Contract Attorneys, Document Review

The Biggest Wastes Of Money In Document Review

What is the most blatant waste of money I've ever seen?

By  
on

We all know that outsourcing document review to contract attorneys is a cost-cutting measure. Gone forever are the glory days of junior associates spending weeks slogging through the most mundane of emails… all while billing their time out at $300/hr. Contract attorneys now do that work (and feel lucky to even get 1/10th of the associate’s hourly rate) and because they have experience with the review tools and don’t labor under the illusion that document review is below them, they tend to do it faster with no appreciable decrease in quality.

But even though the purpose of using contract attorneys is to save money, that doesn’t mean that waste is eliminated. It still happens all the time.

But what is the most blatant waste of money I’ve ever seen?

Whenever you begin a new document review there are start-up costs. One of the largest start-up costs is the time and effort needed to train the team. While the client and law firm have spent months pouring over the details of the instant litigation, they need to get a room full of document reviewers up to speed quickly. Of course there is a delicate balance involved as you need to provide the team with enough information to accurately code the documents without overwhelming them with details that are completely unnecessary for them to accomplish the task at hand.

There are some inefficiencies involved in this process, but it isn’t the “waste” I am referring to. The biggest waste I’ve experienced was while working in one of the… lesser legal markets. Doc review jobs were still pretty plentiful at the time as we were working for significantly less money than you’d get in NYC or DC. So it made sense for the client to locate the document review in that market, but, of course, the law firm was a slick New York operation. When it was time to train the document reviewers, an obscenely large team of 6 attorneys from the law firm, including a partner, came into the room.

Now I’ve been on a lot of document reviews in my life, and I cannot imagine how complex a case would have to be in order to justify that many attorneys in a training. The training began, and they just kinda let the junior associate flounder around for an hour. It was a surprisingly straightforward case. As we began review, the law firm posse retreated into a conference room, and we never heard from them again. I don’t know how big the bill that the client received for this training was, but it was way more than necessary. The cost of business class tickets and all of the travel time was a complete waste as a conference call with 2 associates would have accomplished the exact same result.

Sponsored

Not all document reviews are the same, and you really need to understand your case in order to maximize efficiency. A detailed privilege review may benefit from onsite training where associates can delve into the nuances between different documents, but a responsiveness review with no issue tags with no privilege issues can be dealt with over the phone. Knowing what you expect from the review team, and how to get it, can be a cost saver for the client.

Alex Rich is a T14 grad and Biglaw refugee who has worked as a contract attorney for the last 7 years… and counting.  If you have a story about the underbelly of the legal world known as contract work, email Alex at alexrichesq@gmail.com and be sure to follow Alex on Twitter @AlexRichEsq

Sponsored

Topics

,