Our survey of tools and techniques for early case assessment has revealed a wide range of available options, each with different strengths and intended applications. Achieving effective ECA is not a question of applying as many tools and techniques as you can. Rather, it’s a question what is right for to best serving your primary goal for Traditional ECA, EDA, or Downstream Prep.
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After thread and duplicate management tools, the final major tools and techniques available for pursuing the three goals of Early Case Assessment (ECA) are advanced analytic tools, powered by semantic indexing and other advanced mathematical analyses, including: concept searching, concept clustering, categorization, Technology Assisted Review 1.0 and 2.0 workflows, and new AI tools.
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Modern document review platforms provide case teams with a powerful set of tools for investigating their collected ESI in pursuit of the three goals, a series of overlapping lenses you can use to bring your quarry into sharp focus. After sampling tools and searching and filtering tools, the next major types of tools available are tools for handling email threading, duplicates and near-duplicates.
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Any modern document review platform provides case teams with a powerful set of tools for investigating their collected ESI in pursuit of the three goals, like a series of overlapping lenses you can use to bring your quarry into sharp focus. The next major type of tools and techniques available is search and filtering.
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Practitioners have a wide array of tools and techniques at their disposal to work towards each of these goals during the ECA phase of an eDiscovery project. The specific bells and whistles of those features vary, but the core functions almost always include: searching tools, email threading tools, duplicate handling tools, conceptual analysis tools, and random sampling tools.
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The fog of war is apt shorthand for the state of uncertainty that exists early in a new legal matter. Whether you are gearing up for litigation, an agency enforcement action, or an investigation, you are faced with potential conflict and liability shrouded in a fog of uncertainty. Early case assessment (ECA), fundamentally, is the process of trying to clear as much of that fog as possible.
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Unfortunately, the establishment of an effective, efficient eDiscovery program is not a one-and-done activity. Like all active programs or systems, it requires ongoing maintenance to ensure that it continues to be effective and efficient. For an eDiscovery program that means doing things like post-mortems, periodic program reviews, and more. In addition to maintaining your program over time, you will undoubtedly want to improve it over time. Read to review the steps on how to maintain and improve eDiscovery programs and what they entail.
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Unfortunately, the establishment of an effective, efficient eDiscovery program is not a one-and-done activity. Like all active programs or systems, it requires ongoing maintenance to ensure that it continues to be effective and efficient. For an eDiscovery program that means doing things like post-mortems, periodic program reviews, and more. In addition to maintaining your program over time, you will undoubtedly want to improve it over time. Read to review the steps on how to maintain and improve eDiscovery programs and what they entail.
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There are advantages to moving beyond intra-project metric monitoring to inter-project metric monitoring. When the relevant project details are captured across multiple projects in a standardized, normalized way, they reveal additional insights invaluable for proactive program management within an organization. Which metrics will be most useful to your organization will depend, to some extent, on the types of matters and eDiscovery activities in which your organization is most often engaged, as well as on your balance of insourcing and outsourcing. Here, we will review examples of key project metrics to consider tracking for the realization of cross-project, program management benefits.
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In this segment, we discuss the proactive evaluation of service providers for the establishment of ongoing relationships, whether as a preferred provider, a managed services provider, or a total process outsourcing provider. This is generally accomplished through a Request for Information (“RFI”) process in which a service buyer collects desired information from a group of potential service providers in an organized way to facilitate comparison. Here we will review the core competencies it is most important to investigate when planning an RFI for eDiscovery service providers, along with some tips for an effective RFI process.
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Before organizations begin proactive management of their overall eDiscovery programs, they typically make case-by-case decisions about service providers and resources, buying services à-la-carte and treating each matter as a one-off. This approach offers great flexibility, but little predictability or consistency. Once organizations begin proactive management efforts, they must wrestle with the question of what functions to insource and which ones to outsource. Read further to learn the benefits and trade-offs of insourcing and (aggregated) outsourcing, and how to select the hybrid model that’s right for you.
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Engaging in effective, proactive management of an eDiscovery program requires a full understanding of how that program has been operating up to that point. The complex, cross-departmental nature of eDiscovery projects can make the full cost and impact difficult to discern. How are things currently done? What is the true cost of doing them? What internal and external resources are utilized? Which activities must be undertaken most frequently? How well do current resources fit current needs? How are those needs changing over time? These are all questions that can be answered by undertaking a multi-prong investigation into your own program, including gathering input from key stakeholders, reviewing personnel and financial records, and studying eDiscovery and legal records.
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