Defined Standard eDiscovery processes

Controlling eDiscovery costs requires a holistic business approach to active litigation. For effective review oversight, corporations need to define process and monitor activity without interrupting law firms’ ability to execute. What is needed is a single system that provides centralized administration and distributed secure access while capturing process analytics. Standardization process is an important aspect.

In order to monitor across reviews, standards must be applied. This seems intuitive even without the oversight goal, since approaching each matter anew with different training, a different collections methodology, and different production authorization is inefficient and risky. Gaps in process can mean wasted time or worse, inadvertent production or summary judgment. So even without the goal of oversight, standardization makes sense. Consult internally or with lead outside counsel to define standards for all matters or per line of business, and then monitor these standards and their affect on review to produce real savings. Examples of standards include:

• Consistent review technology – select a ediscovery software to reduce training costs and billable vendor evaluations and simplify administration and oversight
• Chain of custody and media tracking – define set chain of custody and media tracking, then requiring adherence to eliminate spoliation on every matter
• Security protocols – protect all cases from unintentional access
• Review workflow – minimize gaps in review which may result in inadvertent productions or inefficiency
• Production authorization – ensure each production has been checked for conflicts and consistency prior to shipping, regardless of counsel or case size

Standardization lowers costs and risk while improving the ability of internal project managers to manage more cases and outside counsel to spend less time managing review. You can try out eDiscovery companies with good eDiscovery softwares.