E-discovery Tools Aid Compliance, Save Money

By TonyKontzer

When itcomes to the electronic discovery of documents, less is more.

This conceptis driving corporations and law firms to tap into a new generation ofe-discovery tools designed to help them more effectively focus their documentsearches. It’s an issue that strikes right at the bottom line: The moredocuments handed over to attorneys for review, the more expensive the discoveryprocess is.

At UnitedTechnologies, efforts to pare down the amount of data it routinely handed offto third parties stretch back to 2007, when the company started looking intohow it would cost-effectively comply with a wave of e-discovery legislation.Prior to that time, UTC had relied completely on those third parties to handleevery part of the e-discovery process. But by late 2008, the Hartford,Conn.-based aerospace and building systems giant had decided to bring some ofthe process in-house, funding a team that would handle the collection andculling of documents needed to respond to regulatory and legal inquiries.

Early thefollowing year, UTC (whose business units include aircraft engine maker Pratt&Whitney, helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., and OtisElevator Co.) began assembling that team, brought in e-discovery software fromGuidance Software and Clearwell Systems, and started collecting broad swaths ofdata in search of relevant documents.

Inrelatively short order, the team realized it would be simpler to make a list ofdocuments it didn’t need. However, as it became more familiar with thesoftware’s capabilities, it moved on to more targeted inclusion lists,eventually adding filters that allowed it to search for documents by date andkeyword.

The resultsspoke for themselves. "We were bringing in a very small fraction of thedata that we used to," says Timothy Rogers, group manager of IT securityand the man who recommended?and now leads?the internal e-discovery team.

Things goteven better when, late last year, Rogers’ team began working with UTC’sinternal legal staff to complete "first-pass" reviews of culleddocuments, a move that Rogers estimates has eliminated nearly one-third of thedata being handed over to third-party lawyers. All told, Rogers says UTC’slawyers are reviewing 95 percent fewer documents than they were before thecompany acquired its new tools and began refining its e-discovery process.