Litigation & Review

Challenge
A major public utility involved in breach of contract litigation with a software developer, came to Capital Legal with an urgent problem. A prominent national consulting firm’s elite technology practice group, hired by the utility, had failed to create a database and customized platform for the review of the case’s electronic records and had run up exorbitant fees.

The consulting firm had lost track of the chain-of-custody, and all available metadata, of a significant portion of case-related documents. It was unable to reverse engineer its processing procedures to obtain this vital information. Similarly, it had failed to deliver a customized application to meet the client’s basic requirements for data entry and coding capability for review.

Case-Related Requirements
Crisis intervention was clearly required. But could anything be saved? Capital Legal was asked to assess the viability of salvaging the consulting firm’s review database and software. We quickly determined that the integrity of the data had been compromised irreversibly and the review application was both unreliable and unwieldy.

Having wracked up huge costs and invaluable time, our client needed affordable solutions in short order. Capital Legal was asked to step in, design a reliable review application with basic coding functions, and reprocess the client’s original data in full accordance with best industry practices. All this was to be accomplished under the Sword of Damocles -- a discovery deadline for litigation that was looming just beyond the near horizon.

Solution
Capital Legal delivered a comprehensive and cost-effective solution tailored to the antitrust team’s requirements. A constant stream of filtered documents was delivered on a rolling basis. A secure server located in the client’s war room was loaded regularly with new data and backed-up each night. The server provided first stage reviewers full access to all data – and eliminated any performance issues associated with bandwidth limitations in the best of hosted environments. Processing was completed well within the required timeframe.

A smaller team of second stage reviewers needed the flexibility of accessing documents when time permitted from multiple locations. Capital Legal provided these reviewers with full access to the review application containing all case-related documents via a secure web portal. This hybrid approach met everyone’s needs in the most efficient manner.

In sum, Capital Legal delivered essential services that enabled counsel to promptly, thoroughly, and efficiently review millions of documents well within the prescribed timeframe. Once review was complete, Capital Legal produced responsive documents for the Federal Trade Commission in the agency’s preferred review format.