Want to make your eDiscovery processes more cost-effective? You have to spend money to save it. Here’s how…
Against today’s complex landscape of digital communication, even the “small” legal cases can now prove a significant drain on timeand money – the most valuable resources of any legal team.
It’s no surprise then that many decision makers and stakeholders proceed with extreme caution when considering even the slightest change, investment or systematic improvement for their eDiscovery practices.
But unfortunately, an apprehensive approach is one that will actually prove more costly in the long run.
Read on to learn five ways that you can save time and money for your legal firm by investing more in eDiscovery.
1. Your team can focus on what they do best
While many professionals operate quite healthily on the basis that if you want something done right you’ve got to do it yourself, many in-house legal teams who have conducted their own disclosure process would beg to differ.
The truth of the matter is that most legal professionals are far too busy to know all the ins and outs and apply the level of meticulousness needed to keep disclosure (eDiscovery) both time and cost-effective.
Outsourcing managed services or hiring additional specialist resource to get the job done can allow your team the space and time to focus on what they do best. And, it also ensures that eDiscovery is carried out in a structured and thorough manner, rather than as a box-ticking exercise by a litigator who is being spread far too thin.
The savings that managed services offer in terms of time are obvious, and if you need convincing as to how they could save you money, look no further than the cost implication that comes with an adverse judgement or a missed disclosure deadline.
2. You can unify disparate data (and teams)
Having disparate data sources limits both visibility and efficiency, which can quickly manifest itself as an inability to manage the legal hold process, which again costs time and money.
By investing in an eDiscovery solution or platform with a robust functionality, you can unify all of your data, regardless of format, into one interface and workflow – aligning the operations of your teams, aiding in communication and dramatically streamlining the collection process.
The same goes for unifying teams. One interface and workflow will ensure everyone is operationally aligned. This can be especially useful for those notoriously difficult team dynamics, such as the age-old discordance between IT and legal (in case you missed it, we discussed this topic in more detail in this blog).
Using a cheaper platform or provider without these capabilities will lead to greater costs and strain on resources, either in the form of under-collection, which leaves you open to risk, or labour-intensive over-collection (which leads us neatly into our next point).
3. You can stop over-collection
It’s pretty safe to assume that if you are reading this, you have some experience of wading through reams of old, obsolete or duplicate data right through to the wee small hours of the morning.
Many choose to carry out collection in-house in a bid to keep overall costs down and avoid pumping any more budget into eDiscovery than needed. But there is a great irony to this. More often than not, the internal resource firms dedicate to this process can be applied much more profitably elsewhere.
Whether you choose to outsource a specialist team to carry this out more efficiently and effectively than your time-poor team, or move to a better system with advanced indexing capabilities to make the review of irrelevant data a thing of the past, both investments will quickly yield great cost savings in the long run.
4. You can collaborate remotely
The people who drive the review, approval and decision making processes of disclosure are inherently busy. It is rare that partners, board members, C-suite officials and stakeholders aren’t constantly working, travelling, or both.
And yet, they are still the gatekeepers when it comes to assessing all data and documentation during a disclosure and collection exercise.
If you want to maximise the efficiency of your eDiscovery and make your resources work harder, you can’t afford to have your sign off processes held up by distance and travelling habits.
Investing in a process and system that has, for example, remote access capabilities and that functions across a range of devices is a surefire way to break through some of these all-too common roadblocks and reduce sinkholes in time and productivity.
5. You can get round-the-clock support
As you know, disclosure and eDiscovery can be a 24-hour job, so it deserves to receive 24-hour support. Imagine you need assistance with something late in the evening, and you have to wait til 8am the next day to receive it. Now imagine that happens multiple times in a month – the hours of dead time quickly become entire days.
If you want to make eDiscovery as efficient and effective as possible, you can’t leave yourself a finite window of opportunity to receive the support you need each day.
When choosing or upgrading your eDiscovery processes and systems, be sure to work with a vendor that offers round-the-clock technical support, and employs consultants who understand both the process, the legal framework and your deadlines.
Now you know how to make your resources work harder, it’s time to grow. Find out how the right eDiscovery service provider can drive your growth agenda in Digital Justice.
