cipal with the Forensic Technology practice at PwC. “On
the discovery side, there’s a great deal of uncertainty on
the part of companies and their outside counsel about
how the company can meet its obligations and, at the
same time, control costs. We are working with many of
these companies to meet these objectives, and innovative
tools like Stratify can be a big part of that.”
A thorough evaluation
PwC evaluated many of the leading technology providers
in its search for support of its delivery of eDiscovery
services.
“PwC started with a methodical assessment of the
eDiscovery market and its players,” says Steve Whetstone, Stratify’s vice president of Client Development and
Strategy. PwC’s due diligence included talking to many
law firms and corporate users, including current Stratify
customers and prospects.
“PwC left no stone unturned before concluding for
itself and its customers that Stratify would be a significant improvement over prior eDiscovery approaches and
other market options,” Whetstone continues. Stratify’s
in-depth support for complex languages (including Japanese, Chinese and Korean) was another winning factor,
and PwC recognized that Stratify was technologically
ahead of the pack in this regard. Due to the global nature
of litigation today, more than a third of all Stratify’s
engagements require substantial foreign language data
processing and support.
As a final test before signing the joint business agreement, teams from both organizations worked on a live
situation to ensure they would work well together. “We
were delighted that Stratify passed this final exam, and
with flying colors,” states Whetstone.
“Both the technology and the ‘can do’ attitude of Stratify’s team were key factors in why we decided to establish a
joint business relationship with Stratify,” says Wycliff.
Joining forces
In the first six months of the relationship, PwC and Stratify
teamed on approximately 15 active matters, and many others are in process. One recent engagement shows the synergy of the two companies when time is of the essence.
In this case, outside counsel for a large, global company
engaged Stratify after the law firm received notice of a fast-moving government inquiry. The initial call was made on
a Wednesday. After contracting with the client, Stratify
immediately reached out to PwC for assistance through the
joint business arrangement. They hit the ground running,
sending a team of forensic technology professionals to the
client’s primary office site and other locations around the
country. By the weekend, PwC had collected and transferred
several million pages to Stratify, which then intelligently
processed and organized those previously unstructured
files into the Stratify Legal Discovery™ service. Just one
week after first learning of the matter, PwC and Stratify
had identified, collected, extracted, transferred, loaded and
conceptually organized the massive data set so that teams
of lawyers could begin their expedited review. Working
together, PwC and Stratify were able to control potential
runaway eDiscovery costs and protracted timetables while
facilitating a more focused and efficient review.
Says Vivian Tero, program manager for Compliance
Infrastructure at the market analyst firm IDC: “The PwC
and Stratify joint business relationship is an exciting new
development that should have a significant impact on
the eDiscovery market. With the consulting skills and
global reach of PwC and Stratify’s advanced eDiscovery
solution capabilities, the joint business relationship has
the potential to alter the traditional consultant-review
platform landscape substantially.”
What lies ahead
PwC sees the goal of enabling lawyers to be more productive coming to fruition when the Stratify Legal Discovery
service is implemented at a client company.
Wycliff says that one PwC manager reported that in
her first engagement working with the Stratify service
and its advanced features, the document review was performed about three times faster than it previously would
have taken using traditional tools. Stratify’s technology
helped PwC and the client to identify near duplicates and
utilize concept organization, thereby dramatically increasing productivity versus purely traditional linear (keyword
and manual) review.
“PwC excels in upstream challenges,” Whetstone says.
“They regularly advise on records retention and data protection best practices, so clients are ready for eDiscovery
requests even before the duty to preserve triggers and the
real data challenges arise. Together, PwC, Iron Mountain
and Stratify have the entire data life cycle covered. From
file creation, capture and storage; to preservation and
collection; to processing, review and analysis; through to
production; to access and recovery; we are in a unique
position to provide our combined experienced advice to
our many mutual clients and new clients as well.
“The market’s reaction to this joint business relationship has exceeded our initial expectations,” he adds. “But
the best is yet to come.” ▲
MARIA DOYLE is a freelance technology writer based in
Massachusetts.
The information contained in this document is provided “as is,” for general guidance
on matters of interest only. PricewaterhouseCoopers is not herein engaged in rendering
legal, accounting, tax or other professional advice and services. Before making any
decision or taking any action, you should consult a competent professional advisor.
© 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. All rights reserved. “PricewaterhouseCoopers”
refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP or, as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network or other member firms of the network, each of which is a
separate and independent legal entity.
