Dykema's experience in discovery management and e-discovery covers the continuum from simple cases with a single computer and a few hundred pages of hard copy documents to highly complex cases with multiple servers, hundreds of users, and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. When it comes to discovery, Dykema understands the importance of controlling the most costly and time-consuming portion of lawsuits and investigations and what often is the single largest line item in many legal department budgets. Dykema understands that data collection, processing, organization and review methods can substantially impact success at trial. In addition, carelessness in these areas can result in severe sanctions for discovery abuse or spoliation of evidence.

Dykema’s approach to discovery management has helped clients reap substantial savings and in several ways, including reducing the volume of data reviewed and evaluated, and performing statistical analyses of search terms and file types. Dykema’s discovery management also pays dividends in later phases of litigation, often yielding faster conclusions, better outcomes, and providing clients with greater flexibility.

Dykema’s discovery management group consists of 11 attorneys, 4 legal specialists, and three litigation technologists. Dykema also marshals a select group of outside vendors, including forensic experts, web-hosting vendors, litigation support vendors, and staffing vendors, to offer clients a complete discovery management solution.

Dykema has recently teamed with Lumen Legal, a global legal staffing and consulting company, to launch Dykema-Lumen Discovery Management Solutions (DMS), bringing an innovative discovery management solution to the legal market. Click here to learn more about Lumen Legal: http://www.lumenlegal.com/services/docreview.htm.

At the outset of a case, Dykema aggressively contains the scope of discovery by developing search terms and defensible limits on custodians, servers, file types, and time frames. In every case, Dykema creates and executes specific plans for data gathering that comply both with legal standards and with industry best practices. For example, in a recent case, Dykema took the lead among counsel for eight codefendants (represented by some of the largest law firms in the United States) and, through negotiations with the plaintiffs and targeted motions, radically decreased the complexity, duration, and cost of discovery.

Dykema also utilizes in-house technology and legal technologists to test possible keyword search terms and "preprocess" raw data. This filtering process often drastically reduces the volume of data sent to hosting vendors and ultimately to document reviewers. Such targeted preprocessing can effect a 50 to 80 percent reduction in data processing and hosting costs.

At the review and coding stage, Dykema assigns a substantial amount of document review and coding work to on-site contract attorneys, who are trained and closely supervised by Dykema attorneys with decades of discovery management experience. This significantly improves the cost-effectiveness and overall efficiency of the review process. Dykema has also developed its own quality assurance protocols, focusing both on case-specific substantive issues and on human factors, to maintain quality and consistency.

For more information on our Discovery Management practice, please contact:
Daniel J. Stephenson, Director 213-457-1780
Howard B. Iwrey,  248-203-05268
Dante A. Stella,  313-568-6693