Maximizing Managed Review Efficiencies

Maximizing Managed Review Efficiencies: IST’s Time and Cost Solutions

Benjamin Franklin’s famous adage, “Time is money,” has held true for centuries—and nowhere is it more relevant than in managed review. The longer a review project takes, the more it costs. While there are opportunities to reduce expenses earlier in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) process, significant savings can also be achieved once a document set is presented for review.



With managed review, the focus needs to be on time-saving techniques once a dataset has been collected and is ready for review. By leveraging intelligent workflows, metadata analysis, and advanced review tools, teams can significantly reduce the volume of documents requiring manual review—driving efficiency while maintaining defensibility.

Understanding Your Review Set: Managing the "Known Unknowns" 

“There are known knowns: there are things we know that we know. 

There are known unknowns: that is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. 

But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” 

– Donald Rumsfeld

When handed a set of documents for review, one fundamental truth stands out: you don’t fully know what’s in the dataset. Understanding the "known unknowns"—the gaps in your knowledge—allows you to take proactive steps to eliminate unnecessary work and focus on the documents that truly matter. So before diving into review, understanding what’s in your dataset is crucial. Start by examining elements —file types, metadata characteristics, and hidden patterns that impact workflow decisions. 

Certain file types can often be defensibly removed from the review stream. Metadata analysis helps identify these files early, preventing wasted time on non-relevant documents. 

• Identifying Non-Discoverable File Types: Review the file extensions in the document set to identify those that are often unviewable within document review platforms like Relativity and rarely contain relevant content.   
• .BIN files are an example of this type of document.   Bulk-tagging these as “Technical Issue” files and removing them from the review stream saves time and money. 
• HTML files under 300 bytes often appear as blank pages in the review platform. Reviewers encountering these files may mistakenly classify them as technical issues, when in reality, “there is no there there” as Gertrude Stein famously put it. By identifying and removing these in advance, teams eliminate unnecessary manual review and quality control (QC) work. 

Reviewing metadata fields like file extensions, creation dates, and author information can quickly reveal documents that do not require review, helping to trim down the dataset before reviewers even begin their work.

Dealing with Duplicates: Eliminating Redundant Effort 

"It’s like déjà vu all over again.” 

– Yogi Berra

Duplicate documents are one of the most common inefficiencies in managed review. Without proactive management, reviewers may end up analyzing the same document multiple times—slowing down the process and increasing costs. 

Applying MD5 Hash to Reduce Volume 

MD5 hash analysis acts as a digital fingerprint for files and helps teams identify exact duplicate documents. By grouping and bulk-coding these files, teams prevent unnecessary review and maintain a more focused and relevant document pool. 

• Common examples of high-duplicate files include Logos and Graphics files: These can often appear in hundreds or thousands of instances within a dataset and can be safely excluded from review. 

Applying Email Threading to Reduce Review Volume 

Email threading is another powerful technique. When enabled, email threading identifies and groups conversations so that reviewers only see the most comprehensive version of an email chain. When properly implemented, this technique allows teams to: 

• Exclude Non-Inclusive Emails: If an email is fully captured within a later reply in the chain, it can be removed from review altogether. 
• Organize Review Efficiently: Even if all emails must be reviewed, sorting them from last to first in a thread ensures that reviewers see the latest message first, allowing them to work through conversations with greater speed and context. 

By proactively managing duplicate content, organizations can significantly reduce the volume of documents requiring review, leading to faster turnaround times and lower costs.

Optimizing Review Organization: Structuring for Speed and Consistency 

“I will have order!”

– Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

A well-organized review is a fast review. Strategic document ordering helps reviewers move efficiently through materials, reducing cognitive load and ensuring consistent coding decisions. Some of the techniques for organizing review are: 

• Grouping Similar Documents Together: Organizing documents by category, issue, or document type allows reviewers to work in a focused, efficient manner. 
• Using Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) for Prioritization: Leveraging machine learning and predictive coding can help surface high-priority documents first, allowing for more strategic review. 
• Employing Smart Batching for Reviewers: Assigning related documents to the same reviewers minimizes context-switching and allows them to build familiarity with specific content, leading to faster and more consistent coding.

The Bigger Picture: Continuous Improvement in Managed Review 

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” 

– Winston Churchill

Efficiency in managed review is an ongoing process. There are scores of additional techniques to shorten the time it takes to move through a review set.  Every dataset presents new challenges, but by consistently asking the right questions and leveraging data-driven insights, teams can continuously refine their approach.  This saves clients time and money. 

By applying the strategies outlined here—metadata analysis, deduplication, email threading, intelligent ordering, and AI-driven review—organizations can dramatically reduce time and costs while maintaining defensibility and accuracy. 

Ultimately, saving time isn’t just about reducing costs. It’s about delivering better results, faster.