GC's New Discovery Role

In fact, one of the most common complaints from corporations today is that the cost of discovery is simply too high, making compliance with regulatory rules and litigation requests extraordinarily challenging ' and at times even crippling. But corporations can control these skyrocketing costs by taking a more active role in managing and preparing for discovery.

The impact of e-mail is staggering. According to a recent study published by The National Law Journal, corporations are projected this year to spend more than $1 billion for electronic discovery services, and nearly $5 billion to manage e-mail. Although these numbers seem large, they pale compared to the additional billions of dollars that corporations pay law firms to conduct discovery. An industry consultant tells us that one of his clients is spending $36 per document to review, from start to finish. This seems high, yet most corporations have no idea what they are paying per document. The fact is that most corporations never ask their law firm how much they charge per document, nor have they conducted any type of analysis to identify the true, total cost of discovery. The problem with this is that without a figure to use as a baseline, corporations will never truly know whether they are paying too much, and so will never be able to demand cost-savings. Imagine the dollars you could save your business if you knew what discovery should cost.