How Haynes and Boone Automated Its e-Discovery Processes

In the late 1980s and 90s, litigation support pioneers began to introduce technological solutions to manual processes, carving a real niche for IT professionals and tech-savvy paralegals. Today, automating legal services, especially litigation, is a complex profession with staggering amounts of electronic data requiring culling, analysis and processing before useable to a case team. Maintaining top-level electronic discovery expertise at a thriving AMLAW 200 firm warrants evolving skill sets and state of the art tools.

As the nature of litigation support evolved, departments developed and expanded to collaborate and consult with case attorneys on enormous and complex document productions. Litigation lifecycle and civil procedure proficiency has broadened the nature of the work and attracted individuals from the attorney ranks. With the myriad of moving parts necessary to complete discovery, various management strategies and mechanisms were applied with conflicting results. Case management was being introduced to the concept of project management.

Project management had been an approaching presence for a number of years. With recent economic issues, growing complexity of electronic discovery and continuing incline of data volumes, project management has become an indispensable tool. Terms like “workflow” or “stakeholders” are being spoken by litigation support professionals who are utilizing project management principals as a long sought solution to tame the electronic discovery “monster.”

Solving Problems and Achieving Goals

Haynes and Boone serves 24 practice areas, including electronic discovery services that range from records management to trial support. Data source sites span the globe, document reviews involve teams of personnel and productions frequently entail native and quasi-native along with standard TIFF delivery.

The Automated Legal Services (“ALS”) department's expertise consists of consultation, project management and technical services that assist case teams with electronic discovery demands. On a daily basis, ALS staff handles dozens of matters with hundreds of data sources. With many individual tasks outsourced, Haynes and Boone attorneys also rely on the department to develop and maintain a preferred service provider list.

Sixteen ALS professionals in the department perform three main roles. Coordinators provide project oversight, consultation and organize tasks and resources. Technicians manage databases, complete project tasks and supply technical advice. Trial consultants work with case teams preparing and presenting evidence in court. The interdependent work roles dictate that staff both rely on and reference department protocols that define procedures for documentation of specifications, deliverables and tracking information. These resulting protocols provide defensibility.

Changing Ways

The evolution of e-discovery since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) amendments can be compared to a traditional arithmetic exercise. It is not enough to provide the answer; the steps utilized to determine the result must be presented. In other words, “show your work!” In the past, no one demanded an attorney show the “work” behind electronic document production. Today, a process must be defensible. This requires planning and documenting all steps necessary to identify, collect, process, review and finally produce electronic data.

Historically, Excel workbooks and Access databases were used to capture and centralize matter information. Department procedures were documented in Word, Adobe Acrobat and Excel. Content duplication, limited shared access and multiple data store formats made this system of information management cumbersome. Additionally, the inability to force compliance of department protocol added to the overall inefficiencies of this solution.

Project status and specifications were tracked and exchanged between coordinators, service providers and stakeholders via phone and e-mail. These methods produced the potential for miscommunication of critical information that could cause delay, conflicting instructions or misunderstood deadlines.

Today, external service providers are managed through a preferred vendor program. An initial request for information that is distributed to all potential providers inquires about details such as volume capacities, time limitations and pricing. Originally, returned information was assembled in Access and Excel, aiding budget projection and provider selection. However, the continuous maintenance involved in updating information essential to retaining accurate pricing was impossible. As a result, coordinators frequently utilized traditional request for proposals to obtain necessary budgeting details. This, unfortunately, would hold up project approval and commencement.

A major department goal was measuring overall progress and engineering meaningful budget predictors requiring the assimilation of project metrics. Analyzing disparate data sources with partial details often generated incomplete and inaccurate reports.

The department was staffed with excellent personnel capable of overcoming workflow deficiencies. The firm obtained the appropriate skill sets but needed to find the state-of-the-art tools to provide personnel the best opportunity for success. A solution to automate process, force compliance, ease documentation, provide consistent communication channels, simplify vendor information management and capture critical metrics was a major department requirement.

Search for a Solution: To Develop or Not to Develop

The legal technology market is flooded with hundreds of document management, data processing technology and review applications. However, the supply of discovery workflow management solutions is few in number, likely due to the limited number of law firms demanding this relatively new concept. Within the automated workflow management space, only a couple of applications offer comprehensive discovery oversight.

Early investigation indicated Exterro's Fusion Discovery Workflow Management (“DWM”) product as a clear favorite. Out of the box, many of my firm's key objectives and requirements were satisfied. Central components, such as detailed data source tracking with full chain-of-custody, project status and issue alerts by e-mail notification and both internal and external resource task administration separated DWM from the competition. Additionally, preferred service providers update corporate marketing and pricing information themselves by accessing a secure, dedicated Web site. Automated information retrieval from various litigation support tools added tremendous future value. Dashboards display processing volumes and attorney review statistics gathered directly from third party solutions. Finally, Exterro developers provide customizations to meet any specific Haynes and Boone best-practice requirements.

Since a limited number of products existed, an internally developed solution was the only other real consideration. The advantage of creating a system designed exactly to meet department needs was attractive. A project of this nature would be undertaken by existing in-house talent and resources. Pros and cons of each solution were evaluated thoroughly. In the end, lengthy development timelines led to the abandonment of the in-house option. Also, as previously stated, DWM met most needs out of the box. Combined with upcoming functionality releases and planned custom work, this meant a solution was in hand.

Implementation

Upon engagement, Exterro assigned a client services team to initiate a project plan. A number of meetings were attended by H&B department members and Exterro to assure successful installation and deployment of DWM. Current workflow was studied to design the best implementation of DWM functionality. Three key factors would determine a successful overall execution of the Fusion system: technical installation, process integration and personnel education.

From a technical standpoint, installation was straightforward. The great support from Exterro's client services group made it easy for capable department staff to complete the installation without complication.

Because DWM's workflow was comprehensive and consistent with much of established department workflow, the effort in developing new internal processes was minimal. Greater than 70% process automation was realized upon implementation. Functionality supplements and enhancements ' combined with some key customizations ' should allow DWM to reach near peak functionality this year. Plans to integrate a new review application will automate final portions of department workflow management.

DWM is intuitive with a user-friendly interface. Time spent training internal and service provider personnel was nominal. Providers have made comments regarding appreciated control over pricing updates and how the standardized project specification forms improve communication and reduce risk.

Results