Practice Areas: Discovery Counsel Services

As one of the nation’s most experienced firms in the increasingly vital practice of information retention and management, McGuireWoods partners with our clients to build customized solutions to their discovery needs that fit their specific circumstances. Unless a law firm has been through this process numerous times, in different industries and with a variety of clients, it is difficult to advise a company on the best way to plan, choose, lead, implement, monitor and maintain an effective system and overall approach to discovery. McGuireWoods has the experience and team to guide our clients to success in all aspects of discovery, from regulatory compliance to complex litigation support.

McGuireWoods provides such guidance through our Discovery Counsel Services practice, which offers resources, both human and technological, to assist clients increase efficiency, drive down costs and enhance the quality of all discovery-related activities. McGuireWoods’ Discovery Counsel Services group includes a large team of lawyers – including partners, counsel, associates and staff attorneys – who devote their practices exclusively to discovery issues. Many firms have litigators who manage discovery issues in their large cases, but McGuireWoods has a deep team of lawyers that perform these services full time for their litigation clients and for other companies who hire McGuireWoods to handle the discovery issues, while another firm handles the merits. In short, as discovery counsel, we help prevent litigation from becoming about discovery rather than the merits and resolution of the case.

Our Discovery Counsel Services practice offers a full scope of capabilities, including counseling services such as compliance reviews, risk analyses, document retention and e-discovery policy formation; and litigation support that ranges from large-scale document collection and first-pass reviews to substantive trial activities such as fact analysis and witness preparation for depositions. We are accustomed to serving as both merits and discovery counsel on complex litigation, and have the depth of resources to assign work at appropriate staffing levels to ensure quality while managing costs to the lowest possible level. We work with our clients to find practical solutions to handling e-discovery that both comply with the e-discovery rules and meet clients’ business needs. We also are comfortable collaborating with other law firms on complex matters, and serve as National Discovery Counsel to some of the world’s largest companies.

Litigation Services

At McGuireWoods our litigators have been handling discovery issues – both electronic and otherwise – for many years and understand how discovery can affect litigation. With more than 400 litigators firm-wide, McGuireWoods is well-versed in procedures that streamline routine aspects of class action litigation work and enable clients to develop a consistent, efficient approach to litigation.

McGuireWoods has a great deal of experience handling document collection and discovery for large, national companies in multiple-issue and multiple-defendant cases. This experience includes a range of the issues that regularly confront complex companies, including white collar defense in civil litigation and before the SEC, securities litigation, action claims in both the securities and fiduciary duty contexts and consumer financial services issues. Our attorneys have in-depth experience not only in preparing and responding to pleadings and motions, but also in preparing procedural and substantive motions, taking and defending depositions, and selecting and working with expert witnesses.

McGuireWoods’ e-discovery team works alongside clients to help them address the issues of electronic discovery when potential litigation arises, and proactively helps clients ensure e-discovery issues are considered as they routinely manage corporate data. During litigation, the team helps our clients find cost-effective ways of collecting, reviewing and producing documents and finding the documents that will help our clients win the case or achieve a favorable settlement.

National Discovery Counsel

McGuireWoods serves as National Discovery Counsel to some of the world’s largest companies. An effective NDC must realize that different states, and different courts within each state, require different formats and strategies for crafting responses. In a multi-state context, NDC must appreciate these differences and be careful not to become too reliant on the “cookie-cutter” approach that may violate local rules or practices. That said, it is important to standardize the substance of discovery responses and pleadings for reasons of accuracy, overall quality, consistency and efficiency.

As NDC, we help clients:

• Standardize discovery responses in recurring cases, while taking into account local rules and unique issues that may arise.
• Identify and prepare effective written discovery, protective orders, objections and motions, and leverage existing work products.
• Replicate precise and accurate answers and objections in discovery responses nationally.
• Track rulings on objections – particularly privilege objections – to prevent costly and repetitive discovery disputes.
• Follow the rules, maintain the trust of courts and opposing counsel, and avoid sanctions.

Perhaps most importantly, our discovery strategy is to attempt to avoid expensive discovery fights in court. The changes to the Federal Rules, and the federal opinions that have been published since then, stress the need for cooperation between the parties and transparency in the discovery process. Early negotiation of e-discovery issues can resolve many issues before they develop into disputes. Correctly predicting courts’ expectations and then making a written record of attempts to meet those expectations and obligations under the rules is essential for winning discovery disputes.

E-Discovery Capabilities

Ever-expanding volumes of electronic data have drastically increased litigation costs and forced companies to study their document retention and destruction plans. Discovery mishaps can turn an otherwise meritorious case into a litigation nightmare. To respond to this, McGuireWoods created a national e-discovery team long before the new federal rules achieved Supreme Court approval.

Recognized in the field of e-discovery, these McGuireWoods lawyers offer the legal experience, technological knowledge and excellent client service needed to deal with any e-discovery challenge they encounter. Our e-discovery team works alongside clients to help them address the issues of electronic discovery when potential litigation arises, and proactively helps clients ensure e-discovery issues are considered as they routinely manage corporate data. During litigation, the team helps our clients find cost-effective ways of collecting, reviewing and producing documents and finding the documents that will help our clients win the case or achieve a favorable settlement.

We maintain two off-site e-discovery facilities, one in Charlotte and one in Richmond, which can house up to 220 reviewers at a time. Our e-discovery team is comprised of dedicated attorneys who handle e-discovery full time to leverage experience with the processes and technology. Our proprietary review process and use of state-of-the art technology yields accurate, efficient results.

We use technology to bring clients optimal benefits through efficiency in communication via e-mail; case management systems; real-time, online meetings; and videoconferencing. Through knowledge management initiatives such as our extranet service McGuireWoods Connect, we share information and documents with clients quickly and securely, regardless of geography, and without time constraints.

Working with our clients, our team creates a customized plan that takes into account the specific nature of the project matter at hand, the volume and types of electronic information involved, and confidentiality and security concerns, among other factors. We apply our experience to implement sophisticated protocols and methods including computerized systems for ESI, documents, written discovery and depositions.

Our e-discovery team invests a significant amount of time testing e-discovery platforms, and we do so at our own cost. For example, we have tested numerous products including Clearwell, MetaLINCS, DiscoveryMining, and ClarVergence. We have experience on numerous e-discovery platforms such as Attenex, Stratify, Kroll Ontrack, IConnect, Casevault, Introspect, Applied Discovery, Summation and Concordance, among others.

Discovery Counseling & Compliance Services

Because McGuireWoods represents so many large companies, the firm is often asked to lead document retention program efforts. We have become skilled at working within the information management culture of the client, balancing cost, utility, and function to arrive at program recommendations that at the same time satisfy the client and the complex requirements of the legal and regulatory systems. Our philosophy is to work as one with the clients’ records managers, technology providers and training personnel to ensure the document retention program viability within the corporate systems.

Our expertise has led to a national reputation for assisting clients create formalized records retention process, including legal hold and other policies designed to ensure consistent application of protocols and company-wide compliance with applicable state and national laws and regulatory guidelines.

Compliance Assessment

Designed by our e-discovery team, this proprietary assessment is designed to review clients’ businesses, structures and document retention policies so that we may identify areas of non-compliance. We also focus on the processes currently in place as well as strategies going forward to ensure compliance with the new regulations. McGuireWoods compliance assessment can prevent unnecessary disclosure, control costs and avoid discovery or evidentiary sanctions.

This analysis of a company’s current situation can identify both significant and minor areas of non-compliance. McGuireWoods focuses on the following areas:

• Policy – Does the company have the right rules in place?
• Procedure – Are people knowledgeable of the policy and their roles; are safeguards in place to ensure compliance?
• Integration – Are IT and legal departments on the same page?
• Technology – Does the company know where information exists and how to find and protect it?

McGuireWoods lawyers also focus on strategy, making sure a company understands how the Rules affect litigation. Our approach ensures our clients have an understanding of the new rules so that they may take best advantage of them and interpret the implications the rules will have on future litigation.