The Challenge
A law firm based in Chicago was working on a case that involved a pharmacy chain with locations throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, their paper discovery vendor was unreliable: They consistently missed deadlines and made countless errors during collection, including missing crucial evidence.
Aside from dealing with the challenges associated with inaccuracy and timing, the firm would need different vendors for each city where onsite collection was required. That meant they had to find dozens of vendors, train each vendor on what to collect, describe their required deliverables, and ultimately, get a consistent work product. This would pull them away from developing their case strategy, among other critical tasks.
The firm first contacted Avalon to assist in Cleveland, where one of our brick-and-mortar offices is located. They wanted a trustworthy vendor with experience doing large-scale, complex paper discovery collections to perform remote collections at twelve pharmacy locations in two counties in Ohio. It was crucial they work with a reliable discovery team who could examine thousands of prescriptions and locate schedule II narcotic checklists, then scan those checklists, along with any other corresponding data and material.
The Strategy
Avalon is one of the few remaining midsize companies that offers paper discovery, as many other larger vendors are unwilling or unable to perform this service. Our expertise was apparent early in the collection, as we finished ahead of their deadline and with a much higher level of quality and accuracy than any other discovery vendor they had used before. Since they were so impressed with Avalon’s results in Ohio, they asked if we were willing and able to travel to Florida to perform collections in 50 stores throughout the state.
Our next challenge was to develop a plan to travel around Florida – and soon, the entire country – to perform collections in every jurisdiction the firm worked. The logistics surrounding this enormous project were significant. The case timeline and priorities changed weekly, so we had to deploy teams to get into a city, get the work done, get out, and get ready for the next city, sometimes in a matter of days. There were also times when we needed to be in two different cities simultaneously.
We held numerous meetings on how best to organize and deploy our team, ultimately, concluding that, to manage all collections going forward, we needed two separate teams with team leaders, who could be ready at a moment’s notice. All Avalon team members are trained to deliver the highest level of quality and work in high-pressure situations where timing is critical. So, we knew this unique project was a natural fit for us and trusted our team to accomplish the – massive – task at hand.
The Results
Accuracy and speed are sometimes difficult to combine, but Avalon’s team was able to pull it off – in more than 130 cities and more than 500,000 paper documents – and allowed our client to succeed. Each deadline was met, and all work product was exceptional. We helped the firm be more efficient, allowing them to focus on their case, rather than spend valuable time seeking and training new vendors.
The client expressed multiple times that things had never run more smoothly than when Avalon took over their in-store collections, and that, going forward, we will be the only call they make for onsite collections. Avalon continues to assist the client with their collections in additional jurisdictions across the country for this case.
