Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Document Review Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

A Document Review Specialist is responsible for reviewing, analyzing, and coding documents and electronic evidence for litigation, regulatory inquiries, compliance audits, contract management, and internal investigations. The role requires strong legal and technical literacy, proficiency with eDiscovery and document review platforms, consistent application of review protocols (responsiveness, privilege, confidentiality), and rigorous quality control to support litigation teams and business stakeholders. This role bridges legal, technical, and business functions to ensure defensible review outcomes and efficient document workflows.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Paralegal or Legal Assistant with document handling experience
Litigation Support Analyst or Junior eDiscovery Technician
Contract Analyst or Compliance Associate

Advancement To:

Senior Document Review Specialist / Lead Reviewer
eDiscovery Project Manager or Litigation Support Manager
Senior Paralegal or eDiscovery Operations Manager

Lateral Moves:

Compliance Analyst
Contract Manager or Contract Reviewer
Records & Information Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct thorough line-by-line review and coding of paper and electronically stored information (ESI) for responsiveness, privilege, confidentiality, relevancy, and issue tags according to matter-specific review protocols and legal team guidance.
Operate and manage case review in leading eDiscovery/document review platforms (Relativity, Everlaw, Ringtail, Concordance, kCura) to load, organize, batched, search, and code large volumes of documents.
Apply privilege and redaction workflows: identify privileged communications, apply appropriate redactions, and document privilege logs to support defensibility in litigation and regulatory matters.
Execute complex search terms, filters, and boolean queries to isolate relevant document populations and reduce review scope while maintaining legal defensibility.
Perform metadata analysis and document family grouping (email threads, attachments) to preserve context, identify custodians, and ensure correct coding across related documents.
Participate in technology-assisted review (TAR) / predictive coding workflows: tag training sets, review model predictions, validate results, and calibrate thresholds with the legal team.
Conduct quality control (QC) and second-pass reviews: verify coding accuracy, consistency with tag taxonomy, and escalate potential issues or protocol ambiguities to lead counsel.
Prepare and maintain detailed reviewer notes, issue logs, and chain-of-custody documentation to support audit trails and produce defensible records for court or regulatory productions.
Support document productions: compile, format, Bates-number, and export document sets with required load files (DAT, CSV, OPT), privilege logs, and production metadata in accordance with discovery orders.
Review and categorize contractual documents for key terms, obligations, termination provisions, and compliance risks as part of contract lifecycle management projects.
Assist litigation teams with intake and triage of new custodial collections, including early case assessment (ECA) and custodian prioritization recommendations.
Collaborate with legal, IT, and vendor partners to troubleshoot load file issues, OCR errors, corrupted files, and deliverable format problems.
Ensure strict adherence to confidentiality, data privacy, and security protocols (including HIPAA, GDPR considerations) when handling sensitive PII, PHI, or proprietary information.
Train and mentor contract reviewers and temporary review teams on case-specific protocols, coding guidelines, and defensible review best practices.
Track reviewer productivity and progress metrics, report against staffing plans, and recommend workflow adjustments to meet project timelines.
Conduct source verification and validation tasks: reconcile native files, extracted text, and OCR to ensure accurate search and review functionality.
Assist in preparing privilege and relevance samplings for meet-and-confer sessions and provide example document sets to support discovery negotiations.
Support forensic and collection teams by identifying potential custodian evidence, common data sources, and preservation needs for targeted collections.
Maintain current knowledge of eDiscovery industry trends, tool updates, and emerging best practices to recommend process improvements and automation opportunities.
Escalate material legal or regulatory risks identified during review to supervising attorneys immediately and document the escalation pathway.
Coordinate with vendors for managed review engagements, manage reviewer onboarding, and validate vendor QC performance metrics and SLAs.
Format and redact documents for public filings, regulatory submissions, and productions while preserving required metadata and adhering to court rules.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to help attorneys scope discovery and identify high-value custodians or documents.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by recommending tooling, process efficiencies, and opportunities for automation in document workflows.
Collaborate with business units to translate legal and compliance data needs into technical requirements for collections, processing, and review.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering or litigation support team to align review priorities and resource allocation.
Assist with internal audits and compliance reviews by producing evidence sets and assisting subject matter experts with document sourcing.
Maintain accurate timekeeping and matter coding for review activities to support billing, staffing, and cost forecasts.
Develop and update review playbooks, coding matrices, and example sets that reflect evolving case law, discovery obligations, and client preferences.
Participate in cross-functional training on privacy, cybersecurity, and records retention to strengthen defensible data handling across teams.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert proficiency with document review and eDiscovery platforms: Relativity, RelativityOne, Everlaw, Ringtail, Concordance, or similar.
Practical experience with TAR / predictive coding workflows and setting/validating model thresholds.
Strong redaction skills and experience creating privilege logs and managing privilege reviews.
Advanced search query skills including Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and proximity searches.
Familiarity with processing and production standards: load files (DAT, CSV), image formats, natives, and metadata exports.
Solid understanding of ESI concepts: custodians, data sources, metadata fields, threading and near-duplicate detection.
Experience with OCR troubleshooting, text extraction validation, and document family grouping.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel for tracking, pivot tables, VLOOKUP), and comfortable with CSV and basic data manipulation.
Exposure to legal or regulatory standards (e.g., Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, GDPR, HIPAA) and defensible discovery practices.
Familiarity with litigation support tools and case management systems and the ability to coordinate with external vendors.
Ability to use reporting dashboards to monitor reviewer production, accuracy, and project KPIs.
Basic scripting or analytical familiarity (SQL or Python) is a plus for advanced data pulls and validation tasks.
Experience working with cloud-hosted review platforms and understanding of information security controls.

Soft Skills

Meticulous attention to detail and a demonstrated track record of consistent, defensible decision-making under pressure.
Strong written and verbal communication skills for documenting issues, liaising with attorneys, and preparing production notes.
Excellent time management and prioritization abilities to meet tight deadlines in high-volume review projects.
Analytical mindset to identify patterns, prioritize review targets, and propose efficiency improvements.
Collaborative team player who can train and lead temporary reviewers and work effectively with cross-functional teams.
High degree of integrity and commitment to maintaining confidentiality and protecting sensitive information.
Problem-solving orientation with the ability to escalate appropriately and suggest practical remediation steps.
Adaptability to evolving case protocols, tool updates, and changing regulatory requirements.
Customer-service mindset when supporting internal or external legal stakeholders.
Resilience and stress tolerance for repetitive review tasks and volume surges.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Associate degree, paralegal certificate, or equivalent practical experience in legal review, litigation support, or information management.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor's degree in Paralegal Studies, Legal Studies, Information Science, Criminal Justice, or a related field; paralegal certification preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Paralegal Studies or Legal Administration
Information Science, Records & Information Management
Computer Science or Data Analytics (advantageous)
Business, Compliance, or Risk Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

1 to 5 years of hands-on document review, litigation support, or eDiscovery experience; may include contract review, compliance investigations, or regulatory responses.

Preferred:

3+ years of progressive document review experience in law firms, corporate legal departments, or eDiscovery service providers; demonstrated experience with Relativity/Everlaw, privilege/redaction workflows, and production handling.