Document review appears to be a key area for growth in the near future. As per recent KPMG study that calculated that document review accounts for 58 to 90 percent of litigation costs in the United States. Applying a baseline of $4.9 billion as the cost of litigation support at the top 200 law firms in the United States in 2006, and assuming 60 percent of the figure represents document review, the math produces a potential annual market of almost $3 billion, which suggests huge potential growth in legal sourcing going forward. When a client can choose to have a first-cut document review done by associates billed out at nearly $300 per hour, or at $60 per hour via a legal sourcing firm with no loss of quality, what client won’t insist on realizing the cost savings?

DuPont has been an industry pioneer in assigning large-scale document reviews to attorneys in the Philippines. There are many well-established providers that have embraced the ethical guidelines set out by the ABA and are currently delivering quality work in India. Law firms and in-house counsel are increasingly turning to legal sourcing in the normal course. Clifford Chance is operating a captured offshore office, the “Knowledge Centre,” which has reportedly worked on over 300 client projects in its first year of operation.