PROJECT SCOPE The US team (Client Attorneys) provided us with a set of documents that they found to be relevant. The case pertained to an environmental issue ensuing out of improper disposal of tannery waste in and around the tannery, allowing the waste to convert to substances harmful to the environment. The case was being examined against multiple Federal ..
PROJECT SCOPE The US team (Client Attorneys) provided us with a set of documents (primarily e-mails) to review and code them as relevant or irrelevant. There were a set of terms given to the India team to identify if a document was relevant or not. The case pertained to outstanding payments due to the Client and all the e-mails related ..
PROJECT SCOPE The Client (Law Firm) provided our Review Attorneys with a set of emails and attachments providing case background and issues. The case pertained to secured notes that were issued by the Plaintiff to an entity later acquired by the Defendant(s). The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendants deliberately devalued the concerned entity in order ..
The Client (Law Firm) provided our Review Attorneys with a set of emails and attachments providing case background and issues. The case pertained to secured notes that were issued by the Plaintiff to an entity later acquired by the Defendant(s). The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendants deliberately devalued the concerned entity in order to foreclose on the secured notes. The Law Firm represented the defendants in the case. The case was being examined against multiple Federal, State and Local regulations. The Offshore Review Attorneys (Review Team) had to review the documents and code / tag them as per different issues and sub-issues identified (40 total) by the Law Firm. The scope of the project was initially classified as a First Level Document Review plus redactions of confidential and privileged information.
TIMELINES
The Project was to be concluded within 16-working days. 552,000 emails and attachments were to be reviewed and tagged for 40 issues and redacted.
NUMBER OF RESOURCES
The Review Team consisted of 12 Project Managers (PMs), 10 Quality Control (QC) Specialists and 75 Review Attorneys. All of the resources engaged were attorneys. The PMs and QC Specialists each had more than 7 years of Document Review, Offshore Process handling and US client delivery experience. The 75 review attorneys were split into three shifts for continuous review with a rolling delivery of documents.
REVIEW TOOL
Relativity
SOLUTION / PROCESS ADOPTED
An initial scoping of the project was completed. We identified that experienced review attorneys were needed due to complexities of the case that required an understanding of financial entities
There were multiple training sessions of the Review Team conducted by the Law Firm. The training included review of facts sent by the Law Firm, definitions of the Issues / Sub-issues to be coded and telephonic calls to discuss the process
The Review Team first reviewed a sample set of documents and obtained a sign-off from the Law Firm that set before moving on to the rest of the documents. This helped the Review Team understand the expectations of the Law Firm and the nuances involved in the case
Over a period of time, the Review Team developed a training manual based on all the feedback given by the Law Firm for the Review Team to follow while reviewing the documents in this project
Feedback given by the Law Firm was discussed on a daily basis before the Review Team began work; and the same was circulated and documented for future reference
All feedback documented by the Review Team was sent for the Law Firm to review and make changes, if any
Standard operating procedures adopted for any Document Review project undertaken by the Review Team include:
Scoping – Training – Document Review (Sample set) – QC (Law Firm) – Client Feedback – Actual Document Review – Client Feedback.
Every set of documents released to the Law Firm were reviewed by the QC Specialist using the Kaizen Approach of process improvement to eliminate any discrepancies
ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
The initial scope given by the Law Firm classified the project as first-level review. After the initial scoping by us it was clear that we were dealing with a very complicated case (that needed a very sound understanding of how financial entities function) and the work needed was anything but first-level review. The Review Team interviewed and recruited 75 attorneys in order to bring the right experience and expertise required to execute the project. All this in a timeline of less than two (2) working days.
The Law Firm had previously reviewed a set of 550,000 emails and attachments (the total document count was 1,100,000) and sent the remainder of the documents (550,000) to the Review Team. The instructions prepared by the Law Firm were not thorough enough to be passed on to the Review Team so a more thorough set of instructions were developed by us and approved by the Law Firm. The Review Team spent the first three days doing sample reviews and compiled all the feedback given by the Law Firm into a training manual backed by classroom training to bring the entire team up to speed on the project. The training manual contained definitions and scope of all the issues that needed coding and the exact scope of redactions. This helped the Review Team streamline the scope of the project and scale up on the deliveries.
The Law Firm hired us for the Second-Level Review in the same case.
CASE STUDY 2 : DOCUMENT REVIEW
PROJECT SCOPE
The US team (Client Attorneys) provided us with a set of documents (primarily e-mails) to review and code them as relevant or irrelevant. There were a set of terms given to the India team to identify if a document was relevant or not. The case pertained to outstanding payments due to the Client and all the e-mails related to communication with regard to the payment in question. The Scope of the project has been classified as First Level Document Review.
TIMELINES
A set of 20,000 e-mails were to be reviewed and made available to the client over the weekend.
NUMBER OF RESOURCES
The India team consisted of 1 Project Manager (PM), 1 Quality Control Specialist (QC) and 5 Attorneys. All resources engaged were attorneys. The PM and QC Specialist had more than 7 years of Documents Review, Offshore Process handling and US client delivery experience. The 5 resources were attorneys with upto 2 years of experience in Document Review.
REVIEW TOOL
Relativity
SOLUTION / PROCESS ADOPTED
Normal Operating procedure would be to do scoping and then move forward with the review. Since this was a very tight deadline, the India team did a brief scoping to decipher the complexity of the project and the resources required to meet the deadline.
As a starting point the India Team requested for a brief training and the US team provided the India team with a brief, terms to identify if the document is relevant or not, a set of reviewed documents to act as a precedent / sample and a telephonic discussion.
The India team worked over the weekend, each member putting around 25 hours of work to turn in the project by 8 AM CST on Monday.
There were continuous discussions within the team in India, and the US team was available on e-mail and phone for any queries
ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
The timeline was really tight; the key to this project was always clarifications on-time, QC and communication within the team. Firstly, the US team was requested to be available over the weekend both on phone and e-mail to respond to our queries. Secondly, the US team was requested to do a QC as and when documents were released by the India Team QC Specialist.
The project was delivered on time and the quality of the delivery was appreciated by the US team.
CASE STUDY 3 : DOCUMENT REVIEW
PROJECT SCOPE
The Client (Law Firm) provided our Review Attorneys with a set of emails and attachments providing case background and issues. The case pertained to secured notes that were issued by the Plaintiff to an entity later acquired by the Defendant(s). The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendants deliberately devalued the concerned entity in order to foreclose on the secured notes. The Law Firm represented the defendants in the case. The case was being examined against multiple Federal, State and Local regulations. The Offshore Review Attorneys (Review Team) had to review the documents and code / tag them as per different issues and sub-issues identified (40 total) by the Law Firm. The scope of the project was initially classified as a First Level Document Review plus redactions of confidential and privileged information.
TIMELINES
The Project was to be concluded within 16-working days. 552,000 emails and attachments were to be reviewed and tagged for 40 issues and redacted.
NUMBER OF RESOURCES
The Review Team consisted of 12 Project Managers (PMs), 10 Quality Control (QC) Specialists and 75 Review Attorneys. All of the resources engaged were attorneys. The PMs and QC Specialists each had more than 7 years of Document Review, Offshore Process handling and US client delivery experience. The 75 review attorneys were split into three shifts for continuous review with a rolling delivery of documents.
REVIEW TOOL
Relativity
SOLUTION / PROCESS ADOPTED
An initial scoping of the project was completed. We identified that experienced review attorneys were needed due to complexities of the case that required an understanding of financial entities.
There were multiple training sessions of the Review Team conducted by the Law Firm. The training included review of facts sent by the Law Firm, definitions of the Issues / Sub-issues to be coded and telephonic calls to discuss the process.
The Review Team first reviewed a sample set of documents and obtained a sign-off from the Law Firm that set before moving on to the rest of the documents. This helped the Review Team understand the expectations of the Law Firm and the nuances involved in the case.
Over a period of time, the Review Team developed a training manual based on all the feedback given by the Law Firm for the Review Team to follow while reviewing the documents in this project.
All feedback documented by the Review Team was sent for the Law Firm to review and make changes, if any
Standard operating procedures adopted for any Document Review project undertaken by the Review Team include: Scoping – Training – Document Review (Sample set) – QC (Law Firm) – Client Feedback – Actual Document Review – Client Feedback.
Every set of documents released to the Law Firm were reviewed by the QC Specialist using the Kaizen Approach of process improvement to eliminate any discrepancies
ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
The timeline was really tight; the key to this project was always clarifications on-time, QC and communication within the team. Firstly, the US team was requested to be available over the weekend both on phone and e-mail to respond to our queries. Secondly, the US team was requested to do a QC as and when documents were released by the India Team QC Specialist.
The project was delivered on time and the quality of the delivery was appreciated by the US team.