Why Second-Request Review Costs Spiral
The DOJ and FTC's Second Request process demands exhaustive document production under tight rolling deadlines. Law firms bill the time to classify responsiveness, apply custodian scope, identify 4(c) strategic planning documents, and manage privilege logs — work that is high-volume, rule-intensive, and expensive at partner and associate rates. For a strategic acquirer, the combination of external counsel fees and internal GC bandwidth consumed by review coordination routinely pushes matter costs well past $5M. The production calendar adds pressure: missing a rolling-production commitment carries regulatory risk on top of the financial hit.
How a Gemini-Powered Agent Handles the Classification Workload
An AI Labor Company agent begins by reconstructing the privilege-log workflow and rolling-production cadence from the GC team's Slack threads and matter emails — so the agent operates within the existing production structure rather than imposing a new one. It then deploys a Gemini 3.5 agent to classify documents for responsiveness, apply the HSR Second Request's custodian filters, and surface likely 4(c) documents for attorney eyes-only review. The supervising partner reviews and approves every production volume before upload to the FTC or DOJ portal. The agent accelerates the volume work; the attorney controls the gate.
The Business Case: Recovering Outside-Counsel Spend on Every Matter
This is a direct cost recovery story. Review-phase hours at outside-counsel rates represent the largest single component of Second Request spend. Reducing that category by 60–70% per matter — which teams running this approach have found achievable — translates directly to recoverable fees on every transaction that triggers a Second Request. For an acquirer running two to three significant transactions per year, the cumulative recovery across matters is material. The agent is typically operational and integrated into the production workflow within about 14 weeks. Unlike workflow changes that require firms to restructure how they staff reviews, this approach slots into the existing rolling-production cadence.
Is attorney review still required before production, or does the agent produce directly?
The supervising partner approves every production volume before anything is uploaded to the FTC or DOJ portal. The agent handles classification and flagging; attorney judgment governs what actually gets produced.
How does the agent handle 4(c) documents — the high-stakes strategic planning files?
The agent flags documents matching 4(c) criteria (forward-looking competitive analyses, business plans, and similar strategic materials) and routes them to attorney eyes-only review. They are not included in any production volume until an attorney has reviewed and made the call.
Our matters are staffed by multiple outside firms. Can the agent work across their different production formats?
Yes. The agent is configured around your production cadence and custodian structure, not a specific firm's workflow. It can ingest document sets and apply consistent classification logic regardless of which outside counsel firm is coordinating production on a given matter.