Document-clustering software that reduces the costs of discovery

The bubbling cauldron that is electronic discovery these days intimidates me. Unless you are immersed in this turbulent field, the enormous variety of offerings and competing claims for excellence can deter even the most confident blogger. That said, it does seem to me that software for litigation discovery review that clusters together documents of similar content should advantage law departments. A piece in the Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, March 2008 at 8, mentions this software and offers a metric.

Discovery jacks up litigation costs dramatically (See my post of April 24, 2005.). Claiming that “a major component [of discovery] is the cost of review for production”, one contributor to the panel (a vendor) notes that “clustering technology allows reviewers to complete their work in one-half to one-third of the time, compared to traditional review applications.” If these productivity metrics are true, there must be some counter argument by other vendors or this technology would sweep the battlefield.