Information governance key to containing e-discovery costs.

• Position: E-DISCOVERY

As the volume of information generated by enterprises today continues to grow exponentially, so do the potential costs of e-discovery.

"One of the best ways to avoid excess costs of discovery is a reasonable dialogue with the other side," Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck, of the Southern District of New York, recently told a LegalTech New York audience.

Senior Judge Michael Baylson, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, agreed, pointing out that '"I don't want to cooperate' may be a legitimate strategy, but it's going to cost them money in the long run."

Peck added that IT is usually the best source of reliable information when it comes to estimating what it will require to generate the necessary information.

Document review is the largest expense associated with e-discovery, at 73% of the total, according to a 2012 study by RAND Corp. Thus, finding ways to reduce the volume of documents that must be reviewed is vital.

Many are looking to predictive coding, which is a type of computer-categorized review application that classifies documents based on how well they match the concepts and terms in sample documents, as a solution for reducing information volume. RAND reported that studies have found that the reduced man-hours required to search fewer documents can cut document review costs by as much as 80%.

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Peck encouraged federal judges to learn from the Global Aerospace Inc. v. Landow Aviation L.P. case, in which...