The swelling cost of electronic discovery is a pressing issue for businesses everywhere, and many GCs are now resigned to spending ever-larger shares of their companies’ budgets on managing and producing massive amounts of electronically stored information. Yet, even amid the rolling waves of e-mails, text messages, spreadsheets, and other digital documents that wash into and out of just about any company during the average workday, proper management of ESI need not translate into a budget-busting nightmare. Indeed, by taking an informed and systematic approach to the problem, many businesses stand to dramatically lower their e-discovery costs.

For most companies, the biggest expense in this area comes in the form of billable hours for document-review attorneys. These teams of specialists are tasked with sifting through digital files for information that could be relevant to ongoing legal matters. Sometimes, the reviews center on oceans of ones and zeros — volumes of data so vast they are measured in terabytes. (One terabyte equals 1,000 gigabytes, or a trillion bytes.) Naturally, an overarching goal of any e-discovery cost-reduction effort should be to figure out how to tighten this review process. Is it possible for attorneys to be given fewer documents to review from the outset? Are there ways in which the review process itself could be sped up without sacrificing accuracy?

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]