In most types of corporate or business legal environments, as well as in a range of other types of legal cases involving regulatory and similar issues, there may be the requirement for a document review.
In the past, the process of document review has been a time consuming and very costly part of discovery. Document review has been completed by specialized document reviewers who read through all the hard copy files and determine data from the documents or the documents themselves that were of value or importance to the case.
Today, most of the work of document review services is done online. Companies, businesses, and government agencies have moved from hard copy paper documents to electronic files and records, which add to the ability of these document review services to tap into the benefits of technology for the process.
How it Works
Using specially developed software platforms, the new technology used by top document review services allows the software to identify documents that have the characteristics of a relevant document.
The relevant documents are then rated, by the software, as to their potential relevance of the electronic document. High priority levels are flagged and sent to specialized reviewers, typically the in-house legal team for the company or legal firm. Those reviewers generally cost the client significant resources.
The moderate to low priority, or less relevant, documents can be reviewed by trained document review lawyers with oversight by an onsite US attorney. As the process can be done outside of the United States at lower rates than would be done within the country, the whole operation can save thousands of dollars just on the document review portion of the case preparation.
Not all document review services offer the same level of technology and oversight as the best services. Additionally, not all will have experienced American attorneys overseeing the process and ensuring that the relevancy and priority status assigned by the system is accurate. Verifying the information before outsourcing will allow you to take advantage of lower costs and maintain quality in this often lengthy process.
