Outsourcing Discovery

Business Week has an example.  This one involves DuPont using Filipino attorneys (some U.S.-trained) to review documents, but there’s no obvious reason it couldn’t be used in document-intensive tort cases by both sides; basically one step removed from the contract attorneys defendants often use for document coding.

It’s interesting to consider the financial implications for big cases.  The difference in costs seems unlikely to make an otherwise-unattractive case attractive, but (if they do a reasonable job) it could fairly significantly improve profit margins and the speed with which large numbers of documents could get reviewed.  It might also be a better immediate use for overseas attorneys than doing U.S. legal research, even when the attorneys are in common law countries.