We built the DCG specifically to respond to the need for cost-effective, high quality document review. There are many uncertainties (if not risks) associated with allowing unknown, temporary, contract attorneys to make critical decisions (relevance, privilege, trade secret, etc.) about litigation; decisions that could impact the success of any defense or prosecution. Within our own firm, the traditional contract attorney model made many of our partners nervous. We eliminated this uncertainly and concern by creating a practice group with a full staff of attorneys whose practice is dedicated entirely to document review. Doing so has given us the ability to offer the best of both worlds - quality associate-level staff attorneys at extremely competitive "contract attorney" rates.

The fact is the great majority of our DCG attorneys have five or more years of experience, many with more than 10. In order to keep our staff fully intact we turned our group outward, offering our services to organizations that share our concern about the traditional contract attorney program. Thus, the overwhelming majority of the DCG's work now comes from supporting corporate legal departments, vendors, consultants and other law firms.

How Can The DCG Be So Confident About The Quality Of Its Reviewers?

All our staff attorneys are recruited, trained, and supervised by our project managers. We screen and hire staff attorneys with the mindset that they need to be talented enough to make important decisions for our own firm. Yes, they are a part of our firm and not specifically hired for your project. We are very selective in who we hire into our firm. We have eliminated hundreds of applicants as not being qualified by training, education or experience to make decisions for and on behalf of our firm.

Not all smart lawyers are good document review attorneys - we have rejected Ph.D.s, ivy-league graduates, in-house attorneys, law firm partners, and FBI agents. We are extremely selective and we put all staff attorneys through rigorous training.

Our attorneys are the foundation of our group and are professionals in every sense. We are extremely proud of the work we do and we take extreme pride in knowing that we can out-perform any other similarly situated group, anywhere in the world.

Is There A Lot Of Turnover Among Your Review Team?

The DCG boasts a very low turnover rate. This is due in large part to our pre-hire screening and training programs, but much of the credit goes to our staff attorneys themselves. As a practical matter, many contract attorneys undertake document review work while interviewing for a more permanent position. We gravitate away from those types of people and focus instead on attorneys who have practiced for several years and are now looking for a career that allows more flexibility or a different lifestyle. Our attorneys tend to stay with us.

In addition, our system of integrated staffing eliminates the traditional turn over problem associated with contract attorney reviews, i.e., leaving before a project is finished because a better or longer lasting project came along. That is not the case with us. We keep our staff attorneys busy on a variety of available projects.

Who Supervises Attorneys And What Role Does The Client Play?

A Shareholder oversees every project the DCG is involved in, offering services from complete project management (extraction and processing vendor coordination, e-discovery consulting, etc.) to simple review management. In addition, every project has team leaders who are responsible for training, daily productivity goals, quality control, and overall project administration. Many of our clients also log in remotely to check productivity and randomly review the teams' work. Some clients have an associate from their firm present in our office to participate in the review - a practice we openly welcome.

Do You Offer High Speed Technology To Enable Effective And Efficient Review?

The DCG review facility has fully dedicated high speed T-1 lines. We use state-of-the-art computers and all staff attorneys are trained on multiple review technologies, including Stratify^TM, Attenex^TM, Clearwell^TM, Concordance^TM, and Summation^TM. To the extent we incorporate a new review technology, we assume responsibility for the training at no cost to the client.

Do Your Clients Have The Ability To Quality Control Or Monitor Review In Real Time?

We have various quality control processes in place. The availability of those different mechanisms is dependent in great part on the technology used to review. For example, Stratify^TM technology offers exceptional administrative oversight to our team leaders allowing them to monitor productivity and check overall accuracy. Key word search capabilities and presumptive filtering allows us to minimize the possibility of missing privileged or relevant documents.

Is The Cost Of The DCG Review Competitive With That Of Other Legal Services Companies?

The DCG offers competitive hourly rates for document review (electronic and paper) that are significantly less than the rates charged by law firms and document review services in many metropolitan cities. Our rates include the review facility, attorney training, all necessary computer equipment, IT support, and high speed internet connectivity. There are never any hidden costs - no training costs, no overtime, no increased weekend rate, no increased holiday rate, no meal allowances, no travel allowances, or no parking allowances.

We do not offer "rock bottom" pricing and we do not engage in bidding wars. We offer high quality, professional document review and litigation support services at an extremely reasonable and competitive price.

You Are A Full Service Law Firm. We Are A Full Service Law Firm. Should I be Concerned About Sending My Clients to Another Law Firm?

A significant portion of the DCG's work comes from law firms that need someone with expertise in e-discovery matters and the staff to conduct document reviews, large and small, even on very short notice. For large multinational law firms that must assemble teams in multiple jurisdictions or smaller law firms that don't have the time or resources to assemble world class review teams, we are a perfect solution. Law firms that have retained us respond favorably to our involvement and see us as an incredible resource on discovery matters.

We work hard to earn the trust of our clients and appreciate the nature of our relationship with them.

If you have further questions please contact a member of our DCG at 602-440-4826.

Ryley Carlock & Applewhite, P.A., is a full service law firm offering strategic information management services ranging from corporate compliance to e-discovery project management.

Planning and Compliance - Including the development and implementation of records retention policies and schedules customized to your industry and precisely linked to the places your company engages in business to reduce over-retention and the corresponding costs and risk associated with over-retention

Policy Design - Including procedures for issuing and enforcing legal holds, email management, information and records lifecycle management, managing and safeguarding personally identifiable information, auditing and compliance, and proper disposal methods to protect privacy

Management of Legacy Data - physically organizing, indexing, retrieving, and where appropriate, properly disposing of archived and legacy data

Disposition Management - actually implementing a plan for disposition of information to ensure the protection of privacy, intellectual property, and other business proprietary information

Automating the Process - utilizing state-of-the-art technology developed by PSS Systems, Inc. to automate legal holds processes and implement enterprise retention management solutions that are legally compliant and precise. This reduces the risk and expense of over-retention of information.

Technology Solutions

With our legal services and PSS's Atlas Suite, companies can tackle their legacy issues and institutionalize good retention and preservation processes that are efficient and sustainable. Litigation staff can quickly identify which records are stored where, which records coordinators and IT staff have responsibility for the records repositories, and put relevant categories and ranges of records on hold. Records staff have instant notifications and visibility as to which records are on hold. With good retention and preservation programs, companies can reliably and consistently dispose of expired records and non-records to reduce operating costs and risk.

Discovery Project Management

Our litigation and e-discovery support center in Phoenix, Arizona hosts teams of attorneys who provide cutting-edge e-discovery support, including high-quality, cost-effective document reviews - reviewing for relevancy, privilege, confidentiality, issue content and general responsiveness. Our services are available whether we are litigation counsel or simply co-counsel on e-discovery matters.

Projects are staffed with trained team leaders and licensed attorneys using proven review processes (reviewing, indexing, cataloguing, and summarizing), proven quality-control processes, computers and document management software, and professional IT support.

Corporate wide e-discovery planning and preparedness training

Coordination of IT professionals to develop architecture mapping for litigation and discovery purposes

30 (b)(6) deposition and Rule 16 meet and confer preparation assistance

Extraction, processing, and production coordination

Complete e-discovery and traditional paper document review.

Whether you need to reduce ten million pages of electronic text to a manageable, responsive collection or you need final refinement of that responsive collection, our teams of attorneys deliver accurate results, on time.