Multi-Million Document Litigation
Evaluating Document Review Options and Database Technology

Finding professional references from law firms and public-sector attorneys who handled matters of similar size and scope tested some of the competing vendors.

Negotiating the Contract
Once the solution was selected, a period of contract review and negotiation commenced. Law-firm lawyers wanted to add their own language and strike certain boiler plate agreement clauses. One critical element involved inserting appropriate contract terms that allowed separate invoicing to each member of the joint defense group. The three parties agreed to split the hosted database cost 33%/33%/33%. In the event one party settled early, the remaining parties agreed to split the cost 50%/50%. If only one of defendants remained in the case, they would bear 100% of the hosted database cost. The period from the start of the online demonstrations to contract signing lasted four months.

Effective strategies for large-scale document review. Once the contract was signed, the database was loaded. Training sessions were scheduled for the legal teams at various offices. The attorneys quickly grasped the search and retrieval capabilities since the learning curve was small. Paralegals completed a more extensive training that covered advanced techniques. Soon each law firm marshaled its resources and the 12-million-page review commenced.

Strategies vary for large-scale document review projects. A straight page-by-page and document-by-document (linear) review is labor intensive. An attorney who reviewed discovery all day, every day at a robust rate of 500 pages per hour would get through about 1 million pages in a year. Review times can double or triple using advanced analytics tools and strategies. Yet, many attorneys are uncomfortable with the notion that a computer-driven culling of documents supplants a human-eye review of every page. Grouping documents by topic through keyword searches is one strategy—date sorting communications between key individuals another. Software helped attorneys perform document gathering for deposition preparation efficiently and effectively. But best intentions aside, Parker acknowledges “it was unlikely every page was reviewed” in the 12 million page collection.

24/7 anywhere access maximizes team productivity. Accessibility was one of the powerful features of the hosted database. An authorized individual could use the database whenever—and wherever—an Internet connection was available. Some attorneys worked from home. Others searched the computerized system from airport, hotel and meeting rooms across the country.

A reliable partner at every level. There were a few issues that were managed throughout the 17 months. Certain computer workstations conflicted with a newer version of Java, which was pushed out to users as an automatic update without authentication. Not all firms experienced the issue, which was resolved through troubleshooting. A more significant problem occurred when software was upgraded in the middle of the case. Certain features were not working correctly in the upgraded version, and the Enron team requested a rollback to the old version. The old version stayed in place for the Enron team during the critical discovery period, and was upgraded to the newest version after four to six months.

CT Summation CaseVault assigned a database project manager who coordinated receipt of the various production discs and alerted the law firms when each new data set was online and available for review. All information loaded onto the hosted database passed through the project manager’s hands. This key member of the legal team served in a role similar to a law firm paralegal or litigation support coordinator.

The litigation proceeded through depositions to trial preparation. During the months leading to the start of the trial, the insurance companies settled the cases one by one. Just days before the start of the trial, the final Enron insurer settled.

The hosted litigation support database enabled the three law firm defense team in the Enron fidelity insurance litigation to manage a 12 million page litigation. 

CT Summation CaseVault Legal Services

• Litigation management: SQL back-end supports litigation containing e-discovery and millions of documents—no matter how large or dispersed your review team.
• Software as a service (SaaS): Less expensive entry points to adoption. Scales as your case load changes. Expenses can be tied to each case.
• Case explorer: Navigate entire case, data and work product through expandable folders. Define any number of folders, categories and issues to organize case.
• Integrated searching: Search documents, OCR, transcripts, email, production sets, notes, folders and more with a single command. Include and exclude specific information and pinpoint exactly the information you want.
• Assign documents to issues, categories and folders, and apply redactions: Create and assign custom issues and categories; allocate documents to specific folders; perform online redactions.
• Document collections: Organize and manage scanned image files and summary information—and control access to them. Host imaged documents, OCR, native files and more.
• Email and electronic documents: Upload, search and cull email, including attachments. Review documents, produce them in native formats, convert to image format.
• Production sets: Combine paper-based documents, electronic documents and email messages. Burn-in Bates stamps (with original or new numbers), redactions, endorsements and stamps. Create automatic production tracking history.
• Control content: User login controls access to transcript and document collections; group-based permissions control access to annotations, folders, issues and categories.
• Simple administration: Simple screens define client properties and preferences including key contacts, permissions, contract-specific billing information and client-specific data storage locations.