Rand ESIBytes Podcast on E-Discovery Costs and Predictive Coding


RAND_eDiscovery_Survey Listen to Karl Schieneman, Founder and President of Review Less, interview Nicholas Pace, a social scientist with the Rand Institute and author of Where the Money Goes: Understanding Litigant Expenditures for Producing Electronic Discovery. This podcast focuses on this study released in April, 2012 by the not for profit Rand Institute for Civil Justice on electronic discovery costs.

I am frankly perplexed that more people are not talking about this comprehensive study. Perhaps, the conclusion of the study that the best solution for solving the high costs of document review is using more technology such as predictive coding has been muted a bit.   The high-profile Da Silva Moore case in New York being overseen by Judge Peck and the Virginia Case Global Aerospace case where the parties are using predictive coding and tackling some of the open issues discussed in the Rand Report are receiving the bulk of news coverage. However, this 130 page study is a must read for any lawyer and client who has any interest in proportionality and efficiency in the process of collecting, processing and reviewing ESI.

This is also not a vendor propaganda piece. Rand has no skin in the game with coming up with their conclusions. I also will borrow a phrase used in a Ralph Losey blog when he described Maura Grossman and Gordon Cormack’s ground breaking article on machine assisted review or predictive coding that this is not an easy read. It’s not a tweet or a blog. We need to embrace these more analytical pieces and force ourselves to read them a few times. This piece is a collection of economic analysis and industry whitepapers which lifts up the rock on the process of e-discovery by analyzing 8 anonymous companies and over 50 cases they litigated over the past few years ending in 2010, before predictive coding became in vogue. I highly recommend that others read this. I have been involving drafting an overview piece on predictive coding for the 7th Circuit Pilot program and I kicked off the narrative in the first paragraph by quoting the Rand Study before attempting to explain how predictive coding works and giving some tips for using it in the Meet and Confer process. I think it is that important.

Recorded 6/21/2012