Working Under the Clock: How Response Times Directly Influence Case Outcomes

It’s late. A deposition is scheduled for the next morning, and you identify a new, high-priority issue.  Not knowing the scope of the issue, you need more information, searches, exports, exhibits, and most importantly, fast action. 

The internal team is ready to move, but the request lands after hours. The project manager’s out-of-office message notes it will be picked up in the morning.

By the time anyone responds, the deposition is proceeding and there is no way to know if there were critical questions that need to be formulated and asked until the proceeding is over, due to a lack of urgent action.  

This isn’t a technology failure. It’s a response-time failure.

When Speed Breaks Down, Problems Multiply

We’ve seen this play out firsthand.

One insurance carrier we routinely work with in the medical records space came to us facing a high-stakes eDiscovery challenge. A large medical facility was being sued, triggering discovery across dozens of employees. The original vendor proposed an elaborate, time-intensive process that began with a prolonged identification phase. Highly compensated resources were required just to determine what might need to be collected.

That upfront delay mattered. Before a single file was preserved or collected, the clock was already working against the case.

When the carrier reached out to MCS, the goal was not just to save money. It was to regain momentum. Instead of separating identification from action, we designed a workflow that combined custodian identification and forensic collection into a single, coordinated effort. Our forensics team worked directly with the client’s IT group to quickly narrow the scope to 80 custodians and define the collection plan in real time.

The result was clear. We completed identification and collection in less time and at lower cost than the prior vendor had estimated just to identify the scope of potential data.

That early responsiveness set the tone for everything that followed.

Where Speed Gaps Show Up the Most

Response-time failures rarely live in just one place. They compound across the EDRM.

Legal Holds: The First Missed Minute

When it is unclear who issues hold notices, who tracks acknowledgments, or who follows up on non-responses, delays can start immediately. Legal hold sits at the front of the EDRM for a reason. Every slip here ripples forward.

Collection: When Urgency Has No Path

Even when custodians are ready, collections stall if support is limited to business hours or lacks clear escalation paths. Email, chat, and device data do not wait for Monday mornings.

Processing: Volume That Didn’t Need to Exist

If scope decisions are not made before processing begins, time and money are spent on data that should never have moved forward.

In the insurance carrier matter, processing initially reduced the dataset to 600,000 records. From there, thoughtful workflows and targeted review strategies brought the population down to 20,000 records. That represented just over 3 percent of the original volume. This reduction did not happen by accident. It happened because decisions were made early, clearly, and with accountability.

Review and Production: Fire Drills at the Finish Line

When delays stack up in holds and collections, reviews begin on the wrong data. Production deadlines turn into rushed, reactive events instead of controlled milestones.

Visibility Gaps: When Leaders Learn Too Late

Without shared visibility into ownership, blockers, and next steps, small delays stay hidden until deadlines are missed and consequences become unavoidable.

Breakdowns Are Not Just Frustrating. They Are Risky.

When response gaps appear, the consequences extend far beyond inconvenience.

Courts do not distinguish between internal delays and vendor failures. If a discovery partner misses an early window, accountability still rests with the party that hired them. Delayed access to facts also weakens early case assessment and settlement posture, limiting the ability to guide the matter strategically.

The financial impact is just as real. Missed timelines often trigger rush fees, duplicate work, expanded review populations, and unnecessary storage costs. Over time, those compounding missteps become far more expensive than building the right response framework upfront. Reputation is also on the line. For in-house legal teams and law firms alike, working with an unresponsive third party reflects poorly on internal operations. In a tight-knit, high-pressure industry, those impressions travel quickly.

How to Avoid These Pitfalls Before They Happen

Knowing what goes wrong is only half the equation. Avoiding these failures requires asking the right questions before urgency turns into an emergency.

Before engaging a discovery partner, legal teams should know how response timelines work, who can make decisions when plans change, and how issues are escalated. They should also understand how holds are managed and how quickly collections can start if scope changes after hours.

It also means understanding how decisions are made before processing begins. Formats to exclude, filters to apply, and deduplication strategies should be defined early. They should not be decided once data is already moving.

It is just as important to know what happens when scope doubles or deadlines shorten unexpectedly. Teams should also understand how pricing changes when urgency increases.

A partner should be able to explain all of this clearly and without hesitation.

What Strong Service Actually Looks Like

Strong partners do not avoid these conversations. They welcome them.

At a minimum, service excellence means having clear, response targets so there’s no confusion when something becomes urgent. Escalation paths should be explicit, with named points of contact who have the authority to act and a documented backup when they are unavailable.

After-hours execution matters. Acknowledgment alone is not enough if work cannot begin until the next business day. Clear ownership and progress updates help prevent small issues from turning into delays.

Finally, pricing should never be a surprise. A detailed breakdown of services may feel less simple than a single line item, but transparency protects both sides and leads to stronger long-term partnerships.

Protect Your Process Before Timelines Take the Reins

Discovery tools can be powerful. Deadlines, however, are unforgiving.

When internal urgency is matched by partners who move at the same pace, teams avoid the late-stage chaos that derails cases and drives unnecessary cost.

Want to pressure-test your current workflows and partnerships? Our eDiscovery diagnostic helps uncover response gaps before they show up at the worst possible moment.