How to manage large document reviews … and litigation holds: the ACC Docket provides the answers

The May 2009 issue of the ACC Docket, the magazine of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), is devoted to the subject of litigation: effective management of e-discovery, running large document reviews, litigation holds, managing expenses, etc.    Although written for the in-house counsel audience, the issue is nevertheless a gold mine of information for everyone in this business: in-house counsel, law firms, contract attoneys, and e-discovery or litigation vendors.

We take note of two of the articles in the issue:

“And You May Find Yourself in a Large Document Review” gives you the nuts & bolts of document reviews, authored by: Frank Vecella, associate general counsel-litigation for Ericsson Inc.; Tom Fasone of the law firm McKool Smith; and Cathy Clark of the discovery management company IE Discovery.  The article is a “Here’s How You Do It” primer for large document reviews.

The issue also includes an article titled “Effective Management of Litigation Holds and Ediscovery” authored by our friends at Fios Inc. : Mary Mack, corporate technology counsel; Dennis Kiker, director of Fios Consulting; and Tom Mighell, senior manager at Fios Consulting.

We have links below to the first few pages of each article.  Here’s a summary of each:

“And You May Find Yourself in a Large Document Review”

Any article that starts off with a quote from the Talking Heads has to be good.  And this article is a great overview of the entire document review process from A-to-Z.  As the authors state “litigation has always been a fountainhead of cost and it is no secret that document review comprises a huge part of that expense.”   (The article cites the KPMG study “A Revolution in Ediscovery” which is one of the best e-discovery analytics pieces we have read and is a “must read” for those of us in this business: contract attorneys, law firms, in-house counsel, vendors.   It is publicly available and you can access it by clicking here.)

“And You May Find Yourself in a Large Document Review” is loaded with useful information such as a nifty paper-to-electronic-estimate conversion table (for example 500,000 pages equals 10 gigabytes of data), how you estimate the size of your collection and understanding technology.  But the article does not just focus on the mammoth amount of data in a typical document collection.  The article discusses other challenges in a document review such as:

* globalization

* short time frames

* simultaneous matters

* limited budgets

* complexity

* “no technology” background for some participants

* the confusing landscape of ediscovery solutions

And there is cornucopia of useful tips such as five things you need for a meet and confer,  methodologies behind collecting documents, how you compute billing costs by law firm partners, associates, contract attorneys, and vendors.  And there is a neat section “document review in action.”     

In summary, it’s a great review of the entire document review process from A-to-Z.

“Effective Management of Litigation Holds and Ediscovery”

Mary Mack and her band of Merry Men from Fios (a company which seems to be popping up all over the e-discovery universe these days) have written a great intro article (with a large amount of details, actually) on litigation holds: what they are and how you manage them.   We recommend this as a “must read” for everybody in this industry.

We’ll give you our very basic, simple definition: a legal hold is a process which an organization uses to preserve all forms of relevant information when litigation is reasonably anticipated.  It’s a definition fraught with issues (especially “reasonably anticipated”) but it’s a start.

The focus of the Fios article: developing “an effective, defensible legal hold process for your company”.  They base their presentation and suggestions around five key questions:

1.  When does the preservation obligation begin?

2.  What electronic data should you preserve and how will you do it?

3.  How much evidence do you need to preserve?

4.  In what format should you preserve the data?

5.  How can you preserve at low cost?

They run through the key Federal case law (including our dear, dear friend Laura Zubulake) and then lay out the basic steps to establishing a sound legal hold process.  They cover volume of evidence, specificity, robustness … and sanctions.  They also detail the “ESI Content Map” which will not only provide in-house counsel with the information necessary to execute a litigation hold but “provide outside counsel with the information necessary to speak competently about the company’s legal hold efforts …”

For a link to the first few pages of “And You May Find Yourself in a Large Document Review” please click here.

For a link to the first few pages of “Effective Management of Litigation Holds and Ediscovery” please click here.

Please note:  these articles are reprinted with permission of the authors and the Association of Corporate Counsel.  Copyright  ^© 2008 the Association of Corporate Counsel.  All rights reserved.  Legal resources such as this are available to members at no charge.  If you are interested in joining ACC, please go to www.acc.com, call 202.293.4103, ext. 360, or email membership@acc.com.   This licence is for single use only.  Reprint of the articles in any other format or location must be approved in writing by ACC.

We also want to thank Kim Howard, Editor in Chief of the ACC Docket, for all her help in securing the permissions for this post.

A special note to Posse List members:  nonmembers of the ACC can buy a copy of the May issue (you can see the titles of the lead articles in the May issue by clicking here) by contacting the ACC via its website www.acc.com.  But we are giving out free copies to 50 Posse List members who email us and tell us:

(1) how they find The Posse List website/blog helpful

(2) what you’d like us to add to the site, or what information you’d like us to provide to the list membership (which now includes contract attorneys, law firms, in-house counsel, bar associations, e-discovery vendors/general legal vendors, and professional associations) 

(3) your name and your mailing address where we can send a copy of the magazine

Email us at manager@theposselist.com and put in the subject line “ACC MAY ISSUE”.      

Posted by:  Gregory Bufithis, Esq., Founder and Chairman, The Posse List

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/PosseList