Performing document review task isn't exciting for law firms! It always stays at the bottom of their priority list as it doesn't give that enthusiasm to understand a legal case and interact with clients. Many lawyers sit late night streamlining their document review process by utilizing eDiscovery and according to numerous studies; the review segment of legal discovery devours almost 70% of each dollar spent in eDiscovery.
Realizing this fact, today, many lawyers and law firms are seeking effective ways to save time and become more efficient during document reviews. But are professionals making sourcing decision based on real facts or just assumptions?
This article will highlight top five myths pertaining to document review and different approaches for avoiding these myths:
1. TAR will replace humans
The adequate training of TAR (Technology Assisted Review) involves practical knowledge. The results of the TAR process is only useful when a human train it that way including both substantive knowledge and technical skills required to conduct a document review process of your law firm. To gain the maximum benefit of TAR an ideal approach is partnering with a document review service provider who has excellent experience in TAR and other advanced analytics tools.
2. Document review doesn't require a strategy
There is an obsolete notion among lawyers that the document review process is not as important as other eDiscovery aspects. However, this notion is far from the reality. Undoubtedly, document review is essential as well as the most complex and costly process in discovery; therefore, planning right from the beginning can help you to implement effective strategies on preservation and collection. If you overlook the planning aspect, it may result in:
- You will face backlogs of document review if the process is sidestepped
- Reviewers will be over-occupied
- Poor client satisfaction
3. Storing and organizing documents is a waste of time
Many lawyers have reported that storing and organizing documents is what they hate the most. That's the reason they keep delaying this task off for next day. Then what happens? Vast piles of papers with overloaded cupboards, few papers in the dustbin and misplaced essential documents. Tough to clean!
Storing and organizing documents is not at all wastage of time, if you find it challenging and overlook this task, you're losing out to competitors.
Have document management system at a place rather than storing papers manually. Digitalization is everywhere as it is one of the easiest ways to store documents and go paperless. There are countless document management systems available such as Qorus, Confluence, Zoho Team, Bitrix24, etc.
4. Any experienced lawyer can handle the document review process
With the changing technology trends and thousands of documents wrangling here and there, today's document reviewers are finding this process boring. Many law firms have the misconception that the documents reviewed by an experienced lawyer are absolutely correct. Well, blindly trusting your employees on the basis of their years of experience will take you nowhere. There are innumerable cases describing blunders done by qualified attorneys due to negligence, lack of time or overconfidence.
It is highly advisable for every law firm to have the right resources at a place and hire attorneys based on their knowledge, and their know-how with the changing technology because "What a teacher is, is more important than what he teaches."
5. Outsourcing legal document review process downsize the business growth
Well, small legal firms often find this process costly as they don't have enough budgets to hire a team of document reviewers. In such a scenario, legal document review services are one of the best ways to streamline the process that too at an affordable price. However, still, law firms hesitate to outsource as have a notion that outsourcing means zero control over the business processes, higher risk on data security, poor communication, culture barrier, etc.
But the reality is contradictory, LPO companies provide complete control over your business processes by maintaining transparency within the work process. Their in-house team promptly responds to each query by using convenient mode of communication and ensures your data is highly secured and appropriately encrypted.
Outsourcing is the perfect alternative for growing law firms, who don't want to spend time and money on hiring extra workforce and paying them all the benefits.
Wrapping up
Once you are out of such misconceptions, you can easily keep track of your document review process and consider it as your favorite task. You can work on client retention and growth strategies to stay ahead in the competitive market. Work hard and work smart!
Guest Author
Benny Henson is a business content writer at Legal Support World. She is passionate about giving special interest in small, medium enterprise/business and outsourcing topics. She is recognized expert in the subject, and covers the many years in contributing articles and blogs to top business related sites. She also likes to write on the latest development in the corporate businesses, legal departments, law firms and many more.