Accelerating Through eDiscovery: Consilio’s Expertise in Japanese Document Review Delivers Unprecedented Cost Savings

A global automotive industry manufacturer was facing a substantial challenge in document review for litigation support. With a sizable volume of 445,000 Japanese language documents, the challenge lay not only in reviewing and redacting these documents but also in doing so in a cost-effective and timely manner. The documents, primarily in Japanese, were related to software testing on vehicles and contained intricate details, making the review process labor-intensive and expensive. Furthermore, the challenge was compounded by the need to adhere to cross-border eDiscovery legal requirements, necessitating expertise in local laws and regulations.

Consilio, through our dedicated Transportation Vertical, assembled a diverse team of professionals, including bilingual English/Japanese attorneys and a specialized technical group, known as our Defensible Automotive Reduction Team (DART). This core team possessed deep automotive industry knowledge and legal expertise, facilitating the efficient handling of this complex matter. The team initiated Early Case Assessment (ECA) and Continuous Case Assessment (CCA) processes to identify, sort, and analyze relevant documents, reducing the overall volume for review. A structured three-phase approach was implemented, which included prioritizing key terms, employing analytics and our proprietary TAR tool, ENVIZE, for efficient document sorting and strategic bulk coding. Our team also implemented email threading and used the redaction tool Blackout to achieve cost and time efficiencies.

Collected data was ingested into multiple review databases based in three data centers for review teams working concurrently. Project approach and statuses were communicated regularly with the client and outside counsel.

Through our systematic and analytics-driven approach, we significantly mitigated the cost of document review, saving the client between $1.5 million to $2.1 million. Specifically, we identified large families of documents and extracted relevant data, which led to a savings of approximately $150,000. The targeted review process, supplemented with bilingual expertise, ensured high-quality outputs, including substantial cost savings in both English and Japanese language reviews. By employing methods like sender domain analysis, spreadsheet analysis, and key term prioritization, we managed to streamline the review process
further.

Additionally, our ongoing collaboration with the client and outside counsel ensured that we captured all necessary information while understanding the unique needs of the client. The accumulated knowledge and experience from this matter can be applied to future matters, creating a solid foundation for more efficient and cost-effective document review processes. The success of this endeavor stands as a testament to Consilio’s ability to provide expert, cost-effective, and streamlined eDiscovery solutions.