Dispelling Myths About TAR in EDiscovery

Technology-assisted review, also known as computer-assisted review or predictive coding, has become an integral part of eDiscovery processes in litigation. Although TAR allows for faster, more cost-effective reviews, there are questions about its complexity and capabilities. A Thomson Reuters article tackles dispelling the myths about using TAR in eDiscovery.

Myth #1: TAR is complicated. The process is actually simple. Reviewers use a seed set of documents to train the software by coding them as responsive or non-responsive, which the software uses to create algorithms that review documents.

Myth #2: Humans beat TAR when it comes to document review. Reuters cites a study showing that paralegals identified only 20% of relevant documents using search terms and iterative search, while TAR identified 75%.

Myth #3: TAR replaces the need for human reviewers. Conversely, TAR augments their abilities, reducing the volume of documents they need to review manually and enhancing decision-making accuracy.

Myth #4: Courts reject TAR. TAR’s first major endorsement was in 2012 by Judge Andrew Peck in the case Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe. The court emphasized TAR’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness while highlighting the importance of transparency in its use.

Myth #5: TAR is infallible. Neither TAR nor human review are capable of achieving perfect 100% accuracy. But TAR is more efficient than human review alone. It provides humans with a smaller, more relevant set of documents to review, thus less likely to result in errors.

Myth #6: TAR can review all documents of any kind. TAR is limited to text-rich documents, making it important to have a comprehensive strategy addressing the review of documents that are not suitable for TAR.

As TAR becomes further integrated into eDiscovery, it will likely continue to evolve, gaining trust for its efficiency, accuracy, and ability to handle increasing volumes of data. Dispelling the myths about using TAR in eDiscovery will eliminate the confusion about its benefits.