Gaining Control & Reducing
Costs—A Leading Home
Manufacturer Brings
e-discovery In-House
Introduction
A major corporation moved from a services-based litigation system to an in-house model using AccessData’s e-discovery software, AD eDiscovery®. Managing the process from
litigation hold all the way through to inal review gave the corporation extensive control and transparency, leading to enormous cost savings and improved eiciencies over their current processes.
Background
This corporation has tens of thousands of employees, scores of factories and various other supporting business units. Its size and complexity means its legal matters have similar attributes. An average case for the company involves collecting from multiple custodians and processing and reviewing nearly 10 terabytes of data. Numerous simultaneous cases are the norm, and the company’s in-house legal department works with several outside law irms.
Business Problem
In order to manage its case load, the corporation had initially turned to a large national e-discovery consulting irm and service provider. The company relied on this provider for the entire electronic discovery process; from collection to processing to early data assessment/ irst pass review to inal review. However, as its cases grew larger the manufacturer’s costs began to skyrocket, often hitting over $750,000 per matter. It soon became clear that the only way to rein in the ballooning services costs was to bring some, if not all, of the processes in-house. The services model of managing e-discovery had become untenable and the company began to investigate its options.
The Solution: AD eDiscovery
The corporation irst looked into an area where it could see quick and dramatic savings— data collection. After surveying the market and testing the number one and number two forensic data collection software developers—AccessData and Guidance Software respectively—the company recognized AccessData as the clear leader. Due, among other things, to its ease of use and rich, consistent collection capability, the company purchased AD eDiscovery for its collection needs. Any uncertainty the manufacturer felt in switching from a comprehensive service provider to an in-house solution provider was largely alleviated due to the extremely responsive and knowledgeable treatment it received from the AD Sales and Sales Engineering teams. The service-oriented culture at AccessData made for a great partnership with the client’s legal and IT departments.
What Is AD eDiscovery?
In purchasing AD eDiscovery, the manufacturer chose the most comprehensive electronic discovery software solution on the market. AD eDiscovery supports the user through multiple phases of the electronic discovery process, from litigation hold to load ile production, in an automated, repeatable and defensible manner. AD eDiscovery delivers the following capabilities:
• Built-in litigation hold deployment and reporting
• Collection of both structured and unstructured data, backed by 20+ years of development experience
• Distributed data processing of terabytes per day, involving complex data sets from multiple custodians and data sources
• Early case assessment and culling
• Review and comprehensive load ile production
• Intuitive, web-based interface, for collaborative use by internal and external litigation teams
• Extensive analytic measurement and reporting capabilities
AD eDiscovery can be leveraged by internal and external litigation teams to realize additional cost savings. Because the solution is accessed via a secure web interface, corporations like this one can quickly and easily give outside counsel or service providers controlled access to support real-time collaboration across the entire corporate docket. This capability enables corporations to take control of their case data back from service providers and ofers additional cost savings (hosting and review).
Most importantly, AD eDiscovery is easy to use and highly efective. As an employee of the business stated, “We were using AD eDiscovery and within one week were impressed
with its speed and accuracy in comparison to our previous solution.” Within very little time, the corporation had moved from using AD eDiscovery on a per-custodian basis for collection alone to deploying the solution enterprise wide, across their entire litigation process. In the first year AccessData saved the manufacturer $2 million, and they continue to save with each case they manage in-house with AD eDiscovery.
“We were using AD eDiscovery and within one week were impressed with its speed and accuracy in comparison to our previous solution.”
Network Engineer
Within very little time, the corporation had moved from using AD eDiscovery on a per-custodian basis for collection alone to deploying the solution enterprise wide, across their entire litigation process. In the first year AccessData saved the manufacturer $2 million, and they continue to save with each case they manage in-house with AD
“Best Customer Service We’ve Ever Received…”
The added beneit the corporation observed in working with AccessData is the incredible focus AD places on client services. In fact, the company’s satisfaction with AD is not just attributable to the products, but is due in large part to the dedication of the Services and Support teams. As one of their employees stated, “AccessData’s support organization is second to none. I have never worked with a company that ofered that level of support. If we had a problem they ixed it; even if we were on the phone until 3 A.M.” In fact, support
is central to the culture at AccessData and this corporation’s experience and sentiments are not unique among AD customers.
Success with the Current Process
The manufacturing company’s adoption of AD eDiscovery was a true success, and today it employs AD eDiscovery as a comprehensive litigation support solution; using it for litigation hold, forensic collection, data processing, early case assessment and irst pass review. The company routinely collects up to 20 terabytes of data per case and processes more than a terabyte per day using AD eDiscovery. It is saving a great deal of money processing massive amounts of data without falling victim to the per-gig pricing trap set by some well-known software vendors. Considering that the company runs multiple cases simultaneously, the cost savings over the old services model have become enormous. Cases that used to cost the client $750,000 are now coming in at the $20 – 30,000 mark for the entire hold to inal review process.
Corporate-Directed Final Review
AD eDiscovery also allows the corporation to take the signiicant step of requiring outside law irms they work with to log-in to the corporation’s system to perform inal review. The corporation then leverages this capability as an additional way to control costs and to gather analytics regarding each irm’s performance on the case. Moreover, it saves
Easily apply ilters and labels to responsive documents.
Easily and quickly toggle between Text View and Natural View.
Search results are ranked by relevance and search hits are highlighted in the 400+ supported data types.
Advanced search functionality ofers a variety of sophisticated searching options and details the number of hits categorized by document type.
Search results are paged, so users can begin reviewing the responsive documents immediately, without waiting for all results to populate.
the corporation’s in-house legal and IT departments from having to deal with multiple review platforms—sometimes equal to the number of outside irms. The company likes the concept of controlling the review, and with the excellent AD eDiscovery reporting functionality, it can track each outside irm’s performance and compare them against each other. This practice has the compound beneit of enhancing the corporation’s control over the process, creating accountability for the outside law irms, and ultimately saving litigation dollars for the corporation.
Accelerated Case Assessment
Because the manufacturer employed the AD eDiscovery solution throughout the enterprise, it is now able to quickly and resourcefully make informed decisions at the onset of litigation. The client can immediately identify and conirm relevant custodians and data locations and reine complex keyword strategies without having to retrieve the underlying documents until case strategy is more fully developed. These features can translate into key courtroom advantages for the corporation’s litigation team over and above the tactical cost savings provided by bringing the process in-house. Further, questions related to proportionality and cost shifting are now less onerous for this company since much of the EDRM (Electronic Discovery Reference Model) is managed in-house.
Conclusion: Taking Back Control
Within one year, this home manufacturer had saved $2 million by employing AD eDiscovery. The company continues to see enormous cost savings, with most cases coming in at around $20,000 – $30,000 rather than the $750,000 price tag it paid under the litigation services model. While cost savings is an obvious beneit, the added control the business now has over the process is also of great value. The corporation now has a bird’s eye view into every phase of the process, which allows the litigation team to identify and maximize eiciencies.
This corporation is a great example of a business that has assertively taken control over its litigation process by implementing AccessData’s in-house e-discovery solution. It is no longer forced to spend untenable litigation review costs that lack consistent and eicient methods to control the “low” of e-discovery data. The next step for forward-leaning companies such as this will be to bring even greater power and functionality in-house by utilizing AccessData’s Summation® product line for enhanced inal review. This corporation
is truly a beneiciary and exemplar of the advantages companies can harness through the use of the AD eDiscovery platform.
About AccessData
AccessData Group has pioneered digital forensics and e-discovery software for more than 25 years. Over that time, the company has grown to provide both stand-alone and enterprise-class solutions that can synergistically work together to enable both criminal and civil e-discovery of any kind, including digital investigations, computer forensics, legal review, compliance, auditing and information assurance. More than 130,000 customers in law enforcement, government agencies, corporations and law irms around the world rely on AccessData software solutions, and its premier digital investigations products and services. AccessData Group is also a leading provider of digital forensics training and certiication, with its AccessData Certiied Examiner® (ACE®) and Mobile
Phone Examiner Certiication AME programs. For more information, please go to www.accessdata.com.
