Document Review: 5 Tips For A More Efficient Process With Legal Tech

It is no secret or surprise to anyone in the legal profession that document review takes up the majority of the time, effort, and fees surrounding litigation. As the fee related to litigation maintains to rise throughout the United States, the want for record overview to come to be extra green has been at the forefront of many criminal minds for well over a decade.

The case for tool-assisted answers is obvious, and one which rarely wishes any extra explaining at this stage: in 2012, the RAND Corporation published a research short that concluded that record overview via way of means of itself absorbed approximately 73% of the cost related to litigation, even as additionally signaling that bringing labor fee down wasn’t a realistic option: “The prices paid to [project attorneys] may nicely have bottomed out, with in addition reductions of any big size unlikely.

Document Review Process

At its core, document review is a culling operation, preparing for production the evidence that a party involved in litigation must disclose below the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The initial look for files generally yields a big quantity of probably responsive (or relevant) documents, the undertaking for document review is to undergo these potential sources of proof and separate what must and must now no longer be disclosed.

6 Tips for a more Efficient Legal Document Review Process

1. Plan ahead & thoughts the info

There truly isn't anyt any manner to well emphasize how critical it is for legal teams to have playbooks and protocols ready to go. Once the ball gets rolling, there is certainly too much to do and now no longer sufficient time to fuss about making plans ahead well. However, with regards to document review, in which the info remember greatly and the system is simply too complex to reliably generate the desired results with out a strong playbook informing your decisions.

2. Standardization is your friend

As mentioned above, the time allowance on initial disclosure and discovery requests could be very limited and time limits very tight. At the same time, the ones time limits are quite much set in stone, this means that they're predictable. Typically, even if the individuals vary (wildly) on a case-by-case basis, the stairs involved don’t: that is why playbooks are a useable device withinside the first place.

Using templates and automation to play into the predictable nature of the process may be a big time saver and help ensure consistency.

3. Reviewing the review team

By reviewing the review team, we’re now no longer talking approximately second- or third-stage reviews (yet): review teams have to be constructed for productivity. The task of performing record overview calls for a ability set that mixes project management, legal expertise, difficulty matter expertise, and technological skill.

4. Get the right tools for the job

Tools are unavoidable in terms of document review nowadays, and it’s been that manner for many years now. As we mentioned earlier, the quantity of data is developing at a terrifying pace, human evaluation speed has reached its apex, and the time allowed to perform review is being decreased rather than expanded. Invariably, gear are had to make up the difference.

Getting a tool that gives an end-to-end answer for document review could make a difference in terms of accomplishing the preferred bring about a case. Modern-day answers provide a extensive variety of packages of Artificial Intelligence and dynamic reporting. Automated class and tagging speeds up parts of the review procedure tremendously, enabling legal groups to be extra powerful and green with the restricted time they're given.

5. Make certain you get the most from your tools

The very last factor right here is to emphasize that irrespective of how best an answer might also additionally be, it could handiest ever be as top because the human beings that use it and the procedure it is a part of. Assuming the primary elements are in place, the look for the proper answer must very a whole lot don't forget the user-friendliness of a device.

Having a device is one thing, having an answer another: for record evaluation, handiest a device that the evaluation crew can effortlessly use to achieve results can clearly be referred to as an answer.

End Note

By virtue of being such a massive time sink for most legal departments, document review is sort of continually at or close to the pinnacle of the listing of ability avenues for development of legal department performance. In maximum cases, the answer is a mixture of procedural improvements, device selection, and reviewer skill.