How McDermott Saved Constellation Brands Millions

Background
McDermott Will & Emery is an international law firm with a diversified business practice. With more than 1,100 attorneys, the
firm has 18 offices around the globe and a strategic alliance with MWE China Law Offices in Shanghai. McDermotts specialties
include tax, health care, benefits, intellectual property, and other business litigation matters across all industries. A top-notch
antitrust practice, tier-one e-discovery group, and diverse experience allow McDermott to provide sophisticated and cost-
effective legal services for their clients.

Martha Louks is a consultant in McDermotts discovery practice group and is experienced in the use of technology during
litigation. Martha supports McDermotts case teams by providing a blend of legal and technological insight in each matter.

The Case Prioritizing a Cooperative Approach

In 2012, North American brewers Anheuser-Busch InBev and
Grupo Modelo announced a proposed merger that would
combine two of the largest beer suppliers in the world.
Constellation Brandsa wine, beer, and spirits company
with an extensive portfolio of brands in the beverage
spacewas also involved in the deal. As part of the terms
of the merger, Constellation would purchase Modelos 50
percent stake in a fourth entity, Crown Imports, which had
been a joint venture between Constellation and Modelo.
By purchasing the remaining 50 percent stake in Crown,
Constellation would own full distribution rights in the U.S.
for Corona and other Modelo beer brands.
The deal, however, was stalled by requests for information
by the U.S. Department of Justice, which was tasked with
determining whether the merger would give too much
market share to a single entity. This second request left the
merging parties with just over two months to sift through
millions of documents and begin producing information.
As counsel for both Constellation and Crown, the team at
McDermott had a lot of work ahead of them.
Fortunately, this case was well-suited for a computer-
assisted review workflow, said Martha. It was a great
opportunity to use Relativity Assisted Review.
Computer-assisted review had been an important tool
in McDermotts arsenal for some time. A case team had
recently used it on a related matter, and several members
of the McDermott team had already begun discussing the
technology with the U.S. DOJ. With a strong relationship
already in place, McDermott quickly got to work
establishing an acceptable workflow for the case.
We were very clear and transparent with the Department
of Justice from the beginning, said Martha. It was
important to establish an approach that everyone was
comfortable with, and we were all aware of the potential
benefits in terms of time and cost savings.
Martha and Warren Rosboroughan antitrust partner at
McDermott who had served in the U.S. DOJs antitrust
division for four years prior to joining the firmshared
many calls with the U.S. DOJ to discuss the potential of
Assisted Review in the case.
The DOJs team was excited about the possibility, too.
They recognized that computer-assisted review could
mean smaller productions with better quality information.
As a precaution, they just wanted some control over the
process to ensure its accuracy, said Martha.
McDermott and the U.S. DOJ held regular calls to establish
a favorable methodology for the case. Early culling nearly
halved the original data volume, but still left well over a
million documents to be reviewed.
We agreed not to cull data with search terms before
we ran it through Assisted Review, Martha explained.
Instead, we culled only with traditional methods like
de-duplication, date restrictions, and de-NISTing. From
there, we relied on Assisted Review to identify documents
for production.
It was also decided well in advance that any documents
Assisted Review deemed uncategorized would be linearly
reviewed, and both teams outlined which issues should
be considered responsive to the second request.
We agreed to treat the documents collected by Crown
and those by Constellation separately, said Martha.
The DOJ requested that we use a responsiveness
standard for one party that was broader than the
standard for the other, so we set up two separate
Assisted Review projects. This case was a great
opportunity to see the results of computer-assisted
review with two very different approaches, and we felt that
the best way to achieve accurate results was to approach
each data set independently.
With an agreed-upon protocol in place, the McDermott
team was able to start on the case quickly. Throughout
the coming weeks, they tackled the data and kept lines of
communication with the U.S. DOJ wide open.
A Tailored Technique
Data from Constellation and Crown was loaded into
Relativity in mid-September 2012. From the start,
McDermotts team understood the difference that a
small, cohesive group of expert reviewers can make in a
computer-assisted review project.
We had a group of about five key people who were
all subject matter experts in this caseand, for the first
several days, everyone worked very closely together,
said Martha. We knew it was crucial that all five of these
reviewers were on the same page: when youre training
the system, you have to maintain consistency.
During the initial training rounds, reviewers frequently
discussed what responsiveness meant for each data set,
held one another accountable for coding protocols, and
worked as a tight-knit team. In a daily team phone call,
reviewers shared insights and asked questions to help
keep everyone focused.
It was going well, and DOJ was continuously aware of
our progress, said Martha. It was very beneficial to have
everyone on the same page.
The workflow went smoothly, though the team did notice
differences between the two data sets. For example, using
a broader definition of responsiveness required more
training rounds to achieve stability.
We ran these projects simultaneously, responding to
the same document request, so it was interesting to see
the differences in each emerge along the way, said
Martha. We made sure DOJ was kept apprised of those
differences along the way.
Beyond the separate data sets, McDermott needed
to handle additional server data that did not become
available until the project was already in progress.
The server data took longer to collect, so it wasnt
incorporated into the data sets until later, said Martha.
But with Assisted Review, we were able to use the
documents we had already coded to fine-tune the system
and quickly integrate the extra documents.
In the first round that included the server data, the team
used existing samples to code the new documents. For
subsequent rounds, they pulled new samples to better
train the system. In the end, the addition of server data
didnt inhibit the teams results. After just 10 days and a
handful of training rounds, their first production was ready
to be delivered to the U.S. DOJ.
With a rolling production schedule in place,
McDermotts team was also able to use the analytics
indexes they had fine-tuned with Assisted Review
to prioritize linear review for privilege and issue
coding. All responsive documents were produced to
the U.S. DOJ by October 26thonly six weeks after
McDermott had begun training Assisted Review.
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Validated Results
The U.S. DOJ and McDermott continued their
collaboration even after the final production was out
the door. To validate the results, the U.S. DOJ wanted to
review a random sample of non-responsive documents to
make sure the responsive documents had indeed been
produced. Several litigation support professionals visited
McDermotts office to observe Martha creating a series
of sample sets. The U.S. DOJ chose a set at random and
reviewed the documents for responsiveness. A clean
team performed this exercise, meaning no member was
actively working on the matter. In the end, the U.S. DOJ
was satisfied with the results of their review.
As a result of a cooperative working relationship, a
fast and effective review, and quality productions, the
McDermott team received direct validation from the U.S.
DOJ for the Assisted Review workflow.
All in all, McDermott was able to target just 21 percent of
the original data set for manual review. The quick work
and increased accuracy saved their clients more than $2
million. In the end, the merger received U.S. DOJ approval
in spring 2013.
Both our team and our clients were very happy with
the results of this case, said Martha. Were excited to
evaluate each new matter for its potential with Assisted
Review, and we look forward to continuously making our
work more effective for our clients.
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