Managing Early Case Assessment: Page 2 of 2

Unwieldy data set. Fast-growing corporate data stores are the culprit. Data sets are far too broad and duplication is all too common for efficient and timely review. Review will require large numbers of reviewers in order to complete review before meet-and-confer. Usually these are contract attorneys, who add significantly to the cost of ECA. And manually coordinating large review teams and numerous search terms is exceptionally difficult.

Revising search terms. Since attorneys are looking at the data for the first time, they will undoubtedly locate new patterns, threads and users within the initial data set. Attorneys must change their search parameters accordingly and must return to the custodians for additional data. And once again the discoverable universe swells to an unmanageable size.

This state of affairs is a sad waste of attorney, IT and end-user time and resources, and is fraught with inaccurate results. Corporations are being slammed by huge manpower costs to manually search for and analyze data sets at all, leave alone in time for a true early case assessment. This leaves attorneys to face the meet-and-confer without a workable strategy from early ESI analysis. This puts them and their client at high risk of poor preparation and heavy plaintiff pressure.

Given this level of cost and complexity, firms increasingly require technology tools focused on the ECA process. The twin goals for ECA technology are to reduce the initial collection to a manageable (and defensible) size and to gain accurate and visual views using sophisticated analysis. Only eDiscovery technology tools can provide the level of ECA that new court realities require.