Document Review – What Does Document Review in the Digital Age Look Like?
Key takeaways
- Document review is an important part of the litigation and legal process.
- Legal teams have relied on document review for extracting key insights that impact the outcome of cases.
- A recent report revealed that 70% of law firms reported that manual document review slowed down their operations significantly, leading to increased costs and inefficiencies.
- The concept of document review has undergone a sea of change from physical paper files to eDiscovery volumes to technology assisted review models.
- The future of document review is heading towards technology-driven methods, organizations that embrace this change will be better positioned to succeed.
- An AI-powered workflow platform like Cflow can help adapt to changes in document review by automating the process.
Table of Contents
What is Document Review?
Document review or doc review is the process of reviewing legal documents to determine if they are relevant, responsive, or privileged w.r.t to the litigation process.
What is document review in the legal process?
The doc review or document review is the discovery phase of litigation when both parties in the legal case analyze and sort through data and documents. When legal teams review documents, they need to look out for sensitive information or privileged information. This blog explores what is doc review in detail, the need for documentation review, stages in document review, and best practices in document review.
Exploring Documentation Review Meaning in Detail
Did you know that document review comprises 70% of the litigation costs? Controlling outside counsel costs remains top priority for law department leaders struggling to manage growing workloads, all while facing a resource crunch.
What is document review in legal process?
When we define document review, we must include details on the discovery phase. During the discovery phase, the attorneys and their clients thoroughly analyze documents and establish their relevance to the case. In most cases, attorneys and paralegals review documents, but in other cases some law firms hire document review attorneys who specialize in the process. Effective documentation review can be done with the help of tags that indicate whether the document is confidential, privileged, or a discovery request.
Document reviewers look into emails, text messages, contracts, and spreadsheets. These professionals track their findings by highlighting important information in the documents, placing tabs, writing summaries, or developing charts of spreadsheets. Document review focuses on the following points –
Relevance
This is the first approach that determines the relevance of the document to the case in question. Document relevance presents valuable information about the case. Review for relevance must initially determine if a document that is due for review is relevant to the case at hand. Determining relevance can use keyword lists and other filtering techniques for narrowing down on selection. The ability to tag or mark legal documents for its level of relevance is useful.
Responsiveness
This approach determines whether the document meets production needs. This is a review metric that is represented as a percentage that shows the responsiveness rate of a document production. The metric allows the legal department to gauge the efficiency of its document production. Document responsiveness represents the number of documents that were produced as responsive versus the number of documents that were tagged as non-responsive and not produced.
Confidentiality
This approach focuses on determining whether the document contains any information that might compromise client’s privacy or business interests. It is critical to review the confidentiality of documents, especially when dealing with important client data. The likelihood of either party returning privileged documents that are produced accidentally is high in legal cases. The review of confidentiality is an important part of document review that helps redact private or sensitive data.
Privilege
This approach to doc review focuses on determining whether the document is available as evidence outside of an attorney-client relationship. Not all documents will be produced, however, all of them need to be reviewed. Privilege on individual documents and information needs to be declared in order to withhold them from the other party. In order to establish a document as privileged during review, you can tag or mark it and add it to a privilege log entry.
Who conducts document review?
An attorney usually oversees document review at a high level, while litigation support professionals and paralegals are also involved in the document review process.
Importance of Document Review
Why do you need a document review? The main purpose of document review is for attorneys to meet their legal obligations when the counterparty requests the documents relevant to the litigation. For attorneys and law firms, “discovery” is the critical, information-gathering phase of a case. The time that is spent on collecting and reviewing documents lays the foundation for future arguments in the case. Document review is fundamental for establishing the relevance, responsiveness, privilege, and confidentiality of the documents.
In earlier days, document review involved gathering paper documents, poring over paper and ink photos, interviewing real, live witnesses, and sifting through objects archived in evidence storage lockers. The concept of doc review has transformed into combing through tonnes of unstructured material in the form of emails, text messages, videos, photos, and tweets, to find relevant data.
With 80% of the world’s data being unstructured, attorneys and legal teams find themselves drowning in unprecedented amounts of data before finding the right data relevant to their case. Document review becomes even more important given the vast amount of unstructured data that legal teams have to review to narrow down on relevant documents.
Obligations outlined by Federal and state laws require attorneys to produce documents in response to discovery demands. It is critical to review documents thoroughly and select the ones relevant to the case.
Additionally, a thorough review of documents can help attorneys identify the documents that are likely to harm their client’s case or damage their client’s reputation, and remove these from the document roster. When attorneys review documents, they gauge the confidentiality and privilege of information and remove inappropriate documents to mitigate the exposure of confidential information or the leaking of privacy agreements.
Improper document review may lead to withholding of information owing to privilege rules, despite being relevant to the case. Opposing parties may request relevant documents while the case is going on. These requests may be placed for a variety of data, including medical records, insurance policies, internal product evaluation, repair records, or even investigations. Legal teams need to review documents pertaining to the case so that they can fulfill these requests, at the same time do not compromise data privacy and confidentiality.
Types of Document Review
All legal documents need to be reviewed to assess their responsiveness, relevance, and privilege. The manner in which document review is conducted depends on the type of document that is being reviewed. Let’s look at the different types of document reviews
Contract review
Contracts are essentially legally binding agreements that outline the responsibilities between parties. Legal teams and attorneys need to review all the documents in the contract management lifecycle. Some of the contract documents that require thorough review are employment agreements, sales contracts, service agreements, etc. Thorough document review ensures clarity for both parties involved and avoids surprises.
Pleading review
Case pleadings are based on documents for complaints, answers, and motions. Pleadings are the starting point of all legal cases; even a small mistake in pleading documents could collapse the entire case.
Will and trust review
Wills are essential for executing a person’s final wishes. Will and trust documents must be in accordance with the state laws and accurately outline the outcomes to prevent any disputes among heirs.
Affidavits
These are sworn statements that are used as evidence in court. Affidavits need to be accurate and need to adhere to rules and reflect what the person actually knows.
Deeds
Whenever there is a purchase, deeds need to be signed. Purchase deeds transfer the ownership from one person to another. Cross-checking and verifying the details in the deed through document review ensures that all legal boxes are ticked.
Key Objectives of Document Review
Document review ensures that all the information is as per legal and compliance standards and is relevant to the case. The key objectives of document review include –
Preparation for the case
Document review forms the basis for a strong legal strategy that helps uncover the facts and evidence around the case. Accurate document review helps attorneys identify key pieces of evidence that support client arguments. A review of documents provides clarity on the events, timelines, and roles of the involved parties.
Legal compliance
During the discovery phase of litigation, legal teams impose strict requirements on sharing the relevant information with the opposing side. Document review ensures that all requested documents are identified, reviewed, and disclosed when required. Review of documents also prevents inadvertent withholding of discoverable materials, which could lead to sanctions.
Mitigation of risk
Another important purpose of document review is to mitigate potential risks before they become liabilities. During the document review process, potential risks can be identified when documents are analyzed and organized. Document review also ensures that disclosures are complete and accurate to avoid penalties or accusations of bad faith. When documents are reviewed, you can flag any language, evidence, or omissions that are a potential harm to the client’s position.
Preparation of evidence
A well-planned and executed review process ensures that legal teams and attorneys are well prepared for the depositions, hearings, and trials. Exhibits and summaries can be prepared while reviewing documents in order to present a clear and compelling argument in the court.
Top 5 Document Review Challenges Faced by Law Firms
Ideally, all law firms must have a streamlined document review process in place to plug any loopholes in the litigation proceedings. The lack of a proper document review process may lead to serious consequences for law firms. What holds back law firms from streamlining their document review?
Here are the common challenges in manual document review –
1. Finding a skilled workforce
The amount of unstructured data that legal teams need to sift through can be overwhelming. Often, media files contained in CCTV footage, attorney-client calls, and videos on smartphones contain critical, sensitive information that not everyone is capable of deciphering and handling.
Law firms cannot simply hire just anyone for document review, they need to hire licensed attorneys who have a good reputation with the Bar association. Moreover, document review in legal cases requires additional abilities such as proficiency in a foreign language, technical skills, and document translation. Building a capable and talented workforce for document review is a challenge faced by several law firms.
2. Cost management
Legal budgets are not getting any bigger, but expectations of clients are expanding rapidly. Case managers are expected to deliver faster and better quality results while remaining well within case budgets. Hiring and maintaining a skilled workforce for handling document review runs into exorbitant costs for legal firms.
Added to the workforce costs, you have the costs of videos, photos, and other electronically stored information (ESI) also increasing. The cost of providing the space, equipment, and necessary amenities also adds to legal costs.
3. Tight case deadlines
Legal teams are forever working against tight deadlines to review documents. As the volumes of unstructured ESI increase, attorneys and legal teams need to utilize their time more efficiently while reviewing documents. For efficient utilization of time, attorneys and legal teams need to begin document review with utmost clarity on the case.
However, clarity and concise direction for document review are not possible without knowing what evidence exists. As document review progresses, teams get deeper and newer insights on the case, which shifts the legal strategy and requires additional review.
4. Legal data errors
Attorneys and legal teams are always striving to reduce the error margins in document review. The real challenge crops up when they are handling multi-tiered reviews that are subject to higher error margins and miscommunications. Not having a streamlined document review process opens up way too much room for miscommunication and errors.
5. Security compromise
Security and safety of legal data is paramount while handling legal cases. Failure to redact confidential or privileged information can have serious consequences not just for a single case, but for the entire firm. The security of data can be compromised for several reasons, including overly complex software, inadequate firewalls, identity leaks, and illegal sharing of information by a disgruntled employee.
In a world where saving, stealing, and exchanging information is easier than ever before, law firms are constantly looking for ways to make document review and management more fool proof.
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Proofreading versus document review – Similarities and differences
Can you proofread the document while you review it? Is proofreading the same as document review? Documentation review and proofreading are different.
Attribute | Document Review | Proofreading |
Definition | Document review is all about establishing the relevance, responsiveness, and confidentiality of documents | Proofreading may be defined as the process of checking a text for errors to identify and correct mistakes that would detract from its clarity and accuracy. |
Focus | Broader examination of the content, including accuracy, completeness, consistency, and clarity. | Identification and correction of errors in the text, including spelling, grammar, formatting, and punctuation |
Purpose | Ensure that the document is accurate, complete, and aligned with specific requirements | Ensure the accuracy, clarity, and professionalism of the final content |
Scope | Broader scope that includes verification for factual accuracy, consistency of style, compliance with policies, and overall coherence. | Restricted to surface-level mechanics of the text |
Example | Reviewing documents for factual errors, consistency of style and language, and compliance with industry standards | Identifying typos, grammatical errors, and punctuation mistakes |
5 Stages of Document Review
How does document review work in law firms? Here is a step-by-step document review process below.
Collect
The first step is to gather information from various sources like shared drives, physical archives, or email trails. While gathering information, it is important to filter out irrelevant material and centralize documents in a secure location for easy access. A comprehensive collection of information forms the basis for the litigation process.
Process
The second step in document review is preparing the documents for review. Processing of documents involves converting physical files into searchable electronic formats with the help of optical character recognition (OCR). During review, sensitive information must be redacted, and confidentiality and compliance with regulations must be maintained. While processing documents, it would be a good idea to index and categorize documents with the help of metadata.
Review
A detailed examination of the documents is a must during document review. Assess the relevance of each document to the case or legal strategy, and flag privileged communications for maintaining confidentiality. When you review documents, you should ensure sensitive data is handled appropriately. While reviewing the documents, it is a good practice to highlight key sections or clauses for analysis and discussion during the case proceedings.
Analysis
Once the review is done, the findings need to be summarized to find actionable insights in the document. Thorough analysis helps identify critical points, recurring risks, compliance gaps, and any other issues that require immediate attention. Compile the results into a comprehensive report using visual aids like charts and tables for better understanding.
Collaboration
Document review involves stakeholder engagement within the organization. Legal, compliance, and business teams need to collaborate to provide deep insights and address ambiguities. Document review tools must support version tracking and real-time commenting to ensure alignment across teams.
Automation in Document Review
A day in the life of legal teams and attorneys revolves around stacks of documents, extensive reports, and countless contracts. Document review can get tedious, especially when manual processing is the method that legal teams follow.
Although the traditional approach to document review has been the starting point for all professional services like legal, audit, and compliance, workflow automation is the way forward. The time spent by professionals on manual review can be reduced significantly by automating document review.
Efficient automation of document review requires the right automation software. How to choose the right automation software? Here are a few pointers that help you choose the right automation software for your document review workflows.
Understand your needs
Choosing the right software becomes far easier when you understand your needs properly. Understanding document review needs requires you to clearly establish document types, workflow, document sources, integration requirements, and expertise of users.
User interface
You need to look for intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces that shorten the learning curve. An AI-powered workflow platform like Cflow can be easily operated by users for automating document review workflows.
Security and compliance
The automation solution must provide features like encryption, access controls, and audit trails.
Pre-built templates
The software must provide a wide range of templates that can be customized to suit specific requirements.
Best Practices in Document Review
The latest American Bar Association’s Tech Report reveals that a significant number of lawyers are using Cloud computing for practising law. As per the report, cloud usage increases significantly from 60% to 70%, having maximum adoption among solos (84%), followed by small- and medium-sized firms (75%).
1. Organize your documents
Organizing documents is the right start to the document review process. Consider choosing an organizational system that works best for the nature and scale of documents handled by the legal teams. Organizing documents based on a particular theme helps strategize effectively to gain a clearer comprehension of the case overall. Prioritizing documents based on their importance and relevance accelerates the review process.
2. Train reviewers thoroughly
Reviewers must be given clear instructions on the manner in which reviews should be carried out. For instance, it may be useful to offer a written document that provides details on the background information about a case and lists any discovery demands. Reviewers might benefit from a summary of important context, which may include a briefing of industry or a briefing of important laws that affect the case. The firm’s standards regarding privileged information and relevance must be clearly explained to the reviewers.
3. Maintain open communication
To make the document review process more effective, you need to conduct frequent process checks and check-in meetings. When external reviewers are involved, you need to communicate with them to ensure they are progressing as per the plan. Ensuring availability for discussions is important to maintain open communication.
4. Practice detailed note-taking
Reviewers must be encouraged to note their findings in a detailed manner, which helps ensure a thorough review. Taking detailed notes also helps in second and third passes that attorneys and legal teams might conduct on documents. Maintaining creative summaries helps the entire document review team to understand the priority of document review.
5. Implement quality control
To deliver accurate and comprehensive reviews, implementing quality control measures is essential. To reduce the chances of mistakes in review, arranging additional reviews is a good idea. Performing targeted searches based on specific keywords might be useful in assigning documents to specific categories.
6. Automation of workflows
Legal documentation involves several repetitive, data-intensive tasks. Manual management of these workflows opens up more scope for errors and inconsistencies in document review. Automating data-intensive workflows with Cflow can improve the effectiveness of document review.
Implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning in document review is an effective way to improve the accuracy of the review. There are several benefits of AI in legal document review, including improved organization and accessibility of information, better clarity through intelligent summarization, automated data extraction, and insightful reporting and workflow optimization.
Future Trends in Document Review Technology
According to the American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center’s 2019 Techreport, 26% of firms employing 100 or more attorneys utilize AI-based technology tools.
Some of the key future trends in document review technology include –
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning – AI and ML are at the forefront of transforming the document review process.
- Robotic process automation (RPA is another significant trend in document review technology that involves robots to automate repetitive tasks.
- Cloud-based solutions – Shifting to cloud-based platforms offers scalability, flexibility, and remote access.
- Predictive coding – This is among the most transformative technologies in document review that leverages AI to analyze and predict the relevance of legal documents.
Document Review with Cflow
Each year, legal technology continues to play an important role in the day-to-day work of attorneys. By creating internal workflows, legal teams and attorneys can spend more time on strategic tasks rather than on creating and verifying legal documents.
Cflow helps legal teams conduct effective and accurate document review. The no-code workflow builder in Cflow helps legal teams build automated workflows within minutes with the help of visual elements.
Conclusion
Through this blog, we have explored what document review is in the legal process in great detail. Given the importance of the document review process, it is imperative to streamline the entire review workflow.
Using technology to streamline the process puts your firm ahead of the competition. Document review can be more effective and accurate with the right tools. Embrace change and stay ahead of the curve by automating document review with Cflow.
To explore how to automate contract and document review workflows, schedule a demo for automated document review today!
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