Litigants expect, and pay for, their legal team to focus on effective legal strategy and mission critical insights. Legal teams simply cannot spend vast amounts of their high value time navigating AI tools and tech platforms, building review workflows, and managing teams of review specialists.
Today’s modern law firm benefits from partnering with best-in-class specialists who bring deep expertise and experience, scalable processes, and innovative, custom AI and tech-enabled solutions that meet both efficiency, time, and quality demands. When law firms tap into a qualified talent pool they elevate the breadth and quality of their own services, without any upfront investment.
This guide outlines three of the most pressing document review challenges law firms face in 2025 and shares practical, actionable strategies to overcome them.
1. Data Volume and Complexity
The obligation to include electronically stored information (ESI) in discovery has been around for two decades and each year brings more complexity. The data landscape in 2025 is vast and includes an explosion of communication tools, collaboration platforms and new formats, all of which complicate traditional review processes and methodologies.
Evolving Data Types
Short-form communication, including chats, emojis, reactions, embedded images, voice notes, and disappearing messages, is now standard in corporate environments. Legal teams must be able to handle chat exports from Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, and other apps, which are dynamic and nuanced.
Luckily, tools with near-native rendering and timeline views for chat data have matured significantly. Also, structured chat focused review workflows are increasingly recognized as best practice for preserving context and maintaining consistency.
Not sure where to begin with device collections or message data? Specialized providers are able to support targeted, remote collection of personal and corporate devices without disrupting the custodian’s workflow – a win for time and cost efficiency and, critically, defensibility.
2. Early Data Assessment (EDA) & Early Case Assessment (ECA)
Yes, we’re still quoting Ben Franklin or whoever it was who said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” However, in 2025, preparation looks a little different.
Strong Foundations Drive Success
Early data assessment (EDA) continues to serve as the foundation of a smart early case assessment (ECA). It involves surfacing the right data, quickly, before investing time and money in deeper analysis. Without an accurate, early view of the data landscape, your strategy is built on guesswork.
Modern platforms now integrate AI and analytics to help spot patterns, highlight risk areas, prioritize documents and summarize key content within hours. However, for technology to perform at its best, the data must be sound—and that starts with thoughtful scoping and smart, targeted collections.
Partnering with experts ensures the EDA and ECA process is done right from the outset, reducing downstream risks and avoiding wasted time and cost. These providers are fluent in deploying AI and predictive tools, and they help separate signal from noise, expeditiously.
3. Time and Cost Management in 2025
Legal budgets aren’t getting bigger, but client expectations are. Clients expect their legal team to deliver faster results, better quality outcomes and greater cost efficiency. This is not a simple mandate, but law firms do not need to solve this alone.
Building a Scalable, Efficient Delivery Model
The solution? A scalable model that includes:
– Partnering with service providers who specialize in document review and innovative tech-enabled workflows.
– Multi-shore teams of review experts for a true 24/7 service
– Specialized subject matter experts and resources matched to project scope and industry
– Process optimization and superior project management expertise
– Analytics, machine learning and AI proficiency to support innovation and efficiency objectives
By extending the legal team through external resources, law firms maintain control and quality oversight but also free up their internal high value talent to focus on strategy. The result? A more agile, profitable, and responsive approach that satisfies both firm and client priorities.
4. Workflow Design: Defensibility, Adaptability, and Quality
A strong, repeatable process remains essential to defensible review. However, it’s no longer enough to be consistent, you also need to be flexible. By partnering with a document review specialist, the delivery model and review process can be adapted to your cases specific needs, with document review best practices at the forefront of workflow design and implementation. This ensures you are not locked into a one size fits all solution.
Building a Scalable, Efficient Delivery Model
These three pillars still underpin a quality-first review approach irrespective of the technology utilized or the incorporated workflow. However, in 2025 adaptability is just as important. Your review workflow must be able to accommodate different data types, matter complexities and regulatory demands, without sacrificing integrity.
Working with professional reviewers ensures that any changes made to suit the unique needs of a case remain efficient, proportionate, and legally defensible.
5. Technology Integration: The GenAI Conversation
No 2025 legal tech conversation is complete without our good friend genAI.
While genAI is not a silver bullet, it is making headway in the litigation space to lower risk, lower scrutiny tasks such as ECA, summarization and incoming production analysis. However, the landscape is fast moving. Strategic planning, pilot testing and continuous evaluation are essential if litigators are to meet client expectations in terms of embracing new technology to mitigate risk and maintain quality.
Firms strapped for time or unsure where to start can tap into the expertise of a specialist service provider, such as an Alternative Legal Service Provider (ALSP). These teams are often piloting genAI tools across diverse matters and can help law firms implement, evaluate, and refine AI use cases effectively.
An human in the loop approach is fundamental for the success and defensibility of any technology and AI enabled workflow, particularly genAI. Any model must be trained through human input, suggestions calibrated against human decisions and outputs validated by humans if it is to be defensible. For optimal results, the humans in the loop should be cross functional specialists in AI, technology, process optimization and document review best practices.
Final Thoughts
Yes, document review in 2025 is more complex than ever but it’s also more manageable if approached strategically.
With the right mix of technology, expert support and flexible delivery models, law firms can transform document review from a burden into a competitive advantage. Doing so not only enhances client service and satisfaction but also drives firm profitability and growth in today’s dynamic legal market.