Expert witness firm moves through client docs at expert speed

QUICK SUMMARY

Building a faster, more confident expert witness workflow

When analyst Jim Douglass joined Baker & O’Brien, he saw an opportunity to bring the document management infrastructure he'd relied on in litigation to a team of consultants looking for a more efficient way to review client data.

Like many expert witness firms, Baker & O'Brien's consultants were regularly handed large, varied document sets that needed to be managed. Jim implemented Nextpoint to give the firm a single, searchable repository for every matter — with saved searches, deduplication, and collaboration tools that let consultants focus on analysis instead of document navigation.

The results extended across the firm. Consultants who were initially skeptical became active advocates. Staff moved faster through report preparation, worked with greater confidence in the completeness of their review, and leveraged Nextpoint as a credibility marker in client conversations. With flexible, predictable pricing that scaled to fit the firm's needs, Baker & O'Brien now has the document infrastructure to match the expertise they bring to every case.

To say that we're experts and working at a high-tech pace — in 2026, with the way clients can hand you thousands of documents, you have to have [Nextpoint]. You have to have it to say that you’re at the forefront of this industry." ^{Jim Douglass, Analyst} _{Baker & O'Brien}

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CLIENT OVERVIEW

Baker & O’Brien, Inc.

Baker & O’Brien is an internationally recognized expert witness and consulting firm with deep expertise across oil and gas, petroleum refining, chemicals, and related energy industries. The firm serves law firms, insurers, energy companies, government agencies, and financial institutions — providing expert witnesses and dispute support, strategic consulting, and proprietary refinery modeling services.

At Baker & O’Brien, the work product is the expert report. Their consultants are seasoned industry professionals who are often brought into complex commercial disputes, arbitrations, and regulatory matters to provide rigorous, well-documented analysis. Getting that analysis right — and getting it done efficiently — hinges on how well the firm can manage the documents behind it.

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THE CHALLENGE

The missing piece in a high-stakes workflow

As cases grow more complex and clients deliver ever-larger document sets, expert witness firms face a challenge the industry hasn't fully solved: How do you manage thousands of documents efficiently when your team's expertise is in energy operations, not litigation technology?

Baker & O'Brien's consultants are regularly handed large, varied document sets — sometimes a targeted collection and sometimes in massive tranches of data without any index or roadmap. Working through that volume quickly and thoroughly, while maintaining the confidence that nothing relevant has been missed, is critical when the work product is an expert report that will face scrutiny in arbitration or litigation.

When clients provided access to a structured review platform, it was typically their own Relativity instance — a tool built for litigation teams. Despite its capabilities, Relativity has a steep learning curve for users outside the ediscovery industry, and consultants without dedicated litigation technology training can find it difficult to navigate efficiently.

Jim Douglass, an analyst at Baker & O'Brien with a background in litigation support and data management, recognized that the firm could work faster and more confidently with a platform purpose-built for ease of use — one their consultants could pick up quickly and trust completely.

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THE SOLUTION

A user-friendly platform for non-technical users

Jim came to Baker & O’Brien as a Nextpoint power user. He had relied on the platform as a paralegal at Clyde & Co LLP and knew firsthand what it could do. Jim saw the user-friendly Nextpoint interface as a perfect fit for a team of consultants who weren’t familiar with traditional document review software. Baker & O’Brien’s consultants are domain experts in energy and industrial operations — not litigation technologists. Jim needed a platform they could use without extensive training or hand-holding, and Nextpoint’s ease of use made it the clear choice.

After adopting Nextpoint, Jim immediately saw his firm move faster and more efficiently through report preparation, thanks to key deliverables like:

• A centralized document repository. All client documents — regardless of volume — ingested, organized, and searchable from the moment they arrive. No more sifting through shared drives or scattered file folders.
• Easy collaboration across contributors. Per-consultant notes fields allow multiple team members to annotate and share observations within a shared database, so everyone can see what their colleagues are finding in real time.
• Search they can trust. Powerful, flexible search tools give consultants confidence that they’re seeing everything relevant — not just what happens to surface in a keyword scan. That confidence is foundational when the work product is an expert report.

Features That Made a Difference

• Deduplication and near-duplicate detection. Consultants can immediately see when documents overlap, eliminating redundant review and reducing the risk of attaching conflicting exhibit versions in arbitration submissions.
• Saved searches. Analysts build and save searches that consultants can return to at any point, enabling a clean division of labor: analysts handle the background research, consultants focus on analysis.
• Streamlined report citation. A standardized document ID convention means consultants drop a simple ID into their draft footnotes, and analysts handle the rest — a small workflow change with an outsized impact on report production time.
• Translation services. For international matters involving documents in multiple languages, Nextpoint’s translation capabilities keep the workflow moving without requiring outside vendors.

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THE RESULTS

Speed, confidence, and a competitive edge

The impact extended well beyond the analysts who set the system up. Consultants who were initially skeptical became active advocates, and the benefits showed up across the firm’s work and its reputation.

• Faster reports, more time for high-value work. With documents organized and easy to find, senior consultants spend their billable hours on substantive analysis, not document navigation. The firm moves faster, and clients get more value from every hour.
• Greater confidence in the work product. Consultants know they’re working from a complete, deduplicated document set. That confidence is essential in a field where the credibility of an expert report depends on the thoroughness of the underlying review.
• Scalable access at a predictable cost. Nextpoint’s unlimited user model removed a significant barrier for associates brought in on individual matters. Rather than paying thousands of dollars to provision a single user for a single case, the firm can bring in the right people at the right time, without a budget conversation for every instance.
• Enhanced credibility with clients. Baker & O’Brien president Tim Rooney incorporated Nextpoint adoption into the firm’s client-facing positioning. Being able to demonstrate that expert analysis is backed by state-of-the-art document infrastructure makes an impact in business development conversations.

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To have unlimited access for our associates that we often deal with on a one-case basis made the decision easier knowing that everyone could work within and collaborate using Nextpoint.” ^{Jim Douglass, Analyst} _{Baker & O’Brien}

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WHY IT MATTERS

In 2026, you have to have it

Expert witness firms occupy a unique position in the legal ecosystem. They are not law firms, but the work they produce is held to the same standard of rigor, accuracy, and credibility that courts and opposing counsel will scrutinize closely. That standard demands infrastructure to match.

Nextpoint gave Baker & O’Brien the document management foundation their consultants needed to work confidently and efficiently, without requiring them to become litigation technology experts in the process. The platform’s ease of use was the prerequisite for firm-wide adoption.

As Jim put it: in 2026, with the volume of data clients can deliver, having the right technology isn’t optional — it’s part of what it means to be an expert.

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