How Evidence Optix® Becomes the Command Center for Class Action and MDL Discovery

In Part 1 of this blog, we explored why class action and MDL discovery spirals into chaos: sprawling data, shifting custodians, compressed timelines, and multi-party complexities. Left unmanaged, these challenges drive runaway costs, create defensibility risks, and strain IT and legal teams.

Traditional discovery workflows were never designed for the realities of class actions and MDLs. Spreadsheets, ad hoc custodian tracking, and fragmented decision-making break down under multi-year timelines, parallel proceedings, and constantly expanding scope.

Evidence Optix is not just a better way to manage discovery, it is a centralized system of record for discovery governance across complex litigation. Built with class actions and MDLs in mind, it replaces reactive fire drills with centralized control, defensible decision-making, and enterprise-wide visibility into cost, scope, and risk.

What Changes When Discovery Is Centralized

With Evidence Optix, discovery decisions stop hiding out in scattered inboxes, spreadsheets, and individual matters. Instead, organizations gain a durable, reusable framework that persists across cases, outside counsel teams, and years of litigation, even as people, forums, and strategies change.

  1. Tame the Scale of Data and Custodians
    One of the biggest drivers of runaway discovery costs is volume. Evidence Optix imposes discipline at the very start of discovery, evaluating and ranking custodians using consistent, quantitative criteria. Instead of defaulting to overcollection, legal teams can affirmatively justify who matters, why, and at what cost — arming counsel with defensible proportionality arguments that withstand judicial scrutiny and counter MDL-wide negotiations.
  1. Manage the Shifting Custodian Landscape
    Class actions run for years. Employees retire, change roles, or depart, and too often, knowledge gets lost in moving spreadsheets and scattered notes. To address this challenge, organizations need a robust discovery management system that captures, organizes, and retains critical case information, ensuring continuity and smoother transitions.Evidence Optix solves this challenge. Custodian records live in one centralized system. Teams can reference and re-assess prior evaluations instantly, maintaining consistency across years without starting over. The result: defensible decisions, fewer re-collections, and a single source of truth that survives staff turnover and multi-year timelines.
  1. Streamline Multi-Party Coordination
    Multi-defendant, multi-plaintiff, and regulatory actions often derail in meet-and-confer sessions where disputes boil down to finger-pointing. Evidence Optix shifts the balance of power in meet-and-confer discussions by replacing speculation with transparent, defensible metrics.In class actions and MDLs, where plaintiffs’ steering committees and multiple defendants often compete for leverage, scenario modeling and shared dashboards allow defense teams to set the agenda, not react to it. Instead of fighting over impressions and suppositions, teams negotiate based on facts.
  1. Gain Deeper Insights Earlier in the Process
    The discovery scoping process often entails one set of generalized custodian survey and interview questions, leading to overcollection and little insight at the outset of cases. Evidence Optix gives legal teams the ability to segment custodians (e.g., by department, executive status, priority level, non-custodial, departed) and assign tailored surveys, relevancy assessments, and interviews to capture specific responses that facilitate faster and more precise analysis.
  1. Control Timelines While Scope Expands
    Even as courts impose aggressive deadlines, discovery scope almost always widens over time. Real-time cost projections and detailed reporting allow legal teams to demonstrate active discovery management to courts, including during MDL bellwether trial scheduling and phased discovery. Instead of appearing reactive or disorganized, organizations can show judges that discovery is being intentionally governed, even as scope expands.
  1. Reduce Long-Term Preservation, IT Burdens, and Risk
    Legal holds that last for years tie up massive amounts of data and strain IT systems. Evidence Optix introduces targeted preservation workflows that evolve with the matter, providing clear, data-driven insights. This gives teams the metrics they need to make informed and intelligent decisions about realigning or lifting holds, rather than keeping everything in limbo. By knowing exactly which data is critical and which can be released, corporations reduce storage costs, ease IT burdens, and minimize compliance and litigation risk over the long haul.
  1. Minimize Runaway Review and Counsel Spend
    Outside counsel spend is one of the largest and most unpredictable discovery costs. Evidence Optix institutionalizes discovery management, ensuring that outside counsel across firms, matters, and jurisdictions work from the same factual record. This single source of truth reduces duplicative effort, constrains unnecessary review, and prevents discovery spend from escalating simply because cases multiply or teams change. Because custodian and data source analysis is available across related cases, corporations avoid paying multiple times to collect and process the same data.
  1. Strengthen Judicial Defensibility
    Judges expect discovery arguments to be grounded in fact, not speculation. Evidence Optix provides transparent, metrics-based reporting that demonstrates cost, burden, and proportionality in clear terms. This consistent historical record not only strengthens credibility with the court, but also reduces the risk of sanctions, inconsistent positions, or credibility gaps across related matters.
  1. Master the Spin-Off Effect: Offshoot, Parallel, and MDL Cases
    Class actions rarely end with a single matter. Derivative suits, parallel litigation, and regulatory actions often stem from the same facts, creating duplicative discovery obligations and inconsistent rulings. In MDLs, where discovery is intended to be reused across hundreds or thousands of individual actions, consistency and documentation become mission critical, not optional.Evidence Optix turns discovery reuse into a strategic advantage. Prior custodian analysis, scope decisions, and cost models become assets, not sunk costs. This continuity limits the plaintiffs’ ability to relitigate discovery from scratch and preserves defense leverage across proceedings.

The Bottom Line

In class actions and MDLs, discovery is not an operational detail, it is a strategic battleground. Evidence Optix gives legal teams the control, continuity, and defensibility required to manage discovery at scale, across years of litigation and waves of related cases.

Take Control of Class Action Discovery Today

Don’t let sprawling data, shifting custodians, and multi-party complexity dictate your strategy. With Evidence Optix, you can streamline discovery, reduce costs, and strengthen defensibility before the next case spins out of control.

Request a demo today to see how Evidence Optix can transform your class action and MDL discovery from chaos to control.