Document Review
While obtaining the most experienced, reliable and credentialed staff is a key component of a successful document review engagement, other critical factors include the proper level of experience of the management team and the system and methodology used to conduct the review. DOAR understands the demands and time pressures associated with any document review effort, and brings a distinct advantage to the overall process.
Management
The consultants at DOAR are lawyers, litigation professionals and project managers with years of case management and document review experience who have supported and managed document review teams and have provided document review services themselves in numerous engagements. The teams we have managed include those made up of DOAR staff, client staff attorneys, contract professionals and a combination of two or all of these. They are experts in the recruiting, training and management of document reviewers and are, as importantly, experts in DOAR's methodology and system used to streamline the review process while accelerating the review rate and increasing the quality of the results.
Methodology
Like all aspects of DOAR's practice, our methodology relating to the review of documents is leading-edge and technically superior. Our use of advanced analytical tools can significantly reduce the amount of information that would otherwise be reviewed in a traditional, linear fashion by counsel. Once those documents which have been classified as irrelevant or unimportant to counsel are categorized and removed from 2nd level review,
Staffing
The document review team members are comprised of DOAR employees and legal professionals who work on a contractual basis. Each reviewer is fully pre-screened for experience, availability and conflicts. We maintain our own database of reviewers and, as needed, work with qualified legal staffing agencies to provide experienced reviewers. If necessary, members of our client's legal team can be involved in the screening process as well.
Technology
DOAR has developed a very unique, advanced data mining and analytics methodology. Using analytics driven categorization, we can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with traditional document review efforts by using Natural Language Processing (NPL) techniques to group, segregate and compare documents by concept (as opposed to nouns and noun phrases). DOAR's consultants, using analytics, in conjunction with the legal team can significantly reduce the amount of information that needs to be reviewed by doing an irrelevancy analysis. We can then categorize the remaining relevant documents to assist in issue analysis and streamlined document review. Using this methodology we can present a tangible value proposition to our clients with a definitive ROI analysis.
Off-shore Hybrid Approach
DOAR also offers an even further reduction in cost by having the documents reviewed off-shore. Through an established partnership with a premiere, India based Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) Company, DOAR is able to conduct extremely efficient, high quality document review at a lower cost.
In this scenario, the document review management team will be able to monitor review progress in exactly the same manner as with a domestic review given that all of the documents are hosted in a web based repository. From a security standpoint, only access to the review environment is granted to the off shore reviewers so no documents or data are ever shipped out of the country. DOAR's unique hybrid approach ensures that all documents reviewed off shore are then put through a 2nd level domestic quality assurance review before being passed along to outside counsel.
Alternative Fee Arrangements
The cost for the managed review services is typically at a fixed per document reviewed price that allows for far greater predictability and cost control than hourly billing. However, we are able to accommodate other pricing models based on the needs of the client. The cost varies based on the overall volume of the engagement, the complexity of the review and other variables such as foreign language or industry specific requirements. The fee structure includes management fees, staffing, space and sometimes data storage and web hosting expenses for the duration of the managed review.