The consulting firm was able to reduce costs on their document review project in two key ways: 1) By using Peak Discovery's automatic to-the-minute billing through Peak Review Metrics, which tracked unproductive time and deducted it from billing, saving 10% on labor costs. 2) By analyzing historical reviewer performance data to select the most productive and accurate reviewers, and tracking metrics in Peak Review Metrics, the firm was able to boost productivity, accuracy, and document review rates by 25%, finishing the project in 12 weeks instead of 16 and reducing total costs by 25%. When combined, these two strategies helped the consulting firm reduce the total project cost by 35%.

1. Document Review Case Studies from Peak Discovery
Case Study#1
Save 10% on labor costs with automatic to-the-minute billing*
Our client, a consulting firm, was approached by a company to conduct a document review requiring 30
reviewers for 16 weeks. Desiring to impress this new client, the consulting firm was intent on keeping
costs down and duration short. The consulting firm, being aware that labor was by far the biggest
expense on any document review, began searching for a vendor that could provide the productivity gains they
would need to achieve their goals.
The consulting firm’s project managers were aware that
approximately 30 minutes of productivity is lost per day,
per employee. The aggregate comes from acceptable human
behavior such as personal phone calls, personal bathroom and
hygiene breaks, internet activities etc. Another area of concern
for the firm’s project managers was the industry’s standard
methods for timekeeping and billing. They understood that
timekeeping is open to reviewer subjectivity when inputting
hours into paper or electronic timecards (e.g. rounding down
to 9:00am when arriving at 9:06am) and that even if the employee
is exact when inputting hours, staffing firms tend to round
employee minutes to the quarter hour in their favor when billing.
The firm’s project managers reached out to their traditional vendors and further afield to see if a solution
could be found to the problem. Upon entering a discussion with Peak Discovery, the firm was introduced to
a software program called Peak Review Metrics (PRM). A free program, offered on suitable projects staffed
through Peak Discovery – it provides the client with cost control features such as automatic to-the-
minute billing. Peak Discovery’s to-the-minute billing tracks each unproductive minute and automatically
deducts the cost. This meant a saving of 10% in labor costs as the firm only paid for time reviewers
spent engaged in productive work. PRM would generate further cost savings
once the review commenced, details of which can be found in Case Study #2.
Peak Review Metrics is platform agnostic and provides productivity, accuracy
and cost metrics for the document review process. It is easily installed and
intuitive in its use so there is no downtime and no training required. Visit:
www.PeakDiscovery.com/Metrics.html

2. Case Study#2
Boost productivity, accuracy and document decision rate by 25%*
After commencing work on the project from case study #1, the consulting firm wanted to explore options
that would further reduce costs and improve productivity and accuracy on the review. The recruitment
of document review staff is critical in its importance but rarely addressed through a scientific approach.
More often than not the recruiters rely on resumes, references and intuition to make their decisions.
By utilizing the historical database in Peak Review Metrics, Peak Discovery’s project managers were
able to analyze the previous two year’s data that detailed reviewer accuracy, productivity, platforms and
subject matter to conclude that the average reviewer made 600 document decisions in a regular 8 hour
day. Furthermore, they used the same data to identify individual reviewers whose high levels of accuracy
and competence with the client’s hosted linear review tool and
subject matter made them suitable to this particular project. The
subsequent productivity improvement saw the average number
of document decisions rise from 600 to 800. In addition,
higher overall accuracy resulted in lower QC costs.
The improved levels of productivity saw the project finished
in 12 weeks instead of the originally forecast 16. The shorter
duration alone reduced total cost by 25%.
When the cost savings from Case Study #1 of 10% are added
to the 25% from Case Study #2, the consulting firm was able
to reduce the total project cost by 35%.
About Peak Review Metrics
Peak Review Metrics, a proprietary software tool, provides an unmatched level of cost, accuracy and productivity
insight into the document review process. Acting as a dashboard, it contains multiple reporting functions
to track individual and group metrics. Platform agnostic, it provides an historical perspective, accelerates
decision making, improves productivity and gives law firms or corporate legal departments cost control and
real-time metrics. With Peak Review Metrics, reviewer performance, project management, QC and project
duration can all be observed and controlled resulting in large time and cost savings. Best of all, Peak Review
Metrics is available at no cost on projects staffed through Peak Discovery.
Peak Discovery, Inc.
HQ: 25 West 31st Street, 11th Fl. New York, NY 10001
Tel: (212) 792-7600
www.PeakDiscovery.com
* Case studies are for educational purpose only.
Percentages are based on forecasted versus actual cost.
The figures should be used as a guide only.
All information © Peak Discovery, Inc.