What is document review?

Document review is a crucial phase of the eDiscovery process, involving the examination of collected documents to determine whether they are responsive or relevant to issues in a legal matter and/or regulatory request, and whether they are privileged.

Documents that are responsive and not privileged are then produced in digital format for opposing parties or regulatory bodies. Traditional manual review methodology involves large teams of document review attorneys.

Due to the exponential increase in the volume of digital data, most document reviews today are conducted digitally, using eDiscovery platforms to streamline what was once a labor-intensive manual task. Modern AI, including technology-assisted review (TAR) and generative AI (GenAI) review, is now integrated into leading eDiscovery platforms to automate the review process and minimize the need for manual review of non-responsive documents.

Why is document review important?

Thorough document review enables attorneys to uncover critical evidence, formulate their legal strategy, and fulfill obligations related to discovery and confidentiality. It reduces the risk of overlooking key documents or inadvertently disclosing sensitive or privileged information—errors that result in legal and financial consequences. Additionally, by filtering out irrelevant or insignificant data, the review process helps streamline litigation and allows legal teams to concentrate on the most impactful facts. In complex matters, effective document review can be a deciding factor in a case’s outcome by identifying key witnesses, reinforcing legal arguments, or avoiding potential risks before they arise.

How does document review work?

A typical document review process includes:

• Collection and processing: Documents are gathered from email servers, cloud apps, file systems, or mobile devices, then converted into a searchable format.
• Early case assessment (ECA) / early data assessment: Teams analyze the dataset’s size, scope, and richness to plan strategy and timelines. Advanced ECA tools help legal teams cull the dataset to eliminate clearly irrelevant data.
• Review and tagging: Legal professionals review and categorize documents for relevance, privilege, confidentiality, and issues.
• Quality control: Samples are checked to ensure accuracy and consistency before documents are produced to opposing counsel or regulators.

What is managed document review?

Managed document review (MDR) is a professional service that combines expert reviewers and eDiscovery technology to review large sets of documents, usually electronic, for litigation, investigations, or regulatory compliance. It replaces costly, inconsistent in-house reviews with scalable workflows, improving accuracy, cutting costs, and reducing timelines, making it an essential solution for modern legal teams facing growing data volumes and in need of support to navigate this time-intensive process.

In summary, managed document review is a modern, outsourced solution that combines legal expertise, technology, and proven management strategies to deliver accurate, timely, and cost-effective document review for legal matters.

How does managed document review work?

Managed document review is a structured process involving dedicated teams of qualified attorneys, overseen by experienced project managers, who follow proven workflows and quality control procedures. These workflows are designed to reduce errors, improve consistency, enhance defensibility, and lower overall costs compared to traditional ad-hoc reviews.

The process relies heavily on advanced technologies—such as eDiscovery platforms, machine learning, and GenAI—to cull, sort, filter, and code documents more efficiently than manual review.

A review team, typically composed of attorneys and legal professionals, analyzes within specialized document review platforms. Leading eDiscovery solutions support large-scale review and often include features such as:

• Built-in data analytics and automated filters to quickly sort and identify relevant documents.
• Concept analysis to group documents by contextual meaning.
• Sentiment analysis and entity identification for rapid insight.
• Visual analytics for at-a-glance understanding of metadata, concepts, and communication patterns.
• Predictive filters and search to surface similar documents quickly.
• TAR and GenAI workflows to prioritize likely responsive documents early in the process.
• Integrated audit trails, dashboards, and workflow management for transparency and efficiency.

Project managers oversee day-to-day operations, coordinating with outside counsel to align the review strategy with legal objectives. They ensure progress is tracked, resources are optimized, and review decisions remain consistent with the case’s goals.

A cornerstone of this process is robust quality control (QC). From day one, teams implement structured QC measures such as:

• Daily reviewer reports and decision logs.
• Systematic sampling and validation.
• Ongoing calibration among reviewers.

When executed effectively, these controls reduce errors, speed up timelines, and provide legal teams with greater confidence in the accuracy and defensibility of the final production set.

What are the benefits of managed document review for enterprise legal teams?

Managed document review provides enterprise legal departments with strategic advantages that extend far beyond cost savings.

1. Predictable costs and budget control
   Unlike traditional document review processes which are billed hourly, managed document review services often operate on fixed-fee models. This provides legal teams with pricing transparency, enabling accurate budgeting of litigation and investigation expenses while reducing the risk of unexpected overruns from large review teams.
2. Efficiency through technology-driven review
   Technology-assisted review (TAR) powered by continuous active learning (CAL) helps reduce the volume of documents that require human review. Unlike traditional keyword searches, which can surface large sets of documents, CAL prioritizes the most relevant items—streamlining the process without sacrificing accuracy. The result is faster timelines, lower review costs, and less strain on internal resources. By outsourcing, legal teams can also avoid adding in-house staff, keeping overhead lower for enterprise legal departments.
3. Higher accuracy and reduced risk
   A managed review process introduces stronger quality controls through automated checks and targeted sampling, ensuring a higher level of quality assurance. This leads to more consistent privilege designations, fewer mistakes, and greater overall accuracy. It also lowers the chance of accidental disclosure, supports case strategy, and ensures defensible, repeatable results.
4. Scalability
   Managed review can handle any volume of documents and complexity of legal issue, making it a preferred option for modern litigation and compliance needs.
5. Expert legal review teams
   Specialized reviewers bring deep domain knowledge and focused expertise. This ensures the consistent identification of key documents, especially those critical in high-stakes litigation and regulatory investigations.

When should organizations consider managed document review?

Organizations should consider managed document review when they are faced with large-scale or complex projects such as high-volume litigation, regulatory and government investigations, third-party subpoenas, internal investigations, or due diligence assessments.

Large data volumes, short deadlines, and limited budgets can overwhelm even experienced teams. Managed review is designed for exactly these scenarios, offering the scale, accuracy, and predictability traditional approaches can’t.

High-volume document reviews
Managed document review becomes essential when dealing with large-scale data sets. The scalability and efficiency of specialized review providers allow teams to manage these volumes without sacrificing quality or extending timelines.

Limited in-house capability
If legal teams are stretched too thin or lack specialized document review expertise, it would be beneficial to consider a managed review process for eDiscovery. That way, they can ensure their internal resources are focused on core strategy or higher value legal activities. When organizations want to reduce costs associated with hiring, training, and managing large review teams for short-term or fluctuating projects

Tight deadlines and aggressive production schedules
When strict court or regulatory timelines are in play, organizations need streamlined, rapid document review to avoid costly delays and legal risks. Managed review teams address this by delivering speed through optimized workflows and AI-enhanced prioritization. Their infrastructure is built for fast-turnaround review without compromising accuracy.

Budget-sensitive legal matters
Under cost pressure, managed review offers pricing predictability. Fixed-fee models can help legal teams control outside-counsel spend and eliminate the uncertainty of hourly billing.

What technology is used in managed document review?

Leading eDiscovery platforms help support the collection, processing, searching, and coding of large documents serving the entire managed review process.

At the core of managed document review is technology-assisted review (TAR) powered by continuous active learning (CAL), predictive coding, and advanced analytics. This functionality helps attorneys quickly prioritize, classify, and cull large datasets, reducing the number of documents they need to review manually.

Modern review platforms use these technologies to automate the identification of potential relevant, privileged, and sensitive data. Many leverage advanced analytics functions, such as concept clustering, email threading, near-duplicate detection, and search tools, to reduce redundancy and streamline work. Robust coding interfaces support responsiveness, privilege, and confidentiality tagging—while audit trails and quality controls track every decision.

With remote review now the norm, security is non-negotiable. Secure virtual desktop infrastructure ensures that sensitive client data never leaves protected environments, while access controls, audit logging, and data loss prevention tools maintain confidentiality throughout the review process. These security measures enable organizations to conduct reviews remotely while meeting stringent data protection requirements and client confidentiality obligations.

In essence, managed document review leverages a combination of purpose-built eDiscovery software, AI, and secure infrastructure to deliver fast, accurate, and defensible document review processes for complex legal and regulatory matters.

How OpenText™ software and solutions enhance managed document review

OpenText™ Managed Document Review brings together advanced technology, global review teams, and deep legal expertise to deliver efficient, accurate, and secure managed document review at scale.

The OpenText™ managed review team utilizes our proprietary technology-assisted review (TAR) capabilities, featuring continuous machine and continuous active learning protocols, designed to significantly improve review efficiency and accuracy compared to earlier iterations. It enables dynamic, iterative training of the AI model as the review progresses, allowing for focused and faster identification of relevant documents.

The result—more precision, less rework, and faster time to production. OpenText’s TAR technology can reduce, at times, the total cost of review by up to 80 percent or more while scaling efficiently across different types and sizes of projects.

Our review teams—composed of trained attorneys and technologists—work within secure, purpose-built platforms that support end-to-end review. Clients can benefit from:

• Flexible pricing that can include fixed fee arrangements with predictable costs and budget control, but all pricing is customized to each client’s specific needs, including volume, complexity, and service level support.
• Review teams that are incentivized to demonstrate the power of OpenText™ technology by reviewing the fewest number of documents necessary, rather than inflating the number of documents reviewed to maximize revenue.
• Secure infrastructure with virtual desktops, audit logging, and data access controls.
• Global delivery across North America, the UK, and the EU.
• Automated quality control to ensure consistency and reduce outside counsel validation rates.

Our review process is backed by continuous performance monitoring and alignment with legal strategy, improving consistency and supporting defensible outcomes.

Document review is no longer a check-the-box exercise. It’s a strategic function that can influence outcomes, timelines, and budgets. OpenText gives legal departments the tools and support to manage reviews more intelligently—reducing cost, improving quality, and helping to ensure compliance at every stage.

How is OpenText leveraging generative AI in the managed review process?

OpenText continues to introduce next-generation, AI-powered technology into the review process. Our managed review experts also leverage our OpenText™ eDiscovery Aviator™ technology to accelerate document review with GenAI. These capabilities augment expert review support and enhance TAR workflows to provide more expeditious reviews and greater cost certainty.

By applying GenAI to managed document review, especially high-volume first pass review, legal departments can transform their approach—cutting review time by up to 80%, increasing consistency, significantly improving efficiency, and improving budget predictability.

While many vendors offer pieces of the puzzle, OpenText delivers a fully integrated GenAI-first managed review service—encompassing technology, process, and people to support the process. We combine our own advanced, proprietary technology with our expertise.

Our managed review teams bring together AI prompt engineers, legal technologists, and case managers who collaborate daily with corporate legal departments and law firms. With deep experience across diverse litigation use cases, they understand both the technical and legal dimensions of document review, ensuring GenAI is applied effectively and defensibly.