Document Review: the next e-discovery?

By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers:

Two interesting press releases crossed my desk last week, both related to non-traditional legal service providers offering document review services. EED appointed Terry Murphy, formerly of Kelly Law Registry, as VP of Review Services and Special Counsel added a “Turnkey Legal Center” in Chicago.

Document Review has traditionally been the domain of law firms, of course, but more and more different types of companies have been entering the space. It’s a logical move for both e-discovery companies–who already feed the data to the document reviewers and for staffing companies–who already provide many of the bodies. It makes sense for these types of companies to get involved in such a process- and people-intensive industry.

Most interesting to me, is that both of these companies seem to have concluded that outsourced document review can be handled cost-efficiently right here in the United States. (The EED release doesn’t come out and say that, but hiring from a U.S.-based staffing company at least implies this.)

My own opinion is that the next 10 years will find many different types of service providers fighting for review dollars, just like they’ve been fighting for e-discovery dollars for the last 10. Stay tuned.