One blogger compared outsourcing to buying a wedding dress: a transaction filled with hope and excitement followed by seven years of stress, disagreements and legal issues.

If this were true, the outsourcing of legal services such as document review and electronic discovery would not be the multi-billion dollar industry that it is today. It was reported last year that more than $250 billion is spent on legal services worldwide. Because not all legal services can be outsourced, it is estimated that nearly $111.2 billion worth of legal services is outsourced in the US each year.

As with any business transaction, it is important to investigate every detail and prepare for every foreseeable outcome. This is especially true when a law firm submits tens of thousands of highly confidential documents from a multi-million dollar corporate client for review.

Below is a discussion of seven tips to help you choose the best document review outsourcing company.

Seven tips for selecting the best legal outsourcing company

1. Evaluate. Assess what your needs and goals are. Consider which processes you want to outsource and why you want to send them out of your office. To answer the “why” question, it is important to determine how outsourcing to Israel or another country will free up your resources for other, more important legal tasks.

2. Interview. Interview your potential suppliers as if you were hiring an internal employee. Your legal outsourcing firm needs to be the right fit in terms of skills, attitude, and personality.

3. Focus on the important variables. When meeting with potential legal service providers, don’t get bogged down in details and “worst-case” scenarios. It is more productive to discuss scope of work, performance standards, pricing, management, and quality review. Also, don’t rush through the selection process, as it’s best to take a little more time to get it right the first time.

4. Be reasonable. When negotiating contract terms, don’t suggest difficult terms that no one can logically agree to. Instead, come up with sensible terms that enhance the mutual success of the contractual relationship.

5. Be clear and concise. Although outsourcing eDiscovery projects is complicated, the contract need not be as thick as a law school textbook. When drafting the contract, cover all the important terms, but make it clear, simple, and useful.

6. Manage. To successfully manage the legal outsourcing project you are sending abroad, it is recommended that you assemble your team BEFORE signing any contract. If the management team has a role in forming the relationship, the probability of success increases significantly. Also, establish effective risk management in the contract. Normally, the parties to an electronic discovery contract attempt to shift the risks to the other party. More importantly, build good risk management terms into the agreement, such as security, privacy, and disaster recovery.

7. Take a collaborative approach. From negotiations to contract signing and execution, operate with a collaborative tone. A collaborative tone will build trust, flexibility, and success. The document review outsourcing company will negotiate more flexibly if it detects your cooperation. In addition, collaboration will motivate all parties to work harder to achieve contractual goals.

When outsourcing is done right, it’s a win-win situation, both professionally and financially. Performance produces benefits for all parties, while failure causes bad consequences. Following these seven tips will put you in a much better position to build a positive, long-term relationship with your document review provider.