LegalTech West Coast: Notes and observations from Day 1

Our “Posse List moment”

At the panel entitled “Document Review: Establishing the Team & Utilizing the Technology” Browning Marean, senior counsel in DLA Piper’s San Diego office and a member of the DLA Piper Litigation group and co-chair of the Electronic Discovery Readiness and Response Group (click here) gave us a nice shout out during the session when the panelists were discussing managing document reviews.  He called out “hey, Carl from The Posse List is here and Carl is a document reviewer so let’s hear the Posse List view.”  So we gave our perspective from a reviewer’s point of view and told the session that all reviews were different and so much depended on the associates or team leads who were running them.  We went on to say that the best orientation/training was when the reviewers were provided with more than just a briefing (from a partner or associate) and a binder, but also examples of documents that satisfied different coding tags.  A little later we interjected how important it was for reviewers to get feedback on their coding, and early QC was crucial for detecting if there was any confusion. 

Other members of the panel included Linda Sharp and Bernie Stea from Kroll Ontrack, Ron Best and Phil Nickels from the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olsen, and Joel Vogel from Paul Hasting’s DC Office.   

We had spoken to Browning at a previous break because in one session the panelists were discussing the pros and cons of doing everything in-house versus sending everything out to a vendor which is the Paul Hastings model.  We discussed the Howrey model which is at the other extreme because Howrey has one national center (Falls Church) where all of the document reviews are conducted for all of their offices.  And in between you have firms like Cleary Gottlieb which are somewhat in the middle with several centers in the U.S. and in Europe.

The Litigation Technology Workshops and E-discovery tracks

We fanned out and covered all of the sessions which had titles such as “An Ounce of ESI Preventionis Worth a Pound of ESI Cure” and “eDiscovery Issues and Trends”.  Some notes and observations from these sessions:

1.  One repeated theme from in-house counsel: “we get better e-discovery pricing on data and review from vendors than we do from our outside law firms because these vendors want the corporate client.”  This is a theme we have discussed in many previous Posse List posts and goes to the efforts made by corporate clients to cut costs by “going direct”, by bring initial case assessment and initial review in-house (both covered later today at several sessions), etc.  It is one reason that EDD vendors are “scooping” agencies in staffing projects.

2.  The “Craig Ball mantra” repeated endlessly:  it’s not “e-discovery” anymore. ESI is so prevalent let’s just call it “plain ole discovery”.

3.  Documenting the entire ESI collection process is most important responsibility of litigation support.  It prevents so many problems later on.

4.  Many panelists were in agreement: linear document review is often the safest and most efficient process for most projects and the role of well-trained contract attorneys is critical.  The technology that has developed has made the process shorter, with fewer contract attorneys necessary, but they are still critical.

5.  “Planning ahead” is simply not done but it must be done.  Technology used intelligently to store, archive, and dispose of data can result in 50% e-discovery cost savings downstream.

6.  Early case assessment: the technology keeps getting better and better.  The dominant players in the market: Clearwell, Case Central and Equivio (see separate posting by clicking here).

7.  Another recurring theme at all three sessions:  “best practices”.  We found that the Kroll Ontrack people were a little too idealistic and it was invaluable to have the experience of the practitioners to inject some reality into what happens at reviews.  They were very candid about the shortcoming of attorneys (their lack of education/knowledge in the area of e-discovery and their hesitance to change).   It seems that the most effective catalyst for change is showing the attorneys and clients how much things cost.  This really gets their attention, since the review of documents is one of the most expensive components of litigation, and they are receptive to how savings can be achieved through best practices in early case assessment, effective searching and filtering of the data, proper assembly and training of the review team, and ongoing quality control procedures.  The panels discussed several tools that can be helpful in these areas (ones that produce graphs and spreadsheets for tracking, for example); but they did not endorse any particular applications, maintaining that the needs of every project were different.

Our coverage continues and we’ll have much more during the day and later tonight.

For all our LegalTech West Coast coverage click here.

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