Reed Smith Standardizes aiR for Review Firmwide and Saves $2.3 Million on a Single Matter

How did they do it?

• Embedded aiR for Review into disputes, investigations, and DSAR workflows.
• Reduced document populations early, allowing leaner teams to manage large matters more efficiently.
• Drove partner-led adoption through consistent results on live matters.
• Applied repeatable workflows to improve delivery predictability and expand team capacity.

Embedding aiR for Review Across Project Types

Reed Smith handles a wide range of litigation, investigations, and regulatory matters where timelines are unforgiving, document volumes are high, and clients expect cost discipline without compromising defensibility.

Over the past 18 months, the firm has incorporated Relativity aiR for Review into these workflows to manage that pressure more consistently.

aiR for Review was initially introduced through the firm’s eDiscovery team, which works closely with case teams on complex matters. As partners and associates saw results in live matters, case teams began proactively suggesting aiR for Review to clients and bringing it into new engagements, particularly where large-scale review would otherwise drive up costs and risk.

“We’re now at the point where using aiR on first-pass review is a natural start for many matters. Every matter involving client data now includes a conversation about using aiR in our workflow.”
James Whittington, Director, Disputes & eDiscovery

Saving $2.3 Million and Accelerating Witness Prep in High-Stakes Litigation

In a large litigation involving roughly 5.6 million documents produced to date, Reed Smith applied aiR for Review to first-pass review across the population. The team analyzed approximately 1 million documents with aiR for Review and excluded around 500,000 from manual review, saving an estimated 11,300 hours and over $2.3 million.

The value went beyond cost and time savings. aiR for Review outperformed traditional TAR workflows in surfacing key documents within chat communications, where TAR often assigned lower relevance scores as it failed to capture the nuance and context of the conversations. That accuracy proved decisive in deposition preparation. In one deposition, opposing counsel relied on three chat communications, all three of which aiR for Review had already surfaced, allowing the case team to prepare the witness thoroughly in advance and address the evidence with confidence.

The result was faster turnaround of witness kits and more time for the case team and clients to focus on strategy rather than document review, translating raw efficiency into higher-value legal work.

“aiR has been a game changer for our team, saving us approximately 500,000 documents from manual review, an estimated 11,300 review hours, and more than $2.3 million in costs. Just as importantly, it accelerated our witness preparation timeline, giving our team and clients more time to focus on case strategy rather than document review.”
Regis Stafford, Counsel

Getting to the Facts Earlier in Investigations

High-stakes matters share a common demand: getting to what matters fast, under pressure. Investigations are no exception, starting with volume, fragmented communications, and pressure to understand what happened before all the facts are known.

In an internal investigation for a large pharmaceutical client, the team analyzed 32,000 documents using aiR for Review, classifying them by issue in approximately 8 hours. The output provided structured groupings with supporting rationale, allowing the team to identify themes and begin framing findings immediately.

Rather than working through documents sequentially and waiting for patterns to emerge, the team had a clear view of how the data organized itself around key issues from the outset. That allowed them to move directly into explaining what the data showed and advising the client, instead of assembling that understanding late in the process.

That ability to structure large volumes of data early in the process has shaped how Reed Smith approaches other high-pressure workflows.

Bringing Control Over High-Volume DSARs

DSARs create a different kind of pressure. Deadlines are fixed, scope is often unclear, and the expectation is that the response will be both complete and proportionate.

In one DSAR matter for a global fintech company, Reed Smith started with approximately 1.2 million documents, reduced the population to just over 3,000 using analytics and filtering, and then applied aiR for Review to identify approximately 50 relevant documents.

That level of reduction is difficult to achieve with traditional workflows, where uncertainty around scope typically requires broader review coverage and drives significant effort.

For Gary Blair, Manager of Disputes & eDiscovery, that precision changes what the firm can take on: “aiR for Review has brought a level of consistency to how we handle DSARs that's difficult to achieve with traditional workflows. We're able to scope matters more accurately, manage review more tightly, and deliver with greater confidence, which gives us the capacity to take on more of these matters than we could previously.”

A Repeatable Model Across LDI Use Cases

Reed Smith’s use of aiR for Review has expanded across practice areas and matter types, supported by growing confidence among partners and case teams, and grounded in the firm’s experienced eDiscovery team working closely alongside them.

As more matters are delivered using aiR for Review, teams are able to refine and reuse workflows and carry those learnings into new engagements. Over time, that consistency has strengthened how the firm executes high-volume matters and how it presents that capability to clients.

In client conversations and competitive situations, Reed Smith is no longer describing how it might approach large-scale review. It is demonstrating how it already does, with a model that is proven across litigation, investigations, and DSARs.

“aiR is now a standard part of how our firm operates. We’re able to get to the right documents faster and stay closely aligned to the issues, which means both our teams and our clients have a much higher degree of confidence in the process and the decisions we’re making around it.”
Bryan McCall, Senior Manager, Disputes & eDiscovery