Within eDiscovery there are several options to outsource services to save cost and increase service delivery to internal consumers.  Some of the common types of outsourcing is document scanning, document tagging, document reviewing and high level Legal Process Outsourcing.  Some of the common locations to outsource is India, Philippines and Mexico.  There are physical barriers to outsourcing document scanning because there is shipping costs associated with shipping documents. 

An example of a Document Scanning and Storing company is.  Obviously, a company that specializes in document storage and management can gain significant economies of scale and allow Law Firms and Corporate Council a like to save money.  Another great resource for document outsourcing is this hyperlink.

Document tagging and document review are more complex operations that require more of high end labor and less technology infrastructure.  A records manager, lawyer or paralegal has to search for a document within a record set and determine if this is a relevant document for the case.  This person is usually part of the litigation support team.  Also, in small cases this process could actually be handled by a business litigator or business attorney.  When the document tagger finds a relevant document that persons “tags” or inputs metadata (data about data) that helps higher value attorneys find the right document .  This process is made even more complex due to fact that multiple corporate councils and law firms could be accessing a large subset of the data at the same time.  The ability to keep track and manage this information can be provided by a Business Process Outsourcer but the actual tagging of data should be done by legal professionals.

Some of the nation's biggest law firms rely on outside parties for investigative litigation support. But investigative litigation support should not be limited; it does not have to be a luxury option. The objective of gaining a strategic advantage over adversaries applies to disputes of all sizes.

Litigators need to decipher crucial facts to help resolve unavoidable disputes, to disprove their adversary's allegations, or to prove their own allegations.  These are two basic steps in the discovery process where using outsourced vendor services might reduce costs.  As with any process outsourcing there should be a comprehensive review taken before decisions are made on vendors.