Big Pharma Relies on Lighthouse to Manage Complex eDiscovery

What They Needed

A large pharmaceutical client received subpoenas from several regulators. The subpoenas covered multiple product lines, implicated 60 custodians, and virtually all the company’s email. The client’s IT group identified over 35TBs of data requiring collection, processing, and review. Complicating matters further, the company had only 60 days to respond, well outside its estimated time of nine months to complete the project. Faced with this near impossible timeline, the client looked to Lighthouse for support.

How We Did It

Relying on procedures outlined in a jointly developed eDiscovery Playbook, Lighthouse’s data collection and forensics experts worked closely with the client’s legal and IT groups to implement a defensible strategy that greatly reduced the amount of data requiring collection. Experts from Lighthouse’s Advisory Services group worked with the client to implement a legal hold and data retention policy, customized to the various subpoenas. Lighthouse provided a unified review database, allowing outside counsel (who was responding to separate subpoenas) to leverage each other’s work product, greatly reducing review costs and preventing the inadvertent production of privileged and other sensitive materials.

The Results

Our combined efforts reduced the originally estimated 35TBs of data requiring review to less than 3TBs. By greatly reducing the amount of data requiring processing and review, the client saved significant review costs and reduced the estimated project completion time from nine months to only four weeks.

Review cost reductions were achieved by leveraging Lighthouse’s project management team as well as the company’s proprietary suite of technology-assisted review offerings. These, and other efficiencies discovered during the project, have been implemented in future matters, continuing to drive down costs and increase value.