Challenge
Facing a rapidly growing litigation portfolio, a multinational medical equipment manufacturer needed to reduce legal spend by 10 percent in 12 months. At that time, the company was unable to distinguish litigation or discovery spend from overall department expenses and was suffering from a lack of integration of internal HR, IT, and risk teams.
Solution
We performed a litigation readiness assessment using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to benchmark current processes against industry standards and best practices:
- Collection of Relevant Data – Custodial identification interviews were used to perform targeted collections, instead of defaulting to a full forensic image in litigation.
- Promotion Rate – We used consultant-led data reduction methods to achieve a 3% promotion rate (97 percent cull rate) before engaging a document review team.
- Effective Review Speed – We reused privilege coding and employed analytics and advanced workflows to increase review speeds from 40 to 70 documents per hour (DPH).
- Review Geography – By adopting a right-shore review model, we leveraged off-shore resources whenever possible.
“Consultant-led data reduction methods achieved a 3 percent promotion rate (97 percent cull rate) before engaging a document review team.”
Impact
These data reductions and increased efficiencies were tracked on a real-time basis and transformed our client’s legal spend. The project exceeded the 10 percent cost savings goal in less than 12 months, and achieved a $28M cost reduction over six years.
