DISCOVERY STATISTICS
$6.4 BILLION
Cost of civil discovery in federal cases annually
20% - 50%
of all costs of federal litigation are incurred in discovery
60%
of all civil and criminal cases involve discovery
- According to the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, reviewing documents for relevancy and privilege comprises up to 73% of production costs
- Courts are increasingly imposing harsh sanctions including adverse inference instructions to the jury and sizable monetary relief for discovery misconduct. In the past year:
- Multinational technology company hit with an adverse inference instruction and a potential monetary sanction for not preserving chat messages.
- Same tech company, in another matter, received a nearly $1 million penalty for failing to comply with its discovery obligations, misleading the plaintiffs, concealing and destroying key documents.
- An electronic cigarette company was hit with a $2.5 million penalty in addition to an adverse jury instruction given the extent of spoliation. The company was also barred from using evidence not provided to the plaintiff and certain expert testimony. This stemmed from a $20,000 trademark infringement action where counsel did not issue a proper litigation hold and evidence was destroyed.
PROVEN NEED
Discovery is more than just document review and production; done properly, it can lay the groundwork to reduce discovery related costs, produce a quality, defensible product and contribute to the overall success of the case. The proliferation of data and available data sources is reshaping the eDiscovery landscape. Failure to adequately prepare and manage discovery creates additional strain on litigation including increased risk and burden.
SDC bridges the gap between technologists processing the data and the substantive in house and/or outside counsel case team. Would you rather have your case team weighed down by managing complex discovery or focused on drafting case dispositive motions and preparing for trial? Your internal/external technologists do not give legal advice. Their execution is only as good at the direction provided by counsel. You hire experts for everything else, why not discovery? Wouldn’t you rather have a dedicated discovery expert looking out for the best interest of the case that works in tandem with your substantive case team. SDC is uniquely positioned to perform that role.
PROVEN PROCESS
Electronically stored information (ESI) has exploded in the last ten years. Technology, like TAR, CAL and other AI tools can assist in the discovery process but it is not a standalone solution. When understood and utilized properly, they can free up time and budget resources for more substantive work. One of the most difficult aspects of discovery is the amount of time it consumes. Our team is dedicated to discovery and data review, offering consistency in discovery management with a documented record of success. We have vast experience in all aspects of discovery including but not limited to preservation strategy, negotiating favorable ESI and protective orders, general document review, expert document review, review of opposing party productions, document production, substantive deposition preparation, generating timelines and chronologies, preparing case summaries of document sets as well as providing privilege expertise.
Prior to Document Review
- Negotiate/amend ESI orders
- Develop/evaluate legal hold lists
- Negotiate and test search terms to minimize false hits
- Custodian analysis to avoid overlap and irrelevant custodians
- Custodian collection interviews and consent
- Data collection and transfers, including cross border issues
- Address potential privacy issues
- Collaborate with vendors for processing and hosting data
- Early Case Assessment for data culling (utilizing multiple methods including TAR, testing search terms, use of key word reports to find anomalies, communication analysis to develop additional custodians)
- Database set up for review
- Navigating unique collection or data issues including, transitioning matter from one firm to another
Managing Document Review
- Proven process for conducting review using protocol templates tailored to fit each client’s needs
- Over 30 years of combined experience managing/supervising large groups of contract attorneys working remotely in multiple locations and time zones
- Active monitoring of review progress in real time to manage deadlines, identify issues, and escalate hot documents immediately
- Manage/supervise platform vendors – we speak their language, allowing of more efficient administration and resolutions if issues arise
Production, Privilege and Case Preparation
- Established quality check process involving identification of potential coding conflicts, missing coding, and technical file issues
- Experts in privilege review and logging; handling complex privilege issues, innovative log formats, log challenges and spoliation claims
- Leverage document review to assist with substantive case and dep prep
PROVEN SUCCESS
- Managed 500 contract attorneys in multi-state document review on aggressive deadline for HSR filing and merger due diligence.
- Leveraged discovery work from DOJ investigation in subsequent MDL litigation to minimize client cost.
- Reviewed 1.2 million documents, over 15 million pages, with 34,000 documents designated as privileged; resulting in a final privilege log of 26,000 lines in bet-the-company shareholder litigation.
- Expertise in preparing privilege logs for and addressing log challenges from government agencies. Ranging from small investigation logs to 61,000 documents logged for 2nd Request provided to two agencies with different specifications.
- Oversaw strategy and export of over nine TBs of structured data; working closely with matter experts to analyze data in employment class action matter with over 45,000 certified class members.
- Prevailed in prolonged privilege waiver battle in the first tax enforcement action brought under New York’s False Claims Act. Consistent case discovery management by this team throughout 12 year matter lifespan contributed significantly to the outcome.
- Ability to pre-review collected data to identify system files, zip/container files, and other “junk” files. Removal of these documents prior to review reduces review volume resulting in more efficient and cost effective review. Using this process has led to the reduction of 25 – 35% of the documents from a potential review set.
- Created process for tracking/searching all duplicate trade secret documents/stolen information using both technology and human early case assessment which led to discovery of smoking gun document and within days a significantly favorable 9 figure settlement for client in prolonged litigation.