4 Strategies for Taking Greater Control of E-Discovery Spend Through Dashboards

At a time when the volume and sources of data in the discovery lifecycle continues to rise, modern law departments are increasingly challenged to track and control e-discovery spend.

While many law departments have applied some tactics to control this spend, in many cases, they have only identified cost savings that are “low hanging fruit” because they lack a holistic picture of the e-discovery lifecycle. Without a complete view, even seemingly simple questions can be difficult for most law departments to answer, including: What is the exact total of e-discovery costs, and how do those costs break down at the matter level? How much data is being handled? How many documents are being reviewed, and what is the overturn (quality) rate in that process? Is more advantageous to pay for first pass review by the document or by the hour?

Answering these questions can be very complex for several reasons. Multiple parties, such as outside counsel, e-discovery providers and even internal teams generate cost, but that can be difficult to track since the information is kept in disparate systems and is often reported inconsistently.

Additionally, some law departments struggle with the tracking, reporting and controlling of e-discovery spend because they have not determined the exact key performance indicators (KPIs) they wish to measure in order to better contain costs and mitigate risk.

If you are part of a law department trying to solve these challenges, it is important to invest the time and resources to consolidate information regarding the e-discovery lifecycle and, if possible, implement a dashboard tool that can provide a combined snapshot of the process and its costs at all stages. With this information, you can obtain an accurate picture of discovery metrics and spend, whether it is related to internal document collection or outside counsel services. While some law departments have used a patchwork of solutions to attempt to resolve inefficiencies, real savings and intelligence into spend throughout the e-discovery lifecycle cannot happen without a holistic change.

To implement a system that captures a more robust view of e-discovery spend, here are a few strategies:

1. Establish preferred providers.

The first step toward ensuring greater control of your law department's e-discovery spend is to establish a preferred provider program. This helps to consolidate the number of places information about discovery is stored, tracked and reviewed—allowing for a complete view of the amount of e-discovery data that is processed, reviewed and produced.

Also, it is important to make sure your outside counsel uses your preferred providers. With a limited number of e-discovery providers, you can more easily collect information to answer critical questions about the quantity, quality and cost of the discovery lifecycle. While many law departments have preferred provider programs, we find that most have not implemented measures to ensure compliance or implement strategies to aggregate metrics across providers (e.g., e-discovery services and managed review providers).

2. Develop consistent metrics.

To develop standardized information, first identify the right metrics based on the stakeholders who produce it, including outside counsel, providers and anyone else who contributes to the discovery lifecycle. These metrics can include anything from overturn rates during the review process to quantities and costs by specific matter type.

Ultimately, standardizing metrics can lead to far more reliable information about e-discovery spend, including the ability to identify non-compliance with provider programs at the matter level, and to improve the quality and efficiency of document review. In addition to gathering and measuring spend metrics, it is equally important to define metrics to measure providers' compliance with service level agreements in terms of turnaround times, quality measures and efficacy of data minimization strategies.

Once you develop a set of standard metrics, all preferred providers should receive a template or guide that lays out the format they should use to report information regarding discovery tracking and cost. Mandating the use of this template can also be an established part of your service line agreements with all providers.

Finally, request that providers use e-billing e600 fee codes to guarantee consistency in the tracking of information and reporting by the stage of the EDRM lifecycle.

3. Centralize the source of truth.

In law departments without a centralized system, determining the cost of e-discovery for a single matter means searching through multiple systems, spreadsheets and invoices. However, when a central source of truth—or a continuously updated, single repository for all information related to e-discovery—is established, you can easily begin to identify areas to better manage costs.

When law departments fully leverage their matter management systems, they can create a central source of information for the e-discovery lifecycle as well as other useful matter information. Law departments can configure their matter management systems so that internal activities, such as requests for legal hold, data collection, etc., are tracked in the context of individual matters. With this information, you can begin to discover more nuanced information such as the types of cases that take longer and cost more to the department, and devise strategies to become more efficient. For example, a law department might discover intellectual property cases tend to cost the most in the e-discovery process, and work to identify particular documents or data that may be unnecessary to collect in the first place or that are always subject to collection and should be maintained in a readily available manner.

This shared source of truth can influence better decisions and create a global view of the entire e-discovery lifecycle, uncovering opportunities for savings law departments did not even know existed.

4. Use dashboard reporting to discover hidden e-discovery savings.

The real cost savings in the e-discovery lifecycle become apparent when you zoom out on spend from the matter level and analyze costs across your entire law department. Some dashboard reporting tools can aggregate data from multiple sources—matter management systems, outside counsel billing and e-discovery providers—and provide insights on the key performance indicators your law department has identified. This allows for forecasting and analysis not previously possible. These metrics can include the ratio of documents collected to those actually under review, provider performance or cost comparisons for specific matters, for example.

The ability to analyze information about the e-discovery lifecycle in a variety of ways can facilitate predictive budgeting based on historic information. It can also leverage historical metrics to arm counsel with the information required to present compelling burden and expense arguments.

As the volume of e-discovery documents and data collected, reviewed and produced accelerates, monitoring spend and controlling the e-discovery lifecycle can seem daunting. But law departments who establish preferred providers, standardize the metrics, centralize the source of truth and implement a flexible e-discovery dashboard can uncover hidden costs and get a complete view of the entire e-discovery process.

The insights into spending that result—whether identifying inefficient providers or shedding light on the matters that tend to cost more—will be well worth the investment. With the ability to predict future spend based on historical data and a complete picture of the e-discovery process, answering questions about the e-discovery lifecycle and its costs is no longer a guessing game.

Bobbi Basile serves as a managing director for HBR Consulting and has over 25 years of experience delivering strategic, operations and technology services to Fortune 500 law departments and law firms. Bobbi is an expert in designing and applying innovative approaches to managing e-Discovery with an emphasis on defensible approaches to applying artificial intelligence-enabled technologies. She specializes in guiding organizations to develop strategies to align discovery services and litigation support functions to business needs and goals, and works with organizations to develop sustainable approaches to providing services.