Taking ownership of ediscovery, in-house

QUICK SUMMARY

Bringing discovery in-house, without missing a beat

Like many corporate legal departments, Meridien's team was used to routing electronic discovery through outside law firms and the third-party platforms those firms relied on. Every matter meant handing data off and waiting on someone else's process — a dependency with a major negative impact on time, cost, and efficiency.

Meridien adopted Nextpoint on the recommendation of a law firm, drawn to the platform's ability to quickly and easily upload vast quantities of data. Vertically integrating that solution let Meridien's team collect, review, and produce electronic discovery in-house, eliminating the negative impacts of the old process almost immediately.

Moving to Nextpoint has been one of my department’s best operational choices in the last few years. Bringing control of ediscovery in-house with Nextpoint let us break free from what was formerly a costly and complicated process.” ^{Senior Principal Counsel at Meridien Technologies*}

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CLIENT OVERVIEW

Meridien Technologies

Meridien Technologies* is a global consumer electronics company that designs and manufactures devices and wearable technology. With thousands of employees operating across dozens of countries, Meridien's legal department handles a steady volume of commercial litigation, including intellectual property disputes tied to its hardware and software products.

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THE CHALLENGE

When outside dependency becomes the bottleneck

For years, when a matter called for electronic discovery, Meridien's legal team followed a familiar but costly path: work through outside law firms to transfer data into their discovery platforms, or into a third-party provider's system entirely. Every production meant a hand-off — to counsel, to a vendor, or to both — before the real work of collection, review, and production could even begin.

That dependency came at a real cost. According to Meridien, the old process had a major negative impact on time, cost, and overall efficiency.

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THE SOLUTION

One platform, full ownership

Meridien's path to Nextpoint began with a recommendation from a law firm. What made the case for bringing the process in-house was Nextpoint's ability to quickly and easily upload vast quantities of data — the same volume and complexity Meridien's matters had always demanded, now handled directly by their own team.

By vertically integrating Nextpoint, Meridien took direct ownership of collection, review, and production instead of outsourcing each step to outside counsel and their vendors.

Vertically integrating Nextpoint's solution immediately eliminated these negative impacts.”  ^{Senior Principal Counsel at Meridien Technologies*}

Features That Made a Difference

• Fast, high-volume data upload. The ability to quickly and easily upload vast quantities of data means Meridien's team can keep pace with productions of any size, without waiting on a third party's intake process.
• End-to-end visibility. Handling discovery in-house gives Meridien's team a clear, current view into exactly what's been produced — and when — across every matter.
• Better collaboration with outside counsel. Vertical integration hasn't meant working in isolation. Meridien's team can now share a clear view of the record with outside counsel during production review.

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THE RESULTS

Fewer hand-offs, faster productions

• Meaningful time and cost savings. Nextpoint has saved Meridien's legal department a very meaningful amount of time and money in day-to-day discovery work.
• 30 hours saved on a single matter. On one complicated IP litigation production alone, Nextpoint saved Meridien's team an estimated 30 hours of internal time.
• Team-wide impact. Feedback from across the department has been consistent: colleagues are impressed both with the speed of the platform and the amount of control it gives Meridien's internal team over the ediscovery process.

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WHY IT MATTERS

In-house discovery is becoming the standard

Corporate legal departments are under growing pressure to manage more of their own discovery work, rather than defaulting every matter to outside counsel's systems and vendors. For Meridien, vertically integrating Nextpoint provided the infrastructure to do exactly that — moving at the company's own pace, with the visibility and control that comes from managing discovery internally.

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* The names of the organization and associated professionals in this case study have been changed to preserve their anonymity

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