BDO Adds e-Discovery Practice for Litigation Support

BDO Consulting has expanded its forensic technology services practice by adding the e-Discovery practice of Key Discovery, a litigation support service provider based in Boston.

Separately, BDO Consulting said Tuesday it has entered into a strategic agreement with Brainspace, a provider of text analytics for e-discovery and investigations.

In the Key Discovery deal, the e-Discovery practice offers various services for law firms and corporate legal departments, including electronic data collection and processing, hosted review, production, project management and consulting. Key Discovery will continue its main business of paper discovery and corporate solutions, along with its strategic alliance with BDO. The deal takes effect immediately.

“We are extremely pleased to build on our presence in the Boston market by adding these e-discovery resources to our national forensic technology services practice,” said BDO Consulting executive director and partner Carl Pergola in a statement Tuesday.

He noted that Key has an impressive client base, including members of the American Lawyer 200 and U.S. News Best Law Firms in Boston lists. 

BDO plans to expand the practice and provide Key’s clients with more capabilities in areas such as digital forensics, cyber investigations, data analytics and expert testimony. “Since we have already been collaborating on client work and business development with Key’s e-discovery team, we anticipate a seamless integration of the practice and its clients,” said Pergola.

The deal is BDO’s second this year in the Boston area. Earlier this year, BDO merged in Feeley & Driscoll,, adding 105 staff, including 15 partners. BDO now has close to 300 staff in the Boston area.

Key’s e-Discovery staff will relocate to BDO’s existing offices in Boston. “Key Discovery has built a strong brand in the Boston marketplace as a premier provider of litigation support services,” said Key Discovery CEO Tom Washburn in a statement. “Our e-discovery practice has been an important component of that success, but for it to reach the next level of growth in this expanding space it requires the national brand name and resources that BDO can provide. BDO, which will continue to be a strategic ally of Key Discovery, combines an understanding of the local market with the national and global resources to match the needs of leading law firms and multinational corporations.”

In the Brainspace deal, Brainspace’s patented Discovery 5 technology will add large-scale machine learning and multidimensional analysis to BDO’s forensic and analytics capabilities. The semantic search technologies will enable clients to navigate large, complex datasets and identify relevant information, including material often overlooked using more traditional technologies. BDO will then help organizations identify data trends to determine the best approach.

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