The year was 2006. Twitter was 6 months old, and we were four-years to the day before the release of Instagram. The Departed was the box office sensation, and Justin Timberlake was busy bringing Sexyback. Penny was still a year away from moving in across the hall from Sheldon and Leonard.
So much has changed! (but not my profile picture!)
Yep, October 6, 2006, was the day we launched what was then—and may still be now—the only fully specialized eDiscovery law firm. Happy 15-year anniversary to us!
It is wild to reflect on what life and career were like back then and now. I mean, I don’t need to provide then/now pictures to demonstrate the differences in our then 6-month old son, who is now a nearly 6-foot 10th grader. LOL, of course I do.
As for the firm, our service offerings and delivery are so much different now compared to 2006. Back then, virtually our entire practice was providing first level document review and related QCs and signoffs. All of our services were billed hourly in the traditional law firm model.
Our main competitive advantage then was using lower-cost contract attorneys for the bulk of the first-level review work, and using our managers’ eDiscovery experience and focus to perform rigorous and thoughtful QCs, and to anticipate and avoid common document review pitfalls. At the time, most of document review was still being performed by full-priced Big Law Associates (like me!) and the fanciest eDiscovery tools were in their infancy. We weren’t offering clients advanced analytics, near dupe-analysis, and email threading. We were offing well-trained/supervised contract attorneys and extra-large monitors. Many of us had not-so-distant experiences with applying Bates stamp stickers by hand. It was a different era back then!
Here is the actual text of one of our 2006 marketing pieces where we were pitching firms to use us to save the time and sanity of their associates. Back then, firms really did have their associates doing full-time document review (both first level and as the project managers)
“Associate Angst”: Even if an attorney begins a document project in all the right ways, there is still the issue of following through, day-by-day, step-by-step. This often requires the sacrifice of an incredibly bright and eager young associate to full-time document review. As an alternative to this “associate angst,” [We] can oversee all of the logistics and substantive aspects of the collection, review and production utilizing [your firm’s] rotating associates, vendors and support staff. This model provides the benefit of a highly-qualified and consistent management presence on long-term projects, while the bulk of the work is completed by [your firm].
So what have been the biggest changes since then?
So much!
I tried to be concise and non-marketingy, but there is so much to tell and it is all so exciting! I mean, props to me for keeping this next part under 700 words, right? We now offer so much more than the first-level document reviews we were doing in 2006:
Expansion of Firm Services:
Collections: We have performed dozens of complicated data collection involving emails, phones, network shared drives, and more. We help our partner firms identify the data sources, and often assist with the custodial interviews. Our technicians physically perform the collections either remotely or on-site.
Processing/Hosting/Productions: We now have technology partners who help provide the backend technical aspects of processing, hosting, and production. This integrated service allows us to directly manage the work and to control costs.
Final Privilege Review and Logs: This is one of the greatest area of technological improvements in this field. In addition to providing well-trained and experienced privilege log specialists, we have developed proprietary techniques to automate and concatenate voluminous and complex logs, especially focusing on the consistent treatment of near-dupes and sprawling/overlapping email threads.
Factual Development Projects: Perhaps our best value offering. Once our review team completes its review of a complex document set, they are in the best position to further boil down the documents to a manageable analysis for our trial counsel partners. This generally leverages our knowledge of the documents and subject matter, use of advanced analytics to isolate the best exemplars, and our vast memo writing and litigation experience to draft concise reports. We may no longer pitch relieving our partner firms the burden of managing the documents review itself, but we sure do help them leverage their resources and budget come deposition time!
Per Doc Pricing: Complete game changer! The downsides and dangers of antiquated law firm hourly billing practices are too voluminous to discuss here. Suffice it to say that our switch to per-document fixed price rates for first-level review and related QC have been overwhelmingly appreciated by our clients and trial counsel partners. The per-doc price is set according to the complexity of review, and once that is done, clients have full knowledge and predictability of the most expensive portion of their eDiscovery needs.
Evolution of the Staffing Model: So much of the changes in the eDiscovery field over the last 15 years have been related to staffing. Prior to 2006, most document reviews were performed by full-rate Big Law associates– the rise of contract reviewers and Staff attorneys was just beginning. We have taken this to the next level. Our attorneys are all full-time employees, who have a delineated career path with us based on performance and case needs. Our attorneys start out as first-level review attorneys, and then can progress to Associates, Senior Associates, Counsel, and yes, even Partner. This allows use to put huge resources into training, professional development, and the development of institutional knowledge for our clients. If your case went dormant and is now revived after two years, we likely have a good portion of our original review team ready to jump back on it.
Early-Case Assessment, Custom Work-Flows and Technology: Did I say factual development projects was our best value? No, this part definitely is. Collections, processing, and key word searching often results in hundreds of thousands or even millions of documents potentially requiring review. Because we are a law firm—and have vast litigation, eDiscovery, and document review experience—we are able to assist our trial counsel firms with analyzing the documents requests, subpoena, pleadings, etc., and then performing pre-review deep dives into the potential review set. It is at that stage that we implement our best practices and the advanced analytics of the review software to perform a critical analysis of the data.
We evaluate the potential key players, the terms of interest most pertinent to the key documents, and various advanced analysis to create a plan to quickly identify the key issues/documents in the case, and most importantly, we are often able to substantially shrink the size of the ultimate review set. This quite often saves our clients hundreds of thousands of in review costs in a logical and legally defensible manner.
It’s our magic, and it’s spectacular! Meet Magician 1 and Magician 2.
But the most important thing has not changed!
Here is a verbatim pitch from one of our very first introduction emails we sent out in 2006 upon first launching the firm:
Our philosophy and business model focus on partnering with and supporting trial counsel in large litigations. By letting us handle all or part of the document collection, review, and production, trial counsel is able to focus on the other important aspects of high-stakes litigation, such as written discovery, depositions, legal research, motions, hearings, and trial strategy. We are quite familiar with the frustrations that young associates experience when assigned to long-term document reviews, and we have also recognized that many companies are looking for ways to reduce discovery costs. We believe that by using our firm to handle the document work, you will be able to better utilize your associates and help minimize costs to your clients.
This is still basically our same philosophy and business plan! While we are no longer so focused on trying to convince large firms to use us to free up their busy associates from managing reviews (since they by and large no longer do that), we are still focused on pitching our true value of being unique eDiscovery experts who can use our long years of experience, carefully-developed best practices, and cutting-edge use of technology to provide maximally efficient and low-cost document reviews and eDiscovery tasks.
It’s very comforting and affirming that our core business philosophy has not changed in 15 years while we have been updating and improving our tools and tactics to change with the times. It bodes very well for the next 15 years, when we will no doubt by performing our eDiscovery and document review services from flying cars and augmented reality modules.