery Staffing services. This should not be daunting if you have proper help. While the technological era has set in play a highly dynamic business environment, providing for trade at the global level, it also comes with challenges in terms of other changes that companies have to institute. If you are facing an investigation, for instance, you hardly have any physical data you can offer as evidence. Most of your data is stored in cloud-based databases, necessitating the need for a legal technologist. Venturing into the world of electronic discovery service providers can be quite daunting, particularly if this is the first time your business is contracting this kind of service. There are countless risks crossing over your mind. You want to make sure that you are buying into the real deal. But most importantly, when intimate company data has to be trusted to a total stranger, it can definitely not be anyone. For the most part, companies and business owners tend to worry when looking at litigation of any magnitude. This is mostly due to the fact that the outcome of the process is not in their control. It is, however, very important to make sure that you make all preparations for a favorable outcome. Consequently, choose a provider that can help you in determining the scope of your investigations before settling on evidence processing. Determining scope is often one of the things that differentiate competent providers from inexperienced ones. The latter will do their best to gather so much information from nearly all department just so they do not miss anything useful. This, on the other hand, only helps to inflate the costs of the entire process from the start. With an early case assessment plan, however, the provider can pinpoint what they need. While at that, be sure to check the pricing model and see whether it is transparent. Remember in procuring any services, some of the providers may want to play around with the pricing models in order to make more in the long run. If you find that you do not understand the model they are using to charge for their services, find another provider whose pricing model looks sensible. The best electronic discovery service should have highly sophisticated quality control systems. They will be dealing with millions of files. Manual control of quality will not just cut it. They need to prove that they will use automated software control to monitor their work. You need to be sure not to end up with errors in the final presentation of files. The best service will have trained and certified employees. Do not assume this information but take time to seek clarifications from your prospective providers. You want to contract a service that keeps the best in the industry.

About the Author:

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[biaprotect]

Answering Your Questions on Document Review

By Barry Schwartz and Lisa Prowse 

Last month, we partnered with Emily Cobb from Ropes & Gray, LLC and the team at ACEDS to host a webinar covering the ins and outs of successful document review. It was a thoughtful, helpful discussion on strategies and tips for improving the document review process, and we covered a lot of ground during the one-hour program, from modern approaches to managed review, technology-assisted review (TAR), putting together a review team and more.

Attendees posed a lot of great questions, and we wanted to share our answers here and keep the discussion going... 

1. What is the average rate of review, per reviewer, on an hourly basis? 

It all depends on the complexity of review protocol, really. Reviews with simple protocol, such as questions that can be answered by an easy “yes” or “no,” will go very quickly, but if your review project is highly complex, then the review rate would be slower. 

For example, the average rate of review for emails only, if you’re only coding for responsiveness, could be anywhere from 70-80 documents per hour. However, if your reviewers are sifting through formulas in spreadsheets, you can expect them to spend a lot more time on each document, not only to review the information but to open the document in its native software. While some review platforms provide a decent spreadsheet view, the best way to view all the information in a spreadsheet is still to open it in Excel or Google Sheets. That means a reviewer may only look at 20-30 documents in an hour. 

In general, assuming that reviewers are looking at a mix of documents that include some spreadsheets, most reviewers average 40-50 documents per hour during review. 

2. When a law firm associate is overseeing an eDiscovery/managed review project, what is the role of the project manager at the vendor or corporate client? 

Put simply, the role of the project manager is to work with a law firm associate to keep him or her informed on the status of each step of the project, including document collection, processing, search results, review and production. In addition to providing reports and metrics on the case, the project manager is also there to troubleshoot any issues or facilitate things like complicated search term requests. 

A project manager at the corporate client would be in a similar position. There’s usually a point person at the corporation to take the lead in facilitating data collections. During the webinar, our colleague and fellow presenter Emily Cobb pointed out that it’s the law firm’s neck on the line in terms of what’s reported out. As such, it’s the law firm associate that has the final say on most substantive issues. 

We also did a previous webinar on the role of the eDiscovery project manager, which goes more in-depth, and can be seen here. 

3. Does outside counsel need to do 100% of the quality control of documents reviewed by contract attorneys or the managed review vendor? 

In a perfect world, someone may quality check (QC) every single document. But in real life, the QC process is not 100%. It typically involves random samplings throughout the review process. If the review is being handled by a vendor’s review team or contract attorneys, they usually have their own QC process, in addition to what outside counsel will do. 

We suggest that the samplings happen more often and are more encompassing at the beginning of the process, looking at the results on an individual reviewer basis to get a sense of how accurately each person is coding. Also look to see if any problems are widespread, which could mean that the review protocol was not properly explained or understood. 

After you are comfortable with your reviewers, the QC process should include random samplings of the entire document set. 

That said, there are certain documents that we do recommend have a 100% review. At BIA, for example, we always make sure there is a second set of eyes on all documents coded as privileged or “hot.” 

It’s also good to look at overturn reports, which shows when document coding was overturned by the QC person. If there are patterns there – such as certain types of documents that get changed often, or if one reviewer’s coding calls are overturned more regularly – you can gain insight into any potential issues and make adjustments as needed. 

4. How has the quality control process matured over time with the "modern" approach (as described in the webinar)? How can we best leverage technology to track errors, etc.? 

 Technology now allows us to more easily locate items that need to be quality controlled. In the past, we would have had to go through the entire document review process before there were insights to pull. Now, we can glean insights, such as specific areas of documents that need to be quality controlled, easily and quickly during the process. 

5. What kind of supervision do you give to a first or second year associate managing an eDiscovery/managed review project? 

We do give more training and support to people who are new to the process. We see that as part of what we do. It’s worth it to both us and our clients to make sure an associate – and everyone involved – is comfortable with how we work and the proven processes that have been established. We don’t want anyone to fail. 

6. Why do firms not utilize eDiscovery staff attorneys more? 

This is an interesting question. Before BIA, I (Barry) worked at a law firm that managed document review projects with more than 160 contract attorneys on multiple projects. What we found was that having so many contract attorneys on multiple projects kept us from building institutional knowledge for a case or client. We changed that process to employ 10-11 staff attorneys and recruited out of our existing talent pool of 160+ contract attorneys. 

Staff attorneys cost less because they’re not on the partner track at a firm, but they still bill higher than contract attorneys – so there are two sides at play. But in general, staff attorneys build cost-effective institutional knowledge, and they provide consistent coding.

That’s the same philosophy that we use at BIA with our Managed Document Review Services team, which provides the benefits of staff attorneys – including being cost-effective and maintaining institutional knowledge – with the ability for our clients to use our attorneys as needed, like one would with a contract attorney review team. 

7. Are there any quality issues with the per-doc model's incentive to get through review quickly? 

BIA uses a pricing model for review of billing per document versus per hour. We touched on this somewhat during the webinar, and it is discussed in more depth here. One big reason we have embraced this pricing model is because speed should not be the main goal of review. Review must be done accurately, or else, regardless of how quickly it was done, it would have to be done again. At BIA, our per-doc model of review allows for reviewers to take the necessary time to code documents correctly the first time, and it includes our comprehensive quality control process. 

8. If the other party does not specify format can you produce in the format you deem reasonable? 

Per the federal rules, the answer is yes. However, what one side deems reasonable isn’t necessarily what the other side will agree upon. It’s good to confirm – more than once – what the specified format will be, just to avoid any back-and-forth in court. It’s not worth the money or time on either side to argue about format. 

9. How do you measure, monitor and track productivity and quality? 

This is a good sum-up question. At BIA, we look at each individual reviewer’s rate of review (documents per hour) and then measure speed, accuracy, difficulty of review material, amount of errors per set and time spent reviewing. Conducting these measurements gives us a good indication of how the review is going and points out areas for improvement. 

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Thanks to all who joined us for our recent webinar. And if you missed it, you can check it out here. Stay tuned to our blog for more insights into eDiscovery, and look for our next webinar with ACEDS in January 2018!

[biaprotect]

How to Have a Successful Document Review – Every Time

BIA will provide expert tips during ACEDS webinar on Sept. 26

By Lisa Prowse and Barry Schwartz

The document review phase of the eDiscovery process can be a big expense in terms of both time and costs. It often becomes quite confusing too, with various options proposed to solve the “review problem” in different ways, from using contract attorneys or technology-assisted review (TAR) to outsourcing the work to low-cost foreign providers and more. While such things may factor into helping control and reduce the review process costs, none of them are a “magic pill” in and of themselves, especially when viewed in a vacuum.

The problem is often further complicated when document review is seen as a stand-alone process, apart from the entire electronic discovery reference model (EDRM). That approach fails to leverage the knowledge gained not just in earlier phases of the eDiscovery process, but from related or prior matters too. The most successful document review projects rely on everything that happened during the previous steps of the EDRM to assure a quality, cost-effective result.

To truly address the “review problem”, every company or law firm should examine all of the potential solutions, determine which will work best for their particular needs and data types and ultimately develop a standard eDiscovery process that becomes the standard approach for their cases. It’s no secret in business that developing standard, tested and reliable processes helps control costs, increase quality and ensure success. The eDiscovery process should be subject to the same evaluation.

At BIA, we help our clients create a customized “eDiscovery playbook” – a comprehensive outline for the entire process, with protocols governing everything from legal holds through production and delivery. The playbook also ensures document reviews are streamlined and efficient, so even though every review has different needs and requirements, there is an overall, consistent approach.

Every piece of the eDiscovery process – information management, technology, project management and more – has an important part to play to ensure that the time and costs spent on document review are minimized.

Want to learn more about how you can conquer the document review process? Here’s your chance!

Join us on Tuesday, September 26 for an ACEDS-hosted webinar entitled, “Document Review: The EDRM’s Final Frontier.” During the informative session, we will be joined by Emily Cobb from Ropes & Gray to discuss best practices for document review. We will cover such topics as: 

eDiscovery roadmap preparation

Data and production protocols

Defining and working with search terms

Predictive coding usage (including TAR, CAL, AI, etc.)

Choosing the right blend of technology and people for each unique review

And more!

More information is below. Register today by clicking here.

What: Webinar - “Document Review: The EDRM’s Final Frontier” 

When: Tuesday, September 26, 2017, 1-2 PM EST 

Who: Panelists include: 

Emily A. Cobb, Esq. – Senior Attorney, Ropes & Gray

Barry Schwartz, Esq., CEDS – VP, Advisory Services, BIA

Lisa Prowse, Esq., CEDS – VP, Legal Services & Document Review, BIA

Hosted by: ACEDS

If you’d like to learn more about how to approach, plan for and execute a successful document review, don’t miss this free webinar!