If you’ve never embarked on eDiscovery before, the prospect can be daunting.
You may be in the earlier years of your practice, or perhaps you’ve only handled smaller files that had maybe a few dozen documents to review. All of the sudden you’ve landed a big fish – a large-scale litigation file that could be lucrative for both your firm and your client. You’re ready to dive in…until you realize the volume of evidence is massive.
Your client has several key stakeholders, all of whom had been involved for years before litigation commenced. As you start tabulating the evidence that you’ll need to produce, you realize how quickly you’re in over your head. Between inboxes, filing cabinets, cell phones, recordings, and other pieces – there may be tens of thousands of pieces of evidence to review, and there’s no way that your bootstrapped firm can handle that on your own.
Not sure where to go next? That’s where we come in.
Dollars and Sense
One of the things that we pride ourselves in at Everest Discovery is offering free consultations. It’s important to sit down with our clients early and lay out a road map, because for many this may be their first time embarking on a discovery project of this size, and they’re genuinely not sure what’s involved.
The first reality to deal with is the cost of doing things right.
If you’re working with a volume of documents beyond what you can personally handle, then it’s imperative to bring in the right third-party partner for your review. However, getting it right is not cheap. Depending on the volume of documents, the number of custodians, and the production deadlines imposed by opposing counsel, the costs can be significant.
When we meet with a new client, we’ll help them weigh the costs of proper due diligence review against the potential recovery of a matter. It may be that while a matter is tempting to take on, the high costs of discovery could outweigh any potential profit, and thus too great a financial risk to the firm.
Failing to conduct proper review can come at great peril to the results of a case. Producing a privileged document that should never have been made public, or failing to properly examine a key one, can be detrimental to the outcome of a case. Similarly, manually reviewing tens or even hundreds of thousands of documents manually can eat up hours of billable time that the firm can ill-afford. A trusted partner is often the best way to handle things correctly.
One of the greatest misconceptions is that AI has drastically reduced the costs of proper discovery. While AI is able to automate some tasks, we are still several years away from being able to trust its review calls implicitly, or to use it without much human intervention. AI may help reduce a portion of the workload, but costs remain in programming, maintenance, and of course due diligence.
The Importance of Client Education
While we work with firms that may be newer to eDiscovery, we also work with attorneys who have more experience, and ultimately both face the same challenge. Even if the attorney understands the process well, they may be required to educate a client who has never been through discoveries before, and has no idea what to expect.
That process can certainly raise some eyebrows! If you’re not familiar with the litigation process or its requirements, you may be intimidated by someone telling you to safely preserve your smartphone, or not to touch anything in the deepest recesses of your inbox. If you don’t even remember what’s there, what on Earth is someone else going to find?
We help our clients educate their clients to have those difficult conversations. This often helps break down some of those difficult budget discussions, so that parties can understand how their resources are being spent, and what steps may be coming next in the process.
No One Likes a Surprise
Attorneys know that there are few things worse in a file than an unexpected surprise. An 11th hour ‘smoking gun’ can be great if it supports your case, but disastrous if it means a complete pivot of your litigation strategy. Ensuring that key documents are found on time and dealt with properly can be instrumental in avoiding these last minute ‘surprises.’
We keep the lines of communication open with our clients so that you can do the same with yours. Practical conversations about costs, timelines, and next steps ensure that those surprises are few and far between, and don’t throw the entire case off course.
Want to learn more about how we can help with your case? Set up a time to chat with one of our experts.
