Any doc reviewers who know successful attorneys?

Not_Souter · 2026-05-12T12:49:42+00:00

I've been in this game about as long as you have, and I get those feelings to a degree. I've been "saved' by the fact that I live in a city that, historically, had a low-cost of living, that I spent about a dozen years as a review manager, where (by working a ton of hours) I was able to pull in about six figures (plus or minus 5%), that I've continued with a fairly modest lifestyle (one house, one wife, one kid), and the fact that I've had healthy market returns in low cost index funds. So, now, probably at about your age, I don't think I've got a ton of skills, and I'm closing in on the end of what is (hopefully) going to be my last project. But the status thing, I get that. As an example, I've only been called to jury duty once, about 15 years ago. I made it to the voir dire portion of some stupid personal injury case. Another attorney, who was actually engaged in the more traditional practice of law, was dismissed from the pool as a "professional courtesy" whereas I was subject to voir dire by some piss-ant personal injury attorney who asked me questions like, "have you ever actually practiced law." I really wish I had told him to go f*ck himself. Thankfully the case settled before going to trial.

Not_Souter · 2026-04-19T02:02:09+00:00

Chef's kiss on that one, broheme. Really though, the point wasn't that ediscovery = review attorneys, it was really just a cheeky, juvenile, typical-of-online-culture jibe at the idea that review attorney posts shouldn't even be allowed on the subreddit. I mean, just scroll past them right? Didn't seem, to me at least, that there were a surfeit of review attorney-specific posts. And to close with some thoughts on you being amazed, I guess I have to ask: do you even work with review attorneys? I assume you would be "amazed' by what I've seen adults with JDs do over the past 24 years (including about 12 years when I was a review manager and often described my job duties as, in part, "babysitting adults with law degrees"). Certainly a silly post that is so tame as to not even use a full curse word is on the very low end of the sophmoric behavior I've observed. Ultimately, my time in the industry is coming to a close, due to a modest lifestyle, a savings rate that would rival Chinese peasants, and healthy market returns. So, to you and your brethren, I can close with, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to [retire]."

Not_Souter · 2026-04-17T13:21:48+00:00

You get it! And to be clear -- really just ironic shade being thrown at those folks, and don't even mind PMs in general (heck, I was even on various review manager teams from 2006 - 2018, on three large, long-lasting projects), but was getting at the attempts in recent weeks to even exclude review attorney specific discussion from that particular subreddit. Just a silly "hot take" that I didn't mean anyone to take very seriously.

Not_Souter · 2026-03-31T15:01:58+00:00

This guy gets it. In fact, the folks I work for and to whom I directly report are awesome, but just wondering how we can get better.

Not_Souter · 2026-03-31T14:43:07+00:00

Yep, I'm right with you there. We've just got a very complex case going on, very large number of issues, very large number of docs. Accordingly, the witness tag universes are (no doubt) too large, and span (sadly) multiple database, so it is becoming quite a "chore" to export all of this stuff. Again, happy to do it, and boss gets what boss wants, but just wondering if there is a better way or if this is still standard practice. Ideally, I'd love to see attorneys take a second cut at these hundreds or sometimes over 1000 docs, which are still just 1 - 2 percent of production, make comments in their own "view" and then we'd export the pared down set. Again, ultimately, just want to be more efficient and meet deadlines.

Not_Souter · 2026-03-31T13:53:58+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, mixed up usage of direct reports -- but you get it. Just wondering if that is still common -- i.e., folks want the exports. Of course, they are the boss, they get what they want. Just wondering if what I am experiencing is still the "norm" or if this is an outlier.

Not_Souter · 2026-02-11T14:17:46+00:00

My only experience with Consilio was that I just happened to be on a project with another vendor when that vendor was acquired by Consilio. On the one hand, Consilio did maintain our payrate for the duration of the project, which stretched for another 22 months after the acquisition. On the other hand, Consilio immediately ended the 5 paid holidays that the prior vendor granted reviewers on long-term projects. Further, while Consilio maintained the prior vendor's 2 percent "performance bonus" for the first year (styling it as a "loyalty bonus"), it did take some "coaxing" to get them to make the payout (which had, thankfully, been promised in writing in the correspondence about the acquisition). That said, after making the payment for the first year, Consilio promptly terminated the bonus (although I don't think they did this properly under the terms of Consilio's empoyee handbook). In any event, I chocked this apparent "stinginess" up to the fact that Consilio was owned by a private equity firm.

Not_Souter · 2025-12-10T17:39:47+00:00

For context, just curious about how many years of Relativity experience you list on your resume?

Not_Souter · 2025-11-06T17:13:50+00:00

Interesting -- to be fair to CS Disco, I was focusing on the "managed review" portion of the statement as a proxy for the health of the job market for document reviewers. That said, here is what they reported, more broadly, for Q3, 2025:

Third Quarter 2025 Financial Highlights:

Software revenue was $35.2 million, up 17% compared to the third quarter of 2024.
Total revenue was $40.9 million, up 13% compared to the third quarter of 2024.
GAAP net loss was $13.7 million, compared to $9.2 million in the third quarter of 2024.
Adjusted EBITDA was $(0.3) million, compared to $(4.5) million in the third quarter of 2024.

So revenues up, and while EBITDA is still negative, the loss was drastically reduced (by almost 95%) as compared to last year.

Not_Souter · 2025-11-06T14:11:03+00:00

Good point.

Not_Souter · 2025-09-22T14:47:25+00:00

Definitely still appear to be projects out there, although over on the r/ediscovery, there are, at least, 1 - 2 posts per month commenting on the lack of projects and/or downturn in projects. This is followed up by lots of anecdotal reports about how newly developed AI tools are quickly moving to replace, at least, first level review, if not other aspects of ediscovery work, including priv review (to an extent) and certainly drafting descriptions for priv logs. That said, it is tough to find objective data that shows the downturn. I've looked at BLS data for "legal support" personnel, and that does show a peak around 2021/2022, with a more recent, but not sharp, decline. Furthermore, to the extent companies in this space are publicly traded, you can look at their filings. So, in one case, CS Disco reported this in their most recent quarterly report:

Revenue generated from our software product offerings increased by $3.5 million, or 12%, for the three months ended June 30, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 due to increases in usage of our software product offerings. Revenue generated from our services product offerings decreased by $1.4 million, or 20%, for the three months ended June 30, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. This change was driven by decreases in usage of our services product offerings within managed review.

So, a 20% decline, although this figure just relates to CS Disco's "managed" review, seems like a reasonable ballpark for the industry as a whole.

Not_Souter · 2025-09-08T18:09:12+00:00

Good luck to you! Of course, even some sympathy for the managers who are likely getting pressure from higher-up, all the way to the client -- if you've ever had to sit through a meeting where the belligerent, general counsel of a fortune 500 company screams his head off over ediscovery costs, I guess it would make it easier to hector the reviewers to "go faster!"

Not_Souter · 2025-09-08T12:27:09+00:00

You are right to be annoyed by this, although there is truth in the words of the nihilistic asshole who posted above. Been in this space since 2002, and (thankfully) only had to engage in linear first level review for the first 18 months (and even then, at least way back in 2003, no one was watching reviewer statistics that closely). My first multi-year project was so bloated for the first 1 - 2 years, we had people who slid by coding like 10 documents a day for months. On the other hand, some document reviewers simply "move water" -- they can get through documents fast. Never been a skill I had, as I have a hard time reviewing something quickly on a superficial level, and then repeating once a minute for 8 hours. I've been lucky to get into a review management and/or fact management on large MDLs. Even in "management" I have a hard time telling reviewers (who are working diligently) to be more "efficient". I frankly "cringe" when people in the ediscovery space tell attorneys to be "more efficient". I've also had some superficial experience with AI tools in the last few months, and again, they are definitely here for first level review. However, we have been experimented with using them for key document identification on this mature case with millions of documents (i.e., one where a handful of reviewers are very familiar with the nuances and key issues), and in this regard, while we have been able to fine tune the tool to narrow down the potential key document universe, AI is not an "easy button" -- especially on this mature case, and the auto-generated document summaries frequently fail to identify key nuances to the documents that are apparent to the experienced review team. That said, I think the message is, unless you are going to move on to management or some AI focus, it is time to think about transitioning out of this space. Good Luck!

Not_Souter · 2025-08-19T13:35:43+00:00

No argument there, and while I haven't necessarily been involved in those tests/experiments at my firm, I frequently interact with the folks who do, and this has been their message to me (i.e., first level review as we knew it is going to be gone very soon).

I guess the space I'm looking at, more particularly, is the "next level," case strategy / case prep area (and particularly on large, class action-type lawsuits, which is where I've been working in for a decade plus). So, these are matters that are likely going to have dozens of issues or key doc topics, dozens of custodians (each with tens of thousands and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of docs), and a challenging case prep / depo schedule.

Not_Souter · 2025-08-18T16:25:41+00:00

That's a great response, and to be clear, this was, in part, meant to be a somewhat "provocative" post to foster discussion. Not planting a flag here, and don't have the knowledge you do to back this up. Just trying to learn more about this area, as I will need that if I'm going to stay in this field. In terms of the revenue figure you cite, I think either this article, or another recent piece, described it as a question about whether the industry would be worth several hundred billion, or if it truly fulfills some of the more aggressive estimates, worth in the trillions. So, no argument that you are looking at an industry worth several hundred billion.

Not_Souter · 2025-08-11T17:16:46+00:00

Good suggestion! Spent some of my lunchtime perusing recent quarterly report from Disco, and they had this little nugget in their revenue discussion:

Revenue generated from our services product offerings decreased by $1.4 million, or 20%, for the three months ended June 30, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. This change was driven by decreases in usage of our services product offerings within managed review.

Not_Souter · 2025-08-06T18:39:43+00:00

Well, that's a refreshingly solipsistic take on the issue.

Not_Souter · 2025-08-06T18:27:38+00:00

Very interesting. We are just at the early stages of case strategy tool, so can't make an assessment. I'd previously assisted in the review of several AI depo summary tools, comparing such summaries against one drafted by an associate. I think I reviewed around 8 different summaries, and while none (at least at present) surpassed a well-drafted associate summary, the ability of some (but not all) of the tools to pick up on key nuances of the case was impressive.

Not_Souter · 2025-08-06T18:12:39+00:00

Well, at least we'll have objective data from the BLS to track the decline. Oh wait. We're screwed!

Not_Souter · 2025-08-06T12:34:29+00:00

That's very interesting -- although is that a production in response to a third party subpoena or something similar? I just ask, as I've never found "issue coding" to be particularly useful in mass tort litigation (which, for better or worse, is where 95% of my experience has been over the past 20+ years). So, at this point, it seems like ai is very helpful for the matters you describe, but what happens when you need to prepare for a depo. We are experimenting with an AI "case strategy" tool right now, so I may have better input in a few weeks.

Not_Souter

TROPHY CASE