eBOOK

The Anatomyof an EfficientDocument Review
A new model for on-budget,
on-time superior results

Content
How to control document review costs and improve results

3

The large review team bleed

4

Exploiting technology for better control

6

Aligning teams

7

Enhancing QC to cut costs and risk

8

Automating workflows to meet any review objective

9

Adopting new pricing models

10

Working securely while remote

11

New managed review models drive efficiency and efficacy

12

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

How to control document review costs and improve results
The legal industry is experiencing a shift in business-as-usual
dispute and investigations activity. Controlling outside counsel
costs remains top priority for law department leaders struggling
to manage growing workloads while operating under resource
constraints, while maintaining the competitive advantage is a top
goal of law firms. At the same time, document volumes continue togrow, and the transition to a largely remote workforce has moved
cybersecurity and data privacy risks to center stage.
Document review—comprising 70% of total litigation costs—is at a tipping
point. The way corporate law departments and their external vendors, including
law firms, approach the costliest and most unpredictable component of legal
matters is changing before our eyes.

The anatomy of a highly efficient managed
review has numerous characteristics.
A highly efficient team:• Exploits technology to achieve better control• Aligns teams to substantially improve quality and reduce the number of bodies• Enhances QC to reduce costs• Automates workflows to meet any review objective• Aligns financial interests with new pricing models• Works securely while remote

First, let’s look at why today’s document review model doesn’t work.

Law department leaders are positioning their organizations for success in thelong term by adapting the way they source legal-related services. By shiftingeDiscovery review from large teams of law firm associates, contract attorneys
and other review staff to smaller, more nimble managed review providers, legal
departments have the opportunity to improve results and deliver substantial
cost-savings—now and in the long-term.

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

1 Add LDO report stat

The large review team bleed
The harsh reality of modern eDiscovery is that
document collections—along with risks—continue togrow. That places a mounting pressure on legal andinvestigation teams to utilize automation and machinelearning tools for reducing document volumes. Yet
many legal teams staff up with reviewers, believing
the more bodies, the faster the review, even when justusing basic keyword search.
Here’s a look at how the costs of not using advanced
technology, such as technology-assisted review basedon continuous active learning, add up:

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

TAR Managed Review Cost-Savings Over Law Firm and Other Review Resources
Document
collection
size

Number of Review rate Hours fordocuments
review
reviewed

Billable rate Cost

Outside Counsel - 650,000
Keyword Search*

325,000

50 docs/hr

6,500$400/hr$2,600,000

Managed
650,000
Review Vendor Keyword Search*

325,000

50 docs/hr

6,500$55/hr$357,500

OpenText
Managed
Review - TAR**

130,000

50 docs/hr

2,600$55/hr$143,000

650,000* Using keyword search; assumes culling 50% of the documents. ** Using OpenText TAR 2.0 technology, with 10% richness, the managed review team typically reviews 20 percent.
** Assumes OpenText billable rate is the same as another managed review vendor.

Even with technology-assisted review (TAR), large review
teams generate inconsistencies and risk.
To meet tight deadlines and limit costly eyes-on review, more and more legal
teams are using TAR to reduce document volumes. But TAR alone often isn’t
sufficient. Many organizations still staff up with bodies—the assumption beingthat the more eyes on documents, the faster the review will go and the fewer
dollars spent.

In reality, more bodies impair alignment, increase reviewer inconsistencies
and drive up QC costs. Here’s a real-life look at a TAR review with 300
reviewers (junior associates and contractors) each day. On average:• The reviewers found 50% of the documents to be responsive.
• But 50% coded a document as relevant while 50% ofreviewers coded a similar document as non-relevant.
This translates into a huge risk of missing critical information to the case, andpotentially exposing sensitive documents and waiving privilege.
The larger the team (and even large managed review teams) the more magnified
the risks due to lack of expertise in the particular TAR tool and review platform,
reviewer fatigue, individual human judgement and inconsistent training.
How do review teams exploit TAR for better control?

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Exploiting technology for better control
A foundational element for a successful managed review team is close
integration with the technology. Expertise in the tool allows the team to
optimize workflow, including quality control (QC), for an efficient and highly
accurate review, refine workflows to protect sensitive data, and stop andvalidate the review.
Technology-assisted review based on continuous active learning (CAL)
significantly improves control for reviewer consistency by surfacing likely
responsive documents to the top of the pile to review. TAR based on continuous
active learning continuously ranks documents to take advantage of additional
judgments by reviewers in real-time. As training continues, the algorithm anddocument rankings continuously improve so the review team finds relevant
documents faster.
Moreover, savvy review teams can use TAR based on continuous active learning
to stop and validate review at a reasonable recall rate (how many of the relevant
documents in a collection have been actually found), saving time and costs ofreviewing unnecessary or extra documents.

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Aligning teams
Alignment between the managed review team,external counsel and company is critical for reliable andaccurate coding.
Alignment—when combined with optimizing TAR basedon continuous active learning—can reduce review staff
by 500% or more. Here’s why.
Alignment creates the opportunity for consistent and comprehensive QC
processes for privilege, responsive, non-responsive, PII, PHI, proprietary
terms, hot documents and more throughout the review. Daily reviewer
reports, decision logs, individual sample QC, testing and feedback
provided by the managed review team—while counsel resolves every
conflict—ensures an efficient workflow and high accuracy.

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Measurably better results with analigned teamTake the same review project with 300 reviewers per day.
With an aligned team, the number of reviewers can bereduced from the typical TAR project with 300 reviewers
to fewer than 60.
On average, responsiveness rates increase from 50% to60%, and the error rate—inconsistent coding calls—isreduced from 50% to just 11%.

Enhancing QC to cut costs and risk
Accurate coding through enhanced QC also can reduce
law firm QC costs by 10 times or more. When robust QC
processes are employed at the start of a project as part ofteam alignment, the managed review team can reduce QC
by outside counsel to 5% or less, resulting in substantiallylower project costs.

Measurably more reliable and accurate coding with enhanced QC reduces
outside counsel QC review from 20% to 2.5%
Outsidecounsel QC
percentage

Document Number ofcollection documents
size
reviewed bymanaged
review team

Number of
documents
for outside
counselreview

Outsidecounselreview rate

Outsidecounselhours

OutsideCostcounsel
billable rate

Standard:20%

650,000

130,00026,000

100 docs/hour

260$400/hour$104,000

OpenText
Managed
Review

650,000

130,000

3,250

100 docs/hour

32.5$400/hour$13,000

Savings of more than $90,000 injust QC review for a single project.
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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Automating workflows to meet anyreview objective
With a nimble managed review team experienced in all types of reviews—not
just first-pass review or issue coding—innovation and efficiency drive better
results in every project. For example:• A straight continuous active learning review using TAR to minimize thenumber of documents reviewed generates on average 70% cost savings;• A highly automated TAR review to expedite a large review for production
such as a third-party subpoena or second request in which fewer than
20% of the documents are reviewed, including a full privilege review;• An investigative review in which a small team uses analytics to aggregate
similar documents for responsiveness, critical sampling and review
ensures the coding decision accuracy, and quick and accurate results
are provided at greater than 90% recall and 90% precision, alongwith much greater insight into the substance of the documents.
No matter the context, smart teams can apply the appropriate TAR workflow to
substantially improve efficiency, reduce risk and improve outcomes.

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Adopting new pricing models
The foundation of any successful partnership involving corporate law
department leaders and external vendors must be financial alignment. Whenit comes to document review, corporate law departments want to control
outside counsel costs, but law firms and managed document review providers
are incentivized by more billable hours and more documents reviewed.
Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) are one tool corporate legal departments
increasingly use to procure legal services at a fixed cost from their law firms.
Forward-thinking managed review providers provide flat-fee, upfront pricing
for the review. This ensures budget certainty while underscoring the managed
review provider’s commitment to delivering the most efficient review possible.
Further, fixed-fee pricing allows law firms to focus on higher-value work whileproviding their clients with document review services at substantially lower
cost and measurably improved quality.

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review“By partnering with OpenText, it has allowed ourattorneys to provide cutting-edge legal services
at a fraction of the cost. Utilizing the OpenText
continuous active learning technology in addition
to their talented document review team allows us tosave client financial resources by quickly and moreaccurately identifying responsive documents.”
Robin Stewart, Head of eDiscovery, Litigator and Partner, Kutak RockWorking securely while remote
Today, 90% of document review is conducted remotely—and most in-housecounsel expect some elements of dispute activity to continue remotely postpandemic.3 For remote managed review to be effective, there are a number ofbest-practices to secure and protect sensitive client data.
Key components of a highly secure remote review include:• Technology, such as Remote Desktop Server with VPN, tocontrol access to the review database and necessary work
applications, such as email and billing systems;• A security program that allows reviewers to access the review platform
exclusively via cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure to ensure thatdata never leaves the secured hosted or cloud-based environment;• Tools that prevent activities that could expose clients’ sensitive
information, such as printing, downloads, screen captures, copy
and pastes and other unauthorized use of client data; and,• Review protocols (such as daily audits) to closely monitor reviewer productivity.
Additionally, in-platform review features should automate the detection
and redaction of sensitive data, identify people and places for data privacycompliance, and enable self-triggered QC checks throughout the review.
3 Complex Discovery, Revisions and Decisions? New Considerations for eDiscovery Secure Remote Reviews, 2020

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The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

Norton Rose Fulbright Litigation trend survey, Sixteenth annual edition, February 2021.

New managed review models drive efficiency and efficacy
It has taken a global pandemic to advance new document review models
into wider acceptance. Organizations can more quickly reach their goals by
reallocating document review work and leveraging advanced technology andprocesses made available through external managed review providers.
OpenText Managed Review provides a full-service outsourced review thatguarantees fixed-fee pricing and the most cost-effective, efficient and highquality review. The managed review service, available in North American, theU.K., and E.U., combines proprietary technology-assisted review based oncontinuous active learning with highly trained and technically savvy attorneyreviewers and machine learning experts.

Find out how to take costs
and risks out of unpredictable
document review projects
About OpenTextTo learn more, visit
OpenText High-Efficiency Managed Review.

OpenText, The Information Company,
enables organizations to gain insight
through market leading information
management solutions, on-premises orin the cloud. For more information about
OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX)
visit opentext.com.

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12/12

The Anatomy of an Efficient Document Review

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