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The year 2016 may well turn out to be the turning point for how we viewed the paradigm of linear eDiscovery review.
In recent weeks, many litigation experts have voiced challenges to the concept of linear review – where electronic evidence travels from one stop on the EDRM to the next – and have begun to shift the conversation toward strategies that allow litigation professionals to gain deeper insights into their cases.
“Linear review used to be the solution to eDiscovery,” said Tess Blair, partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. “It’s now the problem. It’s inefficient, very expensive and inaccurate. The paradigm has to shift to better reflect the technologies we have today and how we can achieve better outcomes in eDiscovery.”
Ms. Blair was one of the participants at a featured panel session at LegalTech New York 2016, “The Future of eDiscovery: An Analytics Revolution to See Your Case More Clearly,” which was hosted by LexisNexis.
“The step-by-step eDiscovery process to which we’ve become accustomed with linear review is no longer going to be the rule of eDiscovery workflow,” said another panelist, Dave Copps, founder and CEO of Brainspace Corp., a recognized leader in data analysis. “One new approach is to begin with the ingestion of data and then to rely on powerful software tools, such as advanced visual analytics, to provide earlier insight into the case.”
Brainspace worked with LexisNexis to develop a new eDiscovery platform that challenges conventional workflow by re-thinking the role of early case assessment and providing powerful analytics throughout the eDiscovery process.
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Related eDiscovery Posts:
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Early Case Assessment: 3 Words to Drive Down eDiscovery Costs
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The panelists identified three primary benefits to the application of analytics to eDiscovery:
1. Reduce Costs. Analytics enable litigation teams to address electronic evidence at the source and reshape the entire eDiscovery process across the workflow, gaining dramatic efficiencies during the review of electronic documents.
2. Manage Risk. Analytics can also play a crucial role in risk management. By gaining insights from the original data, litigation teams can control their own standards for consistency, transparency and repeatability. This translates to greater control and reduced risk.
3. Shape Litigation Strategy. A focus on analytics helps litigation teams develop more insightful litigation strategy. The more information that lawyers have regarding the size and risk associated with litigation, the more likely the team will be making the best decisions about how to proceed in the case – try the case to the end, proceed but set some clear benchmarks along the way, cut our losses now and settle, etc.
“The consistent feedback we hear from litigation teams is that they face a major challenge of knowing how to manage outcomes with some predictability,” said Krista Fuller, director of product management for litigation solutions with the LexisNexis software and technology business. “The analytics revolution offers the potential for both in-house and outside counsel to gain earlier and deeper insights into a case. This translates into not only greater efficiency and lower costs, but also improved risk management and case strategy.”
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Note: This a guest post by Daryn Teague, who provides support to the litigation software product line based in the LexisNexis Raleigh Technology Center.
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Photo credit: Flickr, rachaelvoorhees, fist, (CC BY-SA 2.0)