Peer to Peer Magazine

P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | W I N T E R 2 0 1 9 37 up in a new country isn't quick, and each environment comes with sets of unknowns like space, people, technologies and case sizes. Finally, cross-border eDiscovery is expensive. Setting up a presence overseas to handle global eDiscovery can quickly drain budgets. Shipping servers, standing up a data center, transferring licenses, travel costs and more all add up. Challenges in Action Here's how these three challenges can converge. Imagine you're a Chicago firm engaged in eDiscovery in a matter based out of Brussels. Using your current software to review documents located in Belgium is far more complicated than it might initially seem. First, you'll need to get new software licenses in Belgium, because yours won't transfer. Next, you'll need to invest significant time and money in setting up a data center in Belgium where your data resides. You then must staff that data center. If you plan to have your litigation support staff manage it, you must fly those people halfway around the world to get them on-site. Logistical details like these are where most costs are incurred since they require the most labor and time. You also can't expect things overseas to cost what you're used to paying in Chicago. Services or licenses often come at a premium, and you'll frequently face steep conversion rates because many solutions only offer the option of invoicing you in the local currency. You also need to account for language barriers. Reviewing documents in foreign languages requires you to either pay for expensive translation services or hire attorneys skilled in specific languages – either of which can significantly drive up costs. Even once you're set up, you need to learn the lay of the land. Every country has its rules and laws. This is particularly true when it comes to data protection and security, which require costly processes and procedures to ensure compliance. Often you won't be able to move the data out of its host country, which means you need expensive in-country hosting solutions. And whenever you're dealing with an international case, it always has the potential to expand to several different countries or even multiple continents, all of which present the same hurdles all over again. The inconsistencies from country to country quickly add up to high eDiscovery costs. All these factors lead to high, unpredictable costs that have historically made international eDiscovery an incredibly complicated and expensive endeavor. Fortunately, just as technolo helps companies expand, it also helps legal organizations cost-effectively manage global eDiscovery. Four Approaches for Global eDiscovery In order to navigate cross-border eDiscovery, law firms and corporate legal departments should consider these four practical approaches. First, avoid transferring data across borders. Ideally, work should be conducted in the local jurisdiction. Hosted and mobile solutions allow for this. But remember: Many companies host out of London. Following the ratification of Brexit, this strate will most likely not be viable. Second, use solutions that can scale with the needs of a case regardless of location. Cross-border cases have many moving parts, and you need a technolo partner that provides flexible deployment options. Third, leverage advanced natural language processing solutions that can minimize the impact of personal information and privacy concerns. They do this by helping to isolate this type of information for special handling. Fourth, ensure that your technolo partner can work within the requirements of the countries you will be operating in and has the appropriate credentials (for example, privacy shields or data protection agreements). Decreasing International eDiscovery Costs The good news is that it's possible for law firms to curb the costs of eDiscovery on the international front. The first step toward doing so – and one of the most crucial – is utilizing today's global cloud infrastructure. When it comes to managing eDiscovery, law firms have a seemingly endless sea of technolo options. Nonetheless, most firms have historically struggled to find the right solutions that offer both control and usability. Also, streamlining eDiscovery through SaaS providers is a concept that firms have been slow to embrace. These struggles only intensify when firms are looking to use their technolo internationally and globalize their data. Containing eDiscovery costs even on the domestic front has long been an uphill battle for firms. Introducing additional complications like international data hosting and security concerns has made cross-border eDiscovery even more daunting. When dealing with eDiscovery on a global scale, firms need to find a way to master technolo in order to get through data faster without incurring unnecessary costs. Tech giants like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud have already built out all the networks you need, with reliable data centers established throughout the world that you can access through the cloud and highly integrated discovery and investigation software applications. This approach is exponentially simpler and more cost-effective than trying to identify resources on the ground in each of the locations where you need to conduct eDiscovery. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who understands technolo better than these companies do. Their infrastructure and security are already built out and tested by their SaaS solutions. They come with the global resources to support your eDiscovery activities, and because they already have international data centers, you won't have to

• Cover