Using Technology to Reduce Legal Fees

I probably spent more time laboring over the title of this piece than I did writing the entire article. It has become an unspoken concern by some that technology is quickly reducing what they have historically spent a large amount of time doing – document review. Until recently, I never actually heard a lawyer say it out loud because they could point to other concerns to justify billing on average $282 per hour. See ALM Legal Intelligence 2010 Survey of Billing and Practices for Small/Midsize Law Firms. “If I or a member of my firm does not do the review, something is going to get missed”, some said. “I don’t trust contract reviewers”, others might say. Or, “I just don’t trust technology”. The list goes on. With contract attorney review rates below $100 per hour and litigation technology and processes mature and defensible, those arguments have all but disappeared. Over the past several months, I’ve actually heard lawyers utter the unspoken concern – “using technology to reduce the volume of documents and then contract reviewers at reduced rates is going to take work away from my firm.” To which I respond, “Yes sir it certainly will.” I was neither surprised nor disappointed by the statement. A law firm is not a non-profit institution. They are in business to make money, pure and simple. Historically, a large part of some practices are built with fleets of lawyers highly dependent upon lots of document review work. An increasing number of those same lawyers, however, have realized that corporate America is becoming increasingly more critical of the scorched earth practice of law where the more documents reviewed and produced the better. The game has changed. The use of technology to find the hot documents quickly and eliminate the irrelevant from review has entered the mainstream. The use of well supervised professional document review attorneys at dramatically reduced rates is here to stay. Many firms are seeing corporations take data reduction and document review out of the hands of their outside lawyers. Corporations are beginning to base attorney hiring decisions on how well they understand technology. Many of the more progressive law firms not only understand these principles, they are embracing them. Technology in combination with highly process oriented professional review attorneys does substantially reduce the cost of discovery. That fact can’t seriously be disputed any longer. Those that get it, embrace it, and get with the program will not only survive, they will flourish. And those that don’t? Well, the pool of clients available to them will continue to shrink. So, why did I struggle with the title of this article? Well, because lawyers have buttered my bread for more than 25 years. Then I decide, isn’t that a bit hypocritical given this subject matter? What say you?