ediscovery-review-costs

A new year with heightened data regulations will likely usher in ballooning document review and lawyer spend for e-discovery. Conversely, a commoditized data hosting industry will likely mean relatively cheap hosting prices will continue.

E-discovery experts noted e-discovery and its prices don't evolve in a vacuum. They pointed to the General Data Protection Regulation and other data privacy regulations as factors fueling document reviewers' costs.

"Cross-border matters are growing in number and complexity, and often the collection and review for these matters must be conducted in-country or even within the company's offices," wrote FTI Consulting's global technology CEO Sophie Ross in an email. "As a result, the cost of finding and recruiting global professionals—from Hong Kong to Brazil—who are experts in the latest analytics platforms and advanced, defensible workflows is increasing."

BDO technology and business transformation practice managing director Brandon Lee noted the GDPR, California Consumer Privacy Act and other regulations require additional effort early in the discovery process to identify data and its correct transfer requirements.

Besides regulations, attorney disputes over technology-assisted review protocols also inflates the document review cost.

Redgrave partner Christine Payne noted some have argued that disputes between plaintiffs and defendants over what is acceptable TAR protocols cost a considerable amount of money for clients and drive up review and overall e-discovery costs.

"The attorney time to fight over the metrics you are going to use with TAR, the parameters, how the systems work, who gets access to the inputs, is very expensive," she said. "Any cost-saving with the product itself evaporates with the attorney time needed."

But one pain point e-discovery clients shouldn't feel when they are billed is data hosting. 

"Although the costs for processing and hosting [data] are still an element of e-discovery costs, we are starting to see those costs reduce partially because of consolidation of companies in the industry," BDO's Lee said.

Other e-discovery experts shared Lee's view, but also noted the higher volume of data companies are collecting may negate any potential cost-savings.

Still, FTI's Ross also noted that corporate clients are adopting advanced analytics to reduce the data set used during the e-discovery process. Additionally, more corporate legal departments are implementing information governance programs for better budget predictability and transparency, she said.

What's more, industry observers also note more corporate clients are using fewer providers for e-discovery, which is driving down overall e-discovery spend.

"We are seeing an uptick in what we consider managed services. No longer are corporations [partially] sending out aspects of e-discovery to a variety of vendors," Lee said. He added that the shift will impact the vendor landscape.

"You are going to see more consolidation in that and an opportunity for managed services to be utilized to address costs," he said.