Corporate General Counsel are constantly managing cost and risk, and that is truer now more than ever. Law firms that are able to not only support this endeavor but are able to find ways to add more strategic value are the ones able to transform clients into long-term relationships and pick-up new clients. To meet these goals, forward-looking law firms are leveraging modern legal technology. Leading law firms are finding innovative ways to demonstrate value by leveraging state-of-the-art technology to achieve higher efficiency, lower cost, and allowing them to ultimately focus on achieving the right legal outcomes. Law firms that work with the right technology partner are able to provide legal services effectively while reducing legal spend, thus distinguishing themselves from the competition while also demonstrating responsiveness to GCs desire to be more efficient. This approach not only helps a law firm create a stronger relationship with existing corporate clients but lays the groundwork for new clients.
Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP, an Am Law 200 firm with 230 lawyers across nine offices, considers technology a competitive advantage. Their client, a top global construction company, was facing an unusually large discovery request with a limited budget and an aggressive timeframe. By working with Casepoint and its advanced technology, featuring built-in analytics and artificial intelligence, Lewis Roca was able to achieve optimal outcomes and complete the document review with time to spare —and 50% under budget! In today’s uncertain business environment, it makes sense for other law firms to leverage the same kind of relationship and the same technology to gain a competitive advantage.
The Challenging Environment for Law Firms and Their Clients
The last few years have been exceptionally challenging in many ways. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, clients and courtrooms are still operating in hybrid environments, which have added new complexities to eDiscovery processes for litigation, trial preparation, and case strategy. At the same time, legal departments remain under intense pressure to keep costs down while achieving stellar results. According to the 2021 EY Law Survey conducted in collaboration with the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession, workloads for legal departments are expected to rise by 25% by 2025. At the same time, a substantial majority of GCs, 88%, say they are planning to reduce the overall cost of their legal functions over the next three years, driven by pressure from their CEO and boards.
Savvy law firms are looking for innovative ways to help their clients address these mounting pressures. That’s where technology can make all the difference, and where partnering with experienced companies, like Casepoint, can help firms and clients build stronger cases faster.
Lewis Roca Achieves Success for Construction Client
In the case of Lewis Roca, its client had hired a subcontractor on a project that failed to perform and meet requirements. This led to litigation. Discovery for the matter involved more than 800 gigabytes of data, more than 600,000 documents, a short turnaround time frame, and a variety of complex and technical documents such as project files and PST files from 12 custodians—all on a tight budget.
When discovery involves large volumes of complex data, attorney review hours can pile up quickly and become prohibitively expensive. Law firms can outsource the review or utilize junior associates, but that doesn’t eliminate the requirement for a thorough review of relevant documents.
Recognizing the complexity of the task before them, the attorneys at Lewis Roca knew they needed to leverage artificial intelligence and active learning capabilities to meet the project’s strict deadline and stay within budget constraints. After assessing multiple vendors, Lewis Roca found the right solution with Casepoint.
Several key factors set Casepoint apart from other technology providers. Casepoint has a proven success record with construction litigation. Casepoint also offers case evaluation technology, CaseAssist, with built-in advanced analytics and AI that can very quickly and accurately identify relevant and non-relevant documents. In fact, CaseAssist’s superior functionality allowed Lewis Roca to eliminate more than 90% of the construction-specific documents and file types included in the discovery request before review. This not only greatly reduced costs, but it also allowed the legal team to focus on case strategy early in the project instead of sorting through non-relevant information.
Casepoint’s contribution to the matter was not limited to technology. Like they do with all clients, Casepoint also offered highly knowledgeable, responsive project managers who worked closely with Lewis Roca’s attorneys and staff to optimize the power of CaseAssist and ensure the right outcomes. Casepoint’s client success manager also played an important role in interpreting data and gleaning insights.
All of these factors allowed Lewis Roca to complete eDiscovery and document review on time and 50% under budget for their client.
Turn to Advanced Legal Technology to Stay Competitive
In today’s environment, more law firms are turning to advanced legal technology, backed by committed and knowledgeable partners, to stay competitive, grow their business and provide value to clients. Working with Casepoint helped Lewis Roca save time, minimize risk, cut costs, and increase efficiencies while achieving a great outcome for their client. Read the full case study here.