Introduction
No one involved in litigation will argue that eDiscovery isn’t an expensive headache. The combination of costs, data volume, and timelines create a financial and administrative pressure on both clients and counsel. All parties aim to find an efficient workflow strategy with a practical cost structure, that doesn’t sacrifice quality – a process akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. However, there is a solution. Outsourcing managed reviews can reduce overall client costs, ensure high quality work product, and mitigate additional logistical and administrative burdens associated with staffing, security and technology.
What is Managed Review?
Managed Review constitutes any document review conducted by a team of attorneys and overseen by an experienced project manager. This approach proves most useful for matters with a high volume of documents that make it prohibitively costly or burdensome to use internal resources.
Reducing the Costs
The goal of any eDiscovery review is to minimize the overall financial costs to the client and the opportunity costs to counsel. A large-scale project of 100,000 documents reviewed by a team of contract attorneys could equate to 500 hours of review work. To perform a defensible document review requires attention to detail, and large blocks of uninterrupted time in which to work. Litigation teams may not have the capacity or band-with to add these time-consuming reviews to their cases, and clients likely balk at paying counsel’s hourly rate associated with that time.
Managed review providers employ best-in-class technology and create workflows to decrease the number of documents that require manual review. This means that litigation counsel can focus their hours on the documents that are most relevant to the case and work on other projects without fear of missing deadlines specific to the document review.
Highest-Quality, Quickest Turnaround
The quality of work is the critical component of any review. Yet the reality of the litigation process and its associated production deadlines, unfortunately can result in a sacrifice of quality. Undoubtedly, this will come back to haunt any client as the poorly performed reviews will result in delays and costs associated with remediation.
Managed review teams typically consist of experienced document reviewers who specialize in extracting the best quality work from their team while meeting or exceeding deadline expectations. They have years of expertise on how to appropriately staff projects and ensure that they are performed using time-tested project management principles. With these project managers overseeing the entire review process, clients can expect deliverables that have been through rigorous substantive and procedural quality control checks.
Diminish Your Staffing Concerns
Staffing a review project can be challenging, but outsourcing your review eliminates this stressor. The process for staffing a project involves team dynamics, productivity predictions, logistical arrangements, and a constant barrage of HR, IT, and other administrative concerns. Managed review companies are highly experienced at handling these issues in the most efficient manner. These companies have a roster of available staff that allows them to quickly identify available talent that best matches the needs of any particular project.
The Impact of Covid-19
Amid the evolution of the Coronavirus, there is growing concern surrounding the managed review process, data security, and staff productivity. A forced shift from brick-and-mortar review centers to remote eDiscovery teams has set off reasonable alarms for clients. While this concern is certainly understandable, clients and firms can rest assured that credible managed review companies have established internal best practices and protocols to keep the security and integrity of each review intact.
The number one goal is always to protect client data. Most managed review providers have made significant investments in processes, procedures, security, and technology to support working remotely. As a result, they can manage and monitor work-from-home employees in an environment that is as secure as an actual office – a critical factor during this coronavirus pandemic.
Some managed review providers, like Dauntless Discovery, have even encountered an unexpected benefit from the Covid-19 induced remote work shift: analysis from the past few months has shown increased productivity from their staff when compared against their traditional in-office work environment.
Conclusion
Given the vulnerable state of confidential company information and sensitive client data, it is best to reduce all excessive costs and avoid the potential pitfalls of internal review by outsourcing to a trusted managed review provider. These providers will make sure that each review case is handled with efficiency, confidentiality, and accuracy. Those entrusted to handle the review will always keep the decision makers informed through regular status updates and frequent communication, which makes for a smooth review process from start to finish.
Dauntless Discovery, a global leader in providing eDiscovery services to the legal profession, offers the personalized service and high-quality work product of a top-tier law firm, but at a significantly lower price. For inquiries, reach out to Tommy Neyland via the below contact information.
Contact:
Tommy Neyland, Executive VP of Sales
Dauntless Discovery LLC
T: 917.807.1887 | E: Thomas.Neyland@dauntlessdiscovery.com