Aug 6 (Reuters) - More than 90 percent of a small group of in-house counsel and law firm attorneys said the computer coding used to sift through electronic documents was useful, though it might not be the big money saver it is sometimes billed as, a new survey reported.

Thirteen in-house counsel from Fortune 1000 companies and 11 Am Law 200 partners and senior counsel were asked about their experiences with so-called predictive coding, the case-specific searches used to predict whether documents are relevant to litigation. The survey, conducted on behalf of FTI Consulting, which manages e-discovery for large corporations, did not identify its participants by name but found that 54 percent had used the technology to aid in discovery.

While many in the legal industry have worried that such coding will replace human review, very few respondents said they relied on the technology to automatically indicate whether documents were relevant or not. Instead, they used it to cull and prioritize documents, so the process would be easier for lawyers reviewing the material, the report said. "With predictive coding, you are getting your hands on the key documents much earlier in the process than in more traditional approaches," a law firm respondent told the surveyors, who included legal marketing consultant Ari Kaplan and FTI's Joe Looby.

Most respondents said the algorithms sped up document review, but they were unable to exactly quantify how much money the technology saved them. Twenty-seven percent could not assess the costs; the same percentage estimated cost savings between $25,000 and 250,000. Another 18 percent estimated savings between $250,000 and $500,000, while 27 percent believed they saved more than $500,000. One of the respondents who believed they had saved between $25,000 and $50,000 said the process allowed them to avoid reviewing 80,000 to 90,000 documents.

The lawyers found predictive coding especially useful in big cases involving more than 100,000 documents, cases requiring documents to be gathered from 50 or more people, in commercial litigation and when responding to governmental requests requiring large-scale review in a short time period. The technology wasn't so useful in employment cases, patent litigation and cases where a large number of documents to be reviewed are images or audio files rather than text.

Responses to the questions were largely consistent, the study's authors told Reuters, though in-house attorneys were more concerned with developments in how courts are addressing and responding to the technology, Looby said.

Jeffrey Fowler, a partner at O'Melveny & Myers who is part of his firm's electronic discovery practice, said that predictive coding is necessary in e-discovery. But he wasn't surprised that some companies expressed concern about judges' attitudes toward the technology. Members of the judiciary have sometimes asked litigating parties to work together and disclose their processes to each another, Fowler said.

"Clients are concerned that if they use predictive coding ... (they) will have to involve the opposition at a level that will be too costly and not practical."

(Reporting By Erin Geiger Smith)

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