How can banks reduce litigation and investigation-related legal costs?

15 March 2016 by Adrienn Toth

Last week over 50 corporate in-house counsel and lawyers working in the financial sector gathered in the rather glamorous surroundings of the Banking Hall to join Kroll Ontrack  for our breakfast seminar,  ‘Banks or Law Firms: Who holds the purse strings’

After a delicious breakfast, our illustrious panel tackled the complex and often, controversial topic of managing legal costs for banking-related investigations and litigations. The key themes up for debate were:

  • How recent ‘big ticket’ regulatory investigations have affected the banking world
  • Using the latest predictive coding technology to reduce legal costs
  • Leveraging corporate buying power when using law firms and other professional service providers
  • Discussing alternative pricing structures
  • Examining the pros and cons of unbundling legal services

The debate was moderated by Ben Fielding of Kroll Ontrack and our speakers included Elizabeth Meekison a Senior Lawyer in Commercial Litigation atLloyds Banking Group,  Mark Humphries - Senior Partner at Humphries Kerstetter, Thomas Leyland, Partner at Dentons and,  Orion Wisness, Discovery Consultant at Kroll Ontrack. With representation from in-house counsel from banks, senior partners from top law firms and a technology provider, each brought their own experiences and opinions to what was an eloquent, wide-ranging, and informative discussion.

The key points that emerged were:

Priorities for banks:

  • Banks value accuracy, defensibility of process and not necessarily lower costs when it comes to ediscovery
  • Working collaboratively with law firms and technology providers and ensuring regular and effective communication

The benefits of proactivity:

  • The importance of involving an ediscovery provider from the beginning of the disclosure process or investigation.
  • How implementing information governance strategies and managing the quantity and location of your data can reduce costs.
  • How fixed fee modelling could be implemented (and why this might not be a possibility in certain cases.)

Legislative concerns:

  • Are the standard disclosure rules too broad?
  • In light of spiralling data volumes, should the disclosure rules be modified so they are closer to the arbitration model?

The importance of predictive coding technology

With the recent judgement (Pyrrho Investments v MWB Property [2016] EWHC 256 (Ch)) approving the use of predictive coding still hot news, much of the debate and audience’s questions were focused on:

  • How technology such as predictive coding can be used to reduce the burden of big data in litigation and investigations
  • The implications of the recent judgement approving use of predictive coding technology in the UK
  • The need for both corporations and law firms to fully understand exactly what predictive coding entails in terms of both its capabilities and its limitations

We would like to thank speakers for taking the time out of their busy schedules to take part in the debate and share their expertise. We’d also like to thank our guests for joining us and further enlivening the discussion with their considered questions.