I have already published two interviews with Vince Neicho of Integreon in which he explains the benefits of outsourcing document review, whether for litigation, regulation or other purposes. You will find the earlier interviews here and here.

In this third interview, Vince Neicho talks about the particular issues which arise when seeking to satisfy regulators as to the completeness of review, and about the rise of social media discovery.

Vince Neicho’s first point, however, is the apparent conflict between reliance on technology and reliance on the kind of outsourced review service which Integreon offers. There is, he says, no conflict at all. Technology as used enthusiastically by Integreon ensures that a much smaller review set needs to be reviewed by humans – they are only reviewing documents which need to be reviewed. Applying technology first in this way ensures that the review is “smart”.

It is impossible now to review every document. It is vital to get the balance right and to be happy that we are seeing everything which matters without trying to read everything.

This is perhaps easy enough in litigation in England and Wales, where proportionality governs all and where it ought to be possible to argue in favour of limiting the range of documents sent for review. I asked Vince if regulators are susceptible to the idea that you are not reviewing everything.

Vince Neicho said that it is not his experience that regulators are ready to accept this. The problem, perhaps, is that those who dictate policy learnt their craft in paper days, and are not willing to accept that every document has not been reviewed in the old way. As with any generalisation, there are, of course, exceptions to this.

Vince Neicho’s final point was about the role of social media as evidence. Email, he said, is “yesterday’s paper”. Financial traders, for example, are more likely to use WhatsApp than email. Lawyers are potentially overlooking crucial evidence if they do not apply their minds to this.

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