Discuss the Cost of Document Review and How It Can Affect the Outcome of a Case
It is not a stretch to say that high e-discovery cost are a core problem in civil litigation. Because the costs are uncertain, many legal attorneys stay away from e-discovery, yet almost all documents and original records are electronic, and have been for years. The review process, which involves document search and reviews, is the most expensive part of the e-discovery process. For its part, the review process in most projects constitutes between 60% to 80% of the total cost (Losey, 2013). There are essentially two different review tasks:
1. Perform a search for and identify possible receptive or relevant documents.
2. Perform a study of the documents identified …show more content…
According to O’Hara’s article, it states that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, a party may be able to circumvent the production of responsive electronically stored information (ESI) if that party is able to show that the information being sought after is “not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost” (O’Hara, 2012). Sometimes the courts will attempt to shift the costs, usually to the party seeking the discovery who will bear some or all of the costs. For instance, in the case of Adair v. EQT Production Co., the plaintiffs pursued discovery from the defendant, including the production of emails and other ESI. The defendant then requested a protective order so that they would not have to produce the information since the plaintiff’s request would require them to produce more than 5.5 million documents (O’Hara, 2012). They would still need to produce roughly around 750,000 even if the production was only limited to the email files of specific employees. Of course, the defendant claimed the cost was exorbitant. Even with a limited scope, the costs would be in excess of $18,000, and the costs for reviewing instances of responsiveness and privilege would exceed $750,000 (O’Hara, 2012). The court found that the consequence to this was that it could “shift the costs of that review, either in whole or in part, to
It is not a stretch to say that high e-discovery cost are a core problem in civil litigation. Because the costs are uncertain, many legal attorneys stay away from e-discovery, yet almost all documents and original records are electronic, and have been for years. The review process, which involves document search and reviews, is the most expensive part of the e-discovery process. For its part, the review process in most projects constitutes between 60% to 80% of the total cost (Losey, 2013). There are essentially two different review tasks:
1. Perform a search for and identify possible receptive or relevant documents.
2. Perform a study of the documents identified …show more content…
According to O’Hara’s article, it states that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, a party may be able to circumvent the production of responsive electronically stored information (ESI) if that party is able to show that the information being sought after is “not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost” (O’Hara, 2012). Sometimes the courts will attempt to shift the costs, usually to the party seeking the discovery who will bear some or all of the costs. For instance, in the case of Adair v. EQT Production Co., the plaintiffs pursued discovery from the defendant, including the production of emails and other ESI. The defendant then requested a protective order so that they would not have to produce the information since the plaintiff’s request would require them to produce more than 5.5 million documents (O’Hara, 2012). They would still need to produce roughly around 750,000 even if the production was only limited to the email files of specific employees. Of course, the defendant claimed the cost was exorbitant. Even with a limited scope, the costs would be in excess of $18,000, and the costs for reviewing instances of responsiveness and privilege would exceed $750,000 (O’Hara, 2012). The court found that the consequence to this was that it could “shift the costs of that review, either in whole or in part, to