Our Insights on eDiscovery

Yesterday, we talked about a couple of different ways in which law firms work with litigation support and eDiscovery vendors. And, we talked about the advantages to a centralized approach and establishing a preferred vendor program. What, exactly, is a preferred vendor program? To most people, it’s having a list of pre-approved vendors that that can be called on as the need arises. That is certainly the core of a preferred vendor program. But, a good program goes a bit further.

Law firms take different approaches to working with vendors. In some firms, individual litigation teams evaluate, select and manage vendors on a case-by-case basis. Other firms take a centralized approach where all vendor activities are coordinated and managed by a centralized litigation support department. And taking that a step further, many firms that use a centralized approach, establish a preferred vendor program. What works best? That probably depends on the culture and organization of a law firm.

It starts when you are evaluating and selecting a vendor. Based on your review of a vendor’s qualifications, procedures and technology, along with feedback you’ve received from references, make sure you select a vendor that is likely to do high quality work and that has a good track record. Once a project is underway, look at the vendor’s work to ensure it meets your expectations. This is especially important with work that is labor-intensive. In fact, there are three levels of quality control that you should be doing.

Of all the problems you might have to report to an attorney, the worst may be that you are going to miss a production deadline. Deadlines get missed because document or data collections are larger than expected, the task is more difficult than expected, sufficient technical resources aren’t allocated to the project, or the project simply isn’t staffed properly. Good communication up front with a vendor, and good monitoring throughout a project can minimize the chance of missing deadlines.