Develop a Workflow Protocol

Technological innovations are slowly replacing the old methods of assigning and distributing review tasks in large-scale projects.  For the last decade, managing attorneys have tracked review assignments and completion using printed lists and ranges of document ID numbers.  These methods were prone to mistakes, made tracking progress difficult, and wasted valuable time.  It was a clumsy way to assign and control workflow, but it was familiar and it was generally the best a manager could do with the tools that were available.

Now, with advancements in review software technology, workflow can be generated, assigned, monitored, and verified flawlessly.  A few leading review platforms provide supervising attorneys with the ability to divide large populations of data in any number of ways.  They can then create and assign to-do lists to individual attorneys based on a variety of criteria, such as level of experience, relevant issues, custodian name, date ranges, and so on.  Additionally, this next generation of review platforms allows supervising attorneys to monitor progress in real-time with user friendly “dashboards” that display up-to-the-minute review statistics.  Finally, these applications provide powerful quality control tools that can be used to prevent inconsistent use of tags, and to validate responsive and privilege calls prior to production.  The best-of-breed review platforms give supervising attorneys an unprecedented degree of flexibility in designing a custom workflow that generates assignments, monitors progress, and automates much of the quality control process.

Large-scale document reviews can seem overwhelming at times; however, technology has done a great deal to make the some of the most daunting aspects of these projects easier to manage.  Continued integration of technological innovations, along with proper training, strong leadership and appropriate use of human resources will increasingly ensure that litigants conserve their clients’ time and money while delivering the highest quality work product.