The traditional legal document review process has long been ripe for change. Just ask any attorney who has spent countless hours examining thousands of emails, memos, letters, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and other electronic documents associated with the litigation of a document-driven case. The task of looking through thousands of records for the “smoking gun” can seem endless.
Exacerbating the process, document review attorneys are paid for their review of documents, not for their commutes each day to and from facilities. It becomes easy to imagine why they would prefer a work place that begins and ends in the home — wherever home might be. Instead of a long commute to a remote austere office building, it’s a short walk with a freshly brewed cup of coffee down a hallway. It becomes even more convenient in the winter or, better yet, from wherever the attorney chooses to be. With seclusion and a high-speed internet, geographic boundaries disappear.
Monitoring a Remote Workforce
Once just a dream, the ability to staff and efficiently manage heavy, document-driven legal cases with a high degree of quality control without requiring a large investment, is now possible through the use of technology that exists today. The automated monitoring, software-as-a-service solution has been extensively proven in the education sector for proctoring online test taking, and now locally based Bicoastal Legal is the first to offer Verificient™ Technologies’ RemoteDesk™ technology for the legal profession. Bicoastal Legal’s solution biometrically identifies work-at-home attorneys and proctors their time and work efforts, allowing a remote workforce to be managed reliably and with confidence, while ensuring document confidentiality is maintained.
Users of this technology have the option of implementing the software as a standalone offering for use with their own attorneys or benefiting by pairing it with a highly available pool of experienced document review attorneys from Bicoastal Legal who are continuously monitored while they work. Bicoastal Legal has tapped into the best document review attorneys from across the country who are no longer limited by their geographic location.
The software application performs a facial scan, ID scan and full system check before access is granted to a legal document review database. Facial scan biometrics are used to continuously monitor the attorney during the document review to verify identity and track facial and eye movements in view of the camera. Machine vision algorithms are used to process the camera images and detect policy exceptions. Featuring video playback, the policy exceptions are presented in a dashboard so they can be reviewed quickly and easily.
This automated process also serves as a means to track and monitor hours billed for realizing cost predictability and time management. A summary report of each document review session is categorized with the number of events monitored, along with a time-stamp of the number of hours incurred.
Real World, Real Success
Legal service business models can benefit greatly by adopting innovation. Allowing more legal work to be done remotely saves time and cost for the client. It’s also good for attorneys who long to be untethered to a physical location, and ideal for those with physical limitations or who need to work in rural areas or at odd hours. Not least, it reduces the environmental impact of commuting. The result is a true win for everyone, including Mother Earth.
Paul Kiesel, a partner with Kiesel Law LLP, is known for being a strong advocate for using technology to make the practice of law more virtual, digital and streamlined. It was no big surprise then, after we approached him with an innovative and secure way to save his firm both time and cost while reducing the planet’s carbon footprint, he adopted the technology and provided us with positive feedback.
“What gave me the confidence to let a skilled team of document review attorneys remotely review over a million documents produced during litigation is the fact that Bicoastal Legal’s solution provides the ability to monitor them while they are viewing sensitive documents,” says Kiesel. “This type of control gave us a 360-degree view of document confidentiality as well as insight into the performance of the remote document reviewers. This is document review for the twenty-first century.”
Dan Klier is founder of Bicoastal Legal Solutions.
