Relatively few of the eDisclosure / eDiscovery newsletters focus on the UK, so it is good to welcome Epiq Insights from Epiq Systems which is now available as a web page as well as by subscribing to an e-mail. The current edition is here.

It includes links to articles which are either about the UK or which, whilst having a US origin, are relevant to those responsible for the management of UK eDisclosure exercises.

Some of them are things I have already written about –  November’s Metropolitan Corporate Counsel article on predictive coding, for example, and reports of the Epiq Showcase and of the panel on the Challenges of Cross-Border Regulatory Investigations. Others are new to me and it is helpful to be able to pass them on in one go by pointing you to the newsletter.

Of the ones I have not seen before, I refer you in particular to the New Law Journal article on right-sizing the outsourcing of document review written jointly by Epiq’s Saida Joseph and Mark Surguy of Eversheds. Its conclusion is that the on-shore / off-site model for document review is the one which strikes the best balance between cost and risk.

This is a relatively new model for the UK market and one which has attracted a lot of attention very quickly. I gave a video interview yesterday for the College of Law. Quite often when I do these things, I am invited to say what I want to talk about. The College of Law works the other way round – they detect the trends which interest their audience and send me the questions. One of this year’s questions, appearing for the first time, was about managed review

My answer focussed on two points. The first was that managed review brings not merely cost containment but predictability and transparency, and corporate clients are as concerned about certainty as they are about the actual level of costs. The second, and equally important, point is that the availability of managed review services allows smaller firms to compete with bigger ones for work which they they could not responsibly handle with their own resources. As the NLJ article says in its conclusion, managed review allows lawyers to focus on merits, strategy and the formulation of persuasive arguments instead of the mechanics of disclosure.

The MCC predictive coding article deserves re-reading even if you saw it when it was published. Its heading Predictive Coding = Great E-Discovery Cost and Time Savings catches the eye anyway, and it includes a helpful description of how Baker & McKenzie used Epiq’s IQ Review (which uses Equivio’s Relevance technology) to reduce reviewable data to a manageable level and (a point made specifically in the article) doing so to the satisfaction of the US Department of Justice.

The reason for suggesting that you read this article again is that the map has changed more than a little since its original publication date. Judge Peck, referred to in the article as having written to encourage the use of technology like predictive coding, has now issued a written Opinion which gives the long-awaited endorsement in a real case. If you missed that, my article Judge Peck’s Predictive Coding Opinion – reporting the reaction links to a selection of reports, picking out the key points made in each of them. Whilst the US eDiscovery procedure as it has developed is no great model for the rest of us, the technology which has developed to meet the FRCP challenges has application everywhere. If predictive coding can save costs and time in the US, then it must be considered by courts and lawyers in the UK; one ought at least to understand what it does.

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