eDiscovery Daily Blog

eDiscovery Case Law: Computer Assisted Review Approved by Judge Peck in New York Case

 

In Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, No. 11 Civ. 1279 (ALC) (AJP) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 24, 2012), Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion on last Friday (February 24), approving of the use of computer-assisted review of electronically stored information (“ESI”) for this case, making it likely the first case to recognize that “computer-assisted review is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases.”  As noted in our previous blog post about the case, the parties had been instructed to submit draft protocols by February 16th.

After providing a background of the Title VII gender discrimination case, Judge Peck went on to reference his article (Search, Forward: Will manual document review and keyword searches be replaced by computer-assisted coding?) to explain computer-assisted review.  He then detailed the parties’ negotiation of an agreed protocol for the computer-assisted review for this case.  The Court accepted the defendants’ proposal, which included seven iterative “seeding” reviews, but included the following caveat:

“But if you get to the seventh round and [plaintiffs] are saying that the computer is still doing weird things, it’s not stabilized, etc., we need to do another round or two, either you will agree to that or you will both come in with the appropriate QC information and everything else and [may be ordered to] do another round or two or five or 500 or whatever it takes to stabilize the system.”

The opinion also included a section entitled “Further Analysis and Lessons for the Future” in which several, more general topics surrounding computer-assisted review were addressed.  Judge Peck recognized that “computer-assisted review is not a magic, Staples-Easy-Button, solution appropriate for all cases” and noted that “[t]he goal is for the review method to result in higher recall and higher precision than another review method, at a cost proportionate to the ‘value’ of the case” (referenced in the article Technology-Assisted Review in E-Discovery Can Be More Effective and More Efficient Than Exhaustive Manual Review, written by Maura R. Grossman & Gordon V. Cormack).

In his conclusion, Judge Peck noted:

“This Opinion appears to be the first in which a Court has approved of the use of computer-assisted review.  That does not mean computer-assisted review must be used in all cases, or that the exact ESI protocol approved here will be appropriate in all future cases that utilize computer-assisted review.  Nor does this Opinion endorse any vendor … nor any particular computer-assisted review tool.  What the Bar should take away from this Opinion is that computer-assisted review is an available tool and should be seriously considered for use in large-data-volume cases where it may save the producing party (or both parties) significant amounts of legal fees in document review.  Counsel no longer have to worry about being the “first” or “guinea pig” for judicial acceptance of computer-assisted review.  As with keywords or any other technological solution to e-discovery, counsel must design an appropriate process, including use of available technology, with appropriate quality control testing, to review and produce relevant ESI while adhering to Rule 1 and Rule 26(b)(2)(C) proportionality.  Computer-assisted review now can be considered judicially-approved for use in appropriate cases.”

For those in the industry yearning for case law that addresses the approved use of technology assisted review methodologies, Judge Peck’s in-depth discussion of the topic and conclusion appears to address that need.  It will be interesting to see how this case continues and whether additional discussion of the methodology will be discussed in case filings!

So, what do you think?  Is it high time for courts to recognize and approve computer-assisted review or is the court system still not ready for technology based approaches?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

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