2020 is finally over and 2021 is here! There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we do not yet know the length of that tunnel. As we settle into the new year, document review continues to be conducted remotely, and the return to dedicated document review facilities is not likely to happen soon. While most parties involved in all aspects of a document review have adjusted to the new normal of a remote delivery model, we have gained insight over the past 10-plus months on how to best conduct reviews to satisfy both internal protocols as well as client security concerns.

Here are our best practice tips for hiring qualified reviewers and addressing security issues, both of which are among the top challenges organizations are facing with performing remote document reviews today. From a security standpoint, the remote review environment is drastically different from a corporate review environment. These guidelines should help to bring back an excellent level of security, certainty and visibility to the remote review environment:

1. Remote review allows for a much larger candidate pool, although that is not necessarily a good thing. It would be prudent to work with attorneys and others who have done work for you previously. This allows you to not only know the quality of candidate you are hiring for your client's work, but also bring on board someone who is familiar with your company and how you run reviews. From there, you can elicit referrals from your well-known candidates. For foreign language reviews, there is likely someone who know the best reviewers to refer in any particular language.