The Competitors Checklist 4 eDiscovery features that will secure an advantage for your legal team

1. The Competitor’s Checklist:
4 eDiscovery features that will secure
an advantage for your legal team.
www.altlaw.co.uk

2. The right eDiscovery solution will empower you to work more accurately, efficiently,
and with minimal scope for business risk.
Unfortunately, not all eDiscovery tools are made equal, and an investment in anything
lacklustre will usually create more problems than it solves.
Make the right investment decision with this checklist of essential eDiscovery features
for legal teams looking to secure a competitive advantage.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
The Competitor’s Checklist:
4 eDiscovery features that will secure
an advantage for your legal team

3. According to Gartner, only 19% of in-house legal teams are
in a position to support enterprise-level digital capabilities.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

4. The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
While this doesn’t paint the legal sector in a great light, it does mean
that, with as little as the right knowledge and tools, legal teams can
secure a competitive edge with relative ease.

5. The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
The right suite of eDiscovery tools will enable you to get far more out
of what you put in, allowing your team to work more…
Accurately
Effectively
Efficiently
And with dramatically reduced scope for error
and wider business risk.

6. The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
Ultimately, the right eDiscovery solution will allow you to make your
resources work harder, allowing you more freedom to outperform
your competitors, win (and complete) more work, and strive for higher
levels of client satisfaction.

7. The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
We’ve collated this checklist to give you a quick round-up of
the 4 essential features your eDiscovery solutions need to secure
a competitive advantage for your team.

8. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #1: TAR 2.0
TAR (Technology Assisted Review) essentially automates
your document review process by exclusively retrieving
relevant documents from vast volumes of case data,
eliminating the need for your team to manually sift
through reams of documents.
Not only does this deliver incredible efficiency savings
for obvious reasons, it can also help firms save further
potential expenditures and business risks down the line
by dramatically reducing the chances of overcollection or
undercollection.
However, many discovery teams and legal firms are
still using an outdated iteration of TAR, which carries
limitations in terms of the accuracy and efficiency it
can offer.
While TAR 1.0 will reduce the resource required for review,
it still requires a professional to train the system and set
up its processes, which can lead to reduced accuracy, and
unexpected delays on discovery times.
TAR 2.0 however, delivers all automation of its predecessor
only with vastly superior efficiency and accuracy benefits,
thanks to its machine learning and AI capabilities. Its
algorithms also work to bring relevant information to
the fore even quicker, ultimately allowing you to find the
documents you need in the fastest time possible, at the
lowest cost.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

9. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #1: TAR 2.0
Benefits
• Automation of eDiscovery avoids draining your team’s time, energy and focus
• AI enables you to find the relevant information you need with maximum efficiency and minimal cost, meaning
you can deliver a value-added service
• Significantly reduced chance of overcollection or undercollection allows you to control costs, be more accurate
with quotes, and consistently manage client expectations.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

10. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #2: Secure, cloud-based collaboration
While the battle between on-premise and cloud-based
eDiscovery software is still a hotly debated topic, one
irrefutable benefit offered by cloud-based technologies is
their ability to allow different teams to collaborate across
devices and geographical locations.
Far too many teams still get held up waiting for sign off
and approval decisions to be made, leading to those all-too
familiar sinkholes in time (and of course, money). When
the key decisionmakers in litigation review tend to be
constantly working on the move, why would you settle
for a stationary eDiscovery solution?
With eDiscovery tools now moving further into the
territory of the cloud and mobile apps, you can overcome
those common productivity roadblocks by empowering
your team to access your dashboards and work together
on the go – anytime, anywhere.
But with the ability to make case data and documents
more readily available to external third parties will of
course come concerns about whether this also presents an
inherent security risk.
Legal teams have long been reluctant to trust the control
of their sensitive data to cloud-based platforms, and while
there is unfortunately still a sector-wide misconception
that on-premise is the vastly more secure option, the
security drawbacks of cloud-based eDiscovery’s earlier
iterations have long-since been addressed by most leading
software providers, thanks to some hefty investment.
When you are shopping around for a solution though,
be sure that your eDiscovery software provider employs
robust cybersecurity protocols, such as multi-factor
authentication, 24/7 threat intel to monitor unusual activity,
high standards of data encryption, regular updates to your
security environment based on thorough penetration
testing, and customisable user permissions.
Keep certificates, keys and passwords on frequent rotation
and assign access privileges on a need-to-know basis, and
you can trust that the sensitive data of you and your clients
remains agile and accessible, but above all, safe.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

11. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #2: Secure, cloud-based collaboration
• Maximises efficiency of data and document assessment during discovery and collection
• Greater accessibility can encourage decision-makers to be more proactive and confident in their participation
• Generally allows for reduced obstructions to productivity and smoother operational workflow from end to end
• Retain high productivity and agile working practices without compromising on watertight data security practices.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

12. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #3: Language ID and translation capabilities
Issues with language identification and translation
are another common source of bottlenecks which can
drastically slow down the discovery process – they can
also prove quite the regulatory minefield, and another
unforeseen drain on expenses.
Many eDiscovery tools now come with machine learning
capabilities that can automatically detect the language (or
languages) of a given document on the fly, with as little as
the click of a button.
It is unlikely you will be able to completely remove the
need to invest in translators and linguists for cross-border
litigation cases, but more advanced language tools will
certainly allow you to control costs and ensure your
investment is as focused and effective as possible.
When looking to work with an eDiscovery provider
offering language ID and translation, shoot for one with
a domestically-based translation team of native speakers
who have substantial experience in legal translation.
Vendors that rely on machine translation or on members
of their teams based elsewhere in the world can present
serious limitations with regards to accuracy and efficiency.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

13. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #3: Language ID and translation capabilities
Benefits
• Identify batch documents by language so they can be sent to foreign language reviewers efficiently
• Lays the groundwork for the rest of your review workflow
• Mitigated risk of missing language translation deadlines of requirements, or falling foul of other regulatory pitfalls.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

14. The Competitor’s Checklist Item #4:
Holistic, responsive support
This one isn’t a software feature, but for any legal team
looking to gain a competitive edge, having round-the-
clock project and technical support is invaluable, whether
it comes in the form of on-site assistance or technical
advice via an instant chat service.
By functioning as an extension of your existing team,
eDiscovery support can lower the risk, expense and
internal resources required to perform in-house
eDiscovery, freeing up time and space and enabling your
team to focus on doing what they do best.
The key thing to look for in a worthy eDiscovery provider
is a well-rounded knowledge of eDiscovery project
management and the litigation process as a whole.
Working with a team that has a very specific but narrow
knowledge of eDiscovery on its own will usually lead to you
getting banded from one team to another just to get the
help you need.
The best eDiscovery support will assign one person or
team to support you through the whole process from end
to end. eDiscovery support should also be flexible and
scalable, able to adapt and grow in relation to the situation
at hand, rather than a fixed service – be sure to read the
fine print on this one if you want to avoid being at the
mercy of steep pricing surges at a time of desperate need.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk

15. The Competitor’s Checklist
Item #4: Holistic, responsive support
Benefits
• Reduce delays in operational processes and minimise productivity downtime
• Seamless, holistic project assistance throughout the litigation process
• Frees up time and internal resource to focus on what they do best.
The Competitor’s Checklist
www.altlaw.co.uk
Now you’ve got the cutting edge tools to put yourself head and shoulders above your competitors,
it’s time to prime your organisation for growth.
Find out more in our next piece, Doing Digital Justice: How Partners can drive a growth agenda
with the right eDiscovery service provider.