E-Discovery Counsel Reflects on Technological Advances in Document Review

In a Nov. 1 article titled, “When Algorithms Replace Post-Its: Artificial Intelligence is Rewiring the Job of a Lawyer” by Boston’s NPR News Station, WBUR, local attorneys are interviewed on the impact of automation on their work. 

E-discovery counsel Shannon Capone Kirk reflects on the evolution of document review, beginning with her experience as she entered the profession in the late '90s. "What that meant was literally spending weeks upon weeks in either a warehouse or a conference room flipping through bankers boxes and reading documents, paper documents," said Ms. Kirk. "And if we found something that was relevant to the litigation we would tag it with Post-it notes, and that was it. That is how archaic it was."

Since then, as the process was time consuming and expensive, firms have begun to use software which employs sophisticated algorithms designed to prioritize what documents the lawyer finds relevant.

Ms. Kirk says the job of a corporate lawyer is changing not just because of technology: “part of it is the technology, but the other part of it is that the industry now has numerous options for contract attorneys.”