Your single source for new lessons on legal technology, e-discovery, and the people innovating behind the scenes.

The e-Discovery Community Hones an Innovative Spirit to Move Forward

Mary Rechtoris

This year has posed challenges for all of us. Whether learning how to navigate the intersection of home and work life or reimagining how to engage your teams in this remote work, we have had to pivot our working styles and routines. But many of us have also found opportunities within these challenges.

At Relativity Fest, we highlighted some of the ways our customers have embodied this innovative spirit—tackling new challenges that have arisen this year, or taking on old challenges in new ways using technology. The theme of this year’s event is forward, and these customers showcased it perfectly.

Here are a few examples of industry all-stars who are moving forward during this time.

Taking on the Challenges of Today

With the pandemic, many teams have had to rethink the way they conduct business. For RelativityOne Partner Morae Global, one answer has been forging a new partnership with London-based staffing agency The Stephen James Partnership. Their partnership brings remote e-discovery and document review solutions to the UK—something that was traditionally done in a physical location.

“The core of the SJP-Morae partnership is premised on our secure remote review virtual desktop, bringing SJP’s top talent into RelativityOne,” said Patrick Kellermann, head of UK managed services at Morae. “I think remote reviews are here to stay for some time and beyond COVID. And what we are seeing is an increase in quality and pace of output.”

For Deloitte, their innovation to combat a challenge came to fruition in a workflow built on RelativityOne. To assess which costs were recoverable from payers, Deloitte built a tracking system in RelativityOne so they could note COVID-related medical expenses.

And at DLA Piper, they were encountering a new kind of challenge. With the onset of COVID, state and local governments were issuing mandates impacting businesses in unusual ways. Mandates could include guidance as to how many people were allowed in facilities, for example.

“The first COVID order that I became aware of was from the mayor of Hoboken, issued via Twitter,” said Barbara Taylor, chief knowledge officer, DLA Piper.  

The mandates were increasing and evolving. To help their clients understand how they impacted their business operations, Director of Litigation Support John Hogan and his team built a workflow on Relativity to track this information. With the tool, DLA Piper was able to capture, classify, and tag more than 9,000 state and local directives from mid-March to June 30.

Working Faster, Not Harder

As the way we work evolves, so does the technology we use. Last year, Relativity made a commitment to building an intuitive interface called Aero. Several of our partners and customers have played a key role in helping us create and iterate on Aero to ensure it is making their lives as efficient as possible. Customers including Array, Control Risks, CMS, and Broadcom are already seeing results with the new design.

Case teams at Control Risks have been able to save five hours a week, on average. In fact, their clients are remarking on how quickly the team is able to turn around work.

Joanne Fung, principal at Control Risks, noted: “On several occasions, we’ve had clients come back to us and say, ‘Wow. We did not expect for you to complete that task so soon. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.’ And I think a large part of that is due to the time savings resulting from using Aero.”

CMS finds that they are saving 30 minutes, on average, in their ability to set up cases so attorneys can review documents. With that time saved, case teams can dive deeper and investigate the data more effectively with the help of dashboards and widgets.

“Time is priceless,” said Janet Cruz, e-discovery project specialist and senior paralegal, litigation and government affairs at Broadcom. “If you can get back a nugget of your time to spend on other projects or with family, that is key.”

It was inspiring to learn about the myriad ways our customers are getting creative and moving forward during this time. The e-discovery community’s commitment to innovation and forward-thinking makes this industry well positioned to meet the complex challenges of today and tomorrow.

Don't Miss More Stories Like These


Mary Rechtoris is a senior producer on the brand team at Relativity, where she's always collaborating and looking for new ways to develop and socialize stories.

The latest insights, trends, and spotlights — directly to your inbox.

The Relativity Blog covers the latest in legal tech and compliance, professional development topics, and spotlights on the many bright minds in our space. Subscribe today to learn something new, stay ahead of emerging tech, and up-level your career.

Interested in being one of our authors? Learn more about how to contribute to The Relativity Blog.