This blog is written by Baker Donelson’s in-house eDiscovery team. The Baker eDiscovery team has a combined 90 years of applicable experience. The eDiscovery industry has changed a lot over last fifteen years. Given growing client data volumes, the industry rushed to create tools and provide resources to augment the traditional role the litigator played in managing discovery. Over time, this led to the creation of a legitimate legal subspecialty focused exclusively on managing eDiscovery.
Outsourcing discovery management from the frontline litigator to a specialized group has consequences. Cases are learned, in some large part, in the process of reviewing the client’s documents. Outsourcing to specialists focused solely on compliance—making a defensible production—can result in losing key contextual and big picture information that is gained by the reviewers over the course of the review.
Most recognize, however, that the sheer volume of Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) of the modern corporation, combined with the familiarity gap with the platforms and processes of the modern eDiscovery project, makes it impossible for a trial team to directly review ESI datasets or manage the review process. That dilemma is what led us at Baker to design a new way of looking at eDiscovery.
We designed the LeanDiscovery™ method. Baker’s LeanDiscovery™ method is a revolutionary method that closes the gap between the review team and the trial team. General Counsels should expect more for their eDiscovery expenditure. The LeanDiscovery™ method delivers more value at an overall lower cost by embedding our team members directly with trial teams to create a feedback loop. That loop focuses the review on the key areas identified by the trial team, passes information real time to the trial team during the review. Key documents are elevated immediately, as is contextual information to allow the trial team to benefit from the review team’s interaction with the documents.
Gone are the days when in-house counsel should expect their eDiscovery expenditure to result only in a defensible production. That is compliance. The expectation can and should be that the eDiscovery budget advances the clients’ overall interests in ways that provide tangible added value to trial teams and improves outcomes. Of course, this also requires that we expand upon and perfect established processes and cost-saving means over time.
We invite you to follow the LeanDiscovery™ Blog as we present the case for exploring what our collective expectations should be for eDiscovery.
