As the first mission-driven real estate company pairing the most talented agents with a cloud-based solution to help everyone find their place in the world, Compass counts the ability to move fast, being solutions-driven, and maximizing one’s strengths as its core values.
That explains why, when their litigation team found itself slammed with a large volume of subpoenas and litigation matters — the majority of which were handled by outside counsel — they turned to another mission-built, cloud-based solution to develop a streamlined approach that has empowered them to move 9X faster and save thousands of dollars per matter.
We cover Compass’ success story in a case study released today.
Read the case study with Compass here.
Compass’ new approach to subpoena responses and small litigation matters, where the company’s litigation team conducts the entire discovery process internally — from collecting directly from Google Vault to generating professional-looking productions —, has yielded:
- 8,875 hours saved on unnecessary requests to IT for data collection from cloud sources and on reviewing hundreds of PST files one by one, which means a 90% reduction in subpoena response timelines.
- A 95% reduction in the team's reliance on outside counsel. Their collaboration with OC is now restricted to large litigation matters.
- Thousands of dollars saved per year on external legal spend as most matters and subpoenas are handled internally.
- A more secure and streamlined discovery process as all the data is kept in Logikcull from ingestion to production.
“After I was able to handle that massive subpoena by myself, I realized we had to make Logikcull a core piece of our software stack.” - Terence Leong, Senior Counsel, Litigation at Compass
Reducing Subpoena Response Time by 90%
When Terence Leong joined Compass two years ago as the company’s first in-house litigator, he became responsible for all discovery matters, both in the context of litigation, as well as for subpoena responses.
His discovery process back then involved:
- Sending a request to IT every time he needed to collect data from Google Vault or any other source
- Waiting for a minimum of two weeks for the PST file
- Spending a few more hours analyzing all the documents one by one
- And generating a semi-professional-looking production using Adobe
With such a time- and resource-intensive process, most matters landed with outside counsel, who would either use their own eDiscovery tools or outsource the data processing to a Relativity vendor.
But once the team realized the impact that seeking external assistance for even the smallest litigation matters and subpoenas was having on their budget, they understood that something had to change.
The team decided to deploy Logikcull to handle subpoenas and some litigation matters internally. Its powerful simplicity was all they needed to gain full control over the discovery process.
Leong turned Logikcull into a one-stop shop for all his discovery needs: He would collect data all by himself using Logikcull’s Google Vault integration, he’d parse and review all his documents, and he’d create productions with just a few clicks.
Compass’s litigation team now has the bandwidth to handle discovery for any matter end to end in just five hours on average, which means a 90% reduction in their subpoena response and other litigation timelines.
“The Google Vault connection is second to none in terms of ease and getting things done. We don’t need to rely on IT at all now. We run the collections entirely from the litigation department.” - Terence Leong, Senior Counsel, Litigation at Compass
Reducing Outside Counsel Costs While Collaborating on Their Own Terms
By handling most subpoenas and small matters internally, the team has been able to reduce its reliance on outside counsel by 95%.
And, for those matters that require OC intervention, they establish very specific conditions to collaborate with them. For example, they’ve banned the use of Relativity as they estimated that the maintenance of their databases would cost them the same as a yearly subscription to Logikcull — even for data previously culled by their in-house team.
Instead, they require outside counsel to conduct the document review within Logikcull, where the team has visibility into their activities and can stay aligned with them at all times.
By bringing the discovery process in-house, not only has Compass’ litigation team significantly reduced their external legal spend, but they’ve also become more agile and independent while cementing their reputation as an innovative and resourceful group that matches the company’s philosophy.
