JAGC Large Scale Civil Litigation Support

Flexible Litigation Augmentation Support for HQDA (FLASH) Industry Day Conference Announcement

Solicitation Number: W91CRB-21-R-0018 FLASH INDUSTRY DAY

Agency: U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC)
Office: U.S. Army Legal Services Agency (USALSA)

Location: Microsoft Teams

DATE: 17 FEB 2021, Begins 9:00 a.m. EST / Open for attendees at 8:30 a.m. EST

Notice Type:  Special Notice

Synopsis: 

Flexible Litigation Augmentation Support for HQDA (FLASH):  U.S. Army Legal Services Agency (USALSA) will conduct an Industry Day Conference 17 FEB 2021 followed by One-on-One sessions on the February 18th and 19th with each company that attends industry Day.  Due to concerns related to the spread of COVID-19, the Conference will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams (Audio/Video & Audio only – Instructions will be provided).  USALSA will present a requirements update for the FLASH solicitation.  Attendance is limited to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personnel, DoD contractors, and exceptions as approved by USALSA.

Questions for the Government will be taken during the conference and will be answered at that time if possible.  Follow-up information, questions and Government answers will be provided approximately 15 days after the conference.  Participants should not provide or reveal any proprietary information during the question and answer period.

Those companies interested in attending the conference should submit a “FLASH Industry Day Conference” email to brian.j.allen8.mil@usa.army.mil and gazala.a.shaikh.civ@mail.mil not later than 10 FEB 2021, 1200 EST. In your email please include the following:

Organization.

Full Name of each attendee, Title, and Telephone number (contact), and email address.  If attending “Audio Only”, telephone number to be used to access site.

Preferred date for One-on-One conversation (30 minutes) on either 18 FEB or 19 FEB.

Please consolidate all attendees from your company on one list.  If you are not a DoD employee or DoD contractor, indicate that you are requesting an exception to the attendance criteria.  A confirmation of registration for the conference, to include access instructions to the conference site using Microsoft Teams, will be provided by email by 15 FEB 2021, 1500 EST. Along with the confirmation to attend Industry Day, a date and time for One-on-One sessions will be provided.

Questions and Answers:

Questions for the Government will be taken during the conference. Please submit your questions to Peter Buckless at, peter.p.buckless.civ@mail.mil , and Jerry Simmons at, gerald.a.simmons2.civ@mail.mil. If/as time permits the Government will provide responses to questions during the conference. All questions and answers will be consolidated and posted to betaSAM.gov within 5-10 business days.

End of notice update.

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REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FOR

PROFESSIONAL LEGAL SUPPORT SERVICES  

JAGC Large Scale Civil Litigation Support

1. OBJECTIVE

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)/SOURCES SOUGHT (SS) ONLY. This request is for planning purposes, and is not to be considered an invitation for bid, request for quotation, or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this RFI/SS or any follow up information request.

This RFI/SS is issued in support of the anticipated acquisition of professional legal support services for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC).  Professional legal support encompasses a wide range of professional services and products that help attorneys collect, organize, develop, and present evidence throughout the course of all types of litigation (civil or criminal) and board proceedings, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, and through post-trial briefs and the appeals process. Contractor personnel will furnish administrative, logistical, professional, and technical labor, supplies, equipment, facilities, materials, and technologies necessary to provide a wide range of professional services and products through the course of litigation, including early case assessment (ECA), investigations, and responses to subpoenas and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The types of professional legal support required under this contract will generally fall into the following areas: (1) Database creation and Hosting services; (2) Collection services; (3) Electronically stored information (“ESI”) processing services; (4) Hardcopy or Microfiche services; (5) Production services; (6) Forensic services; (7)  Litigation Support resource services (i.e., resource planning, implementation, and administration); (8) Managed review services; (9) Pre-trial, trial, and post-trial support services; (10) Expert analysis and testimony services; and (11) Other specialized professional legal support services (e.g., legal research and writing, translation and transcription, trial support, etc.).  A full description of the professional legal support services is set forth below as Requirements under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

This RFI/SS is being issued by the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency (USALSA) and will be primarily used for JAGC and USALSA requirements but any responses received could be used by other entities within the Department of Defense.  The purpose of this RFI/SS will be used to determine the acquisition strategy, including small business participation.  Through this RFI/SS and when appropriate, USALSA is requesting the capabilities and past performance of small business contractors interested in providing these services. Interested small business contractors including Small Disadvantaged Business, Women-Owned, 8(a)’s, HUBZones, Veteran-Owned, or Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses are encouraged to respond.

USALSA is contemplating a single award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract and, based on responses to this RFI/SS, will be able to determine the appropriateness of small business participation.  The IDIQ contract is anticipated to have a 3-year base period and two 1-year option periods.

2. BACKGROUND

The Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGC) provides legal services for the Army, its Soldiers, family members, and retirees.  The JAGC is comprised of military Judge Advocates, civilian counsel, military para-professionals, and civilian paralegals that all serve in a variety of roles.  Judge Advocates may serve as prosecutors and defense attorneys for criminal matters under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, while both Judge Advocates and civilian counsel may serve as litigation attorneys in civil litigation in both Federal and State venues (e.g., Courts and Boards), and practice operational, labor, contract, environmental, tort and administrative law, including investigations, and Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act matters.  These legal matters require the JAGC, in often short suspense timeframes, to collect, scan, copy, decrypt, process, review, and produce increasingly large volumes of paper documents, emails, computer and network files, other electronically stored information (“ESI”), and utilize other professional legal support services (e.g., legal research and writing, translation and transcription, trial support, and expert testimony).  

USALSA is an Army field operating agency of the Office of The Judge Advocate General (OTJAG) that supports Army and Joint Force priorities by representing the Army in legal matters before courts and administrative bodies.  This representation is accomplished in compliance with electronic discovery (eDiscovery) requirements found in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Army policies and regulations, as well as Board and Court rules of practice.  The Army eDiscovery Division (EDD), housed within USALSA on Fort Belvoir, VA, provides in-house litigation support for these legal matters, and is responsible for managing and coordinating legal support services for the JAGC relating to ESI and services utilizing ESI.  These legal matters, however, increasingly involve urgent and/or large scale professional legal support needs beyond EDD’s existing capabilities. 

Most relevant to this RFI/SS is the need for a flexible and responsive IDIQ contract solution to meet such large scale and/or urgent professional legal support needs in support of the JAGC mission. While the primary focus of this RFI/SS and subsequent solicitation is to support the civil litigation mission, the Army expects to use these professional legal support services in other areas of the JAGC practice, such as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), military justice, and investigations.  Moreover, any future contract may be utilized by the JAGC and other DoD affiliated entities.

USALSA, through EDD, will serve as the program office for this RFI/SS and subsequent IDIQ contract. 

3. SCOPE

The scope of this engagement is to provide worldwide professional legal support services, including: project management; managed review; expert analysis; technology processes, and; products from early case assessment/pre-processing ingestion through trial presentation and post-trial phases.  These services utilize state of the art technology, including analytics and technology assisted review (“TAR”), and employ eDiscovery best practices to collect, decrypt, process, ingest, analyze, review, host, and produce ESI for investigations, inspections, examinations, and/or litigation.  Assistance may be required to respond to information requests from many sources, including, for example, Congressional requests for information and third-party subpoenas and audits, as well as to provide assistance to Judge Advocates and other professional staff members to acquire, organize, analyze and present evidence as part of unofficial or official discovery in a lawsuit or investigation. 

A. Level of Service

USALSA will accept responses to this RFI/SS from an All-Service Provider.  Descriptions of work to be performed under this service level are set forth below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

B. Requirements

The Contractor will be required to meet the professional legal services requirements summarized below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS, and technical and security requirements summarized below under Sec. C in this RFI/SS.

Based on the Contractor’s ability to meet the criteria set forth below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS, the Army program office will submit a request for proposal (RFP), and a qualified Contractor will be selected to execute an IDIQ contract under which Task Orders may be issued, as needed.

The period of performance of the IDIQ contract will be 3 base years with two additional 1-year option periods.  Additionally, the IDIQ contract may include a contract extension clause. Task orders will be various lengths and may be issued during the full ordering period of the IDIQ contract.

The solution must meet a number of specific criteria, including:

FedRamp certified:  The contractor shall meet Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization requirements in accordance with NIST Special Publication 800-53 (Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems) and Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) PUB 199 (Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information Systems). In addition, the contractor shall meet the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements in regards to protecting Department of Defense (DoD) Information Systems (IS).

Specifically, the contractor shall adhere to the following NIST, FedRAMP and FISMA guidelines:

1. Risk Categorization: The contractor must categorize the information system in accordance with FIPS 199 to ensure that sensitive information is given the highest levels of security.
2. Risk Assessment: The contractor must conduct a security or risk assessment of the information system in accordance with NIST SP 800-30 to identity vulnerabilities and implement mitigation actions.
3. System Security Plan (SSP): The contractor must develop and maintain a SSP to identify security controls implemented within the Risk Management Framework (RMF). The SSP must be kept up to date and document the security posture of the organization.
4. Third-party Assessments:  The contractor must establish a program to ensure third-party assessments of implemented security controls in accordance with NIST and RMF guidance.
5. Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M):  The contractor must establish POA&Ms for all non-compliant security controls to track identified vulnerabilities and set milestone dates for compliance.
6. Continuous Monitoring:  In accordance with FISMA and NIST guidelines, the contractor must establish of a program of continuous monitoring of the security posture of the information system through self-assessment of appropriate security controls. In addition, the contractor must perform monthly security scans of the system to identify and mitigate critical and high vulnerabilities within 30 days of discovery.  
7. Authorization to Operate (ATO): The contractor must ensure the information system obtains and maintains an approved ATO in accordance with FedRAMP and NIST guidelines.

Provide hosting of unclassified (NIPR) and classified (SIPR) data:  Contractor must provide a non-classified internet protocol router (NIPR) managed solution to web host unclassified native, image and text files that includes: database creation and hosting, processing, ingestion, analytics, review, and production capabilities throughout the course of litigation, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, through post-trial briefs and the appeals process; support up to 500 concurrent users for unlimited concurrent cases; system availability to the users 99% of the time; external data transmission rates of at least 1Gbit/s; a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 4 hours; a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours; and a Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MDT) of 24 hours.  Contractor must provide support for Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) cases on the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET) and/or Internet-connected information systems.  Contractor must also be able to stand up a secret internet protocol router (SIPR) stand-alone/physical solution accessed by contractor and/or Army resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), worldwide, depending on location, to host classified native, image and text files at the SECRET level that includes: database creation and hosting, processing, ingestion, analytics, review, and production capabilities throughout the course of litigation, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, through post-trial briefs and the appeals process; support up to 25 concurrent users for upwards of 5 concurrent cases; and system availability to the approved users 99% of the time.  Contractor must be able to stand up and provide a SIPR Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the SECRET level that meets current Intelligence Community Standards (ICS) 705-01 and 705-02 requirements. 

Provide non-forensic collection, forensic collection and other forensic services:  The JAGC may require on-site and/or remote IT (non-forensic) collection (e.g., of email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, removable/portable media including hard drives, microfiche and hardcopy records), so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection, including all associated metadata from, but not limited to: CONUS and/or OCONUS installations, National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”)/Federal Records Centers (“FRC”) facilities, Army museums, historian repositories, state libraries and historical society resources, Pentagon library, college libraries, Library of Congress, Defense Technical Information Center or DTIC repository, Army Center for Military History, Army Heritage and Education Center, DCMA repositories (DoD Electronic Data Access (EDA) system, Standard Industrial Financial System (SIFS), the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), Defense Visual Information Center, etc. (Army Research Lab Technical Library in Adelphi, MD, Joint Munitions Command’s WARP database, Picatinny Arsenal Technical Research Center, Fort Gordon, Army Transportation Museum, Fort Eustis, Army ordnance museum Fort Lee, Army Environmental Command repository, and CECOM historical databases.  The JAGC may also require on-site forensic collection (using forensic collection software) (e.g., of computer systems including hard drives, network systems and fileshares, email from active Email Exchange, mobile devices including smart devices, virtualized machine and file storage collections, social media, Slack, Sharepoint sites, web pages, and the Cloud), so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection, including all associated metadata from, but not limited to, the aforementioned sources and locations.  Forensic collection includes bit-by-bit forensic imaging of source data, restoration, forensic expert analysis of forensically collected data from a variety of devices/sources (including ability to detect geo-spatial data), distinguishing potential relevance based on expert forensics knowledge and experience as well as information provided by the Army, and provide expert written or verbal testimony as required.

Provide decryption, processing, indexing and searching capability:  The Contractor must have the ability to fully process, ingest, and host Army data (e.g., email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, mobile devices, social media, Slack, removable/portable media, microfiche and hardcopy records) including, when required, email decryption of PKI-encrypted emails (utilizing custodian private keys), password cracking, rapid and robust processing (including text and metadata extraction including OCR’ing, deduplication, de-NISTing, filetype filtering, indexing, and keyword searching / dtSearch functions that enable users to cull and review documents that are collected in JAGC investigations and litigations so as to quickly identify all responsive and non-privileged evidence for production.  This includes the ingestion of load-ready data (e.g., natives with loadfiles, images with loadfiles), received from opposing or third parties, and structured data from databases. The JAGC requires that the Contractor have a comprehensive processing engine and legal review tool with the ability to perform document review with all of the expected above-mentioned functions designed to meet current FRCP requirements and handle large datasets.  At a minimum, the Contractor should be able to process and ingest 5 terabytes of decompressed input files and load fully processed data (natives, images, text, metadata) within any one week calendar period.  In addition, the Contractor must be able to complete proper quality control, including validation that the data has been processed and ingested without errors, and/or provide and explain error logs.

Provide advanced analytics capability services and technology:  In addition to the basic searching and indexing features necessary in any legal review, the Contractor must be able to consult and establish proper workflows, and perform advanced analytics through its legal review tool that make the review process significantly more efficient, and in so doing, maximizes the Army’s scarce resources.  The Contractor’s legal review tool must contain functionality that uses conceptual text analytics technology to allow users to search for documents that match a document that the user identified.  Such functionality allows the user, for example, to highlight a paragraph within the selected document to find other documents containing similar concepts and issues.   The legal review tool must have the ability to identify near duplicates based on any given percentage similarity.  The legal review tool must have the capability to perform fuzzy searches that automatically takes inputted key words and finds similar words or misspellings to help identify other documents that may not be an actual hit on the original term, but might address the issues of interest to the user.  The legal review tool must have the capability to thread emails that visually organizes emails so that the user need only review the most inclusive email to speed up review and ensure consistency in tagging.  The legal review tool must have clustering capabilities so that it pulls information from metadata properties to identify communication bubbles.  The legal review tool must have technology assisted review to help expedite review of ingested data using artificial intelligence that recognizes reviewer coding.   Additionally, the legal review tool must have visual graphics to help managing attorneys hone in on missing information or alternatively find hot docs.  Such advanced analytics are critical for expedient and consistent reviews of thousands of documents.

Provide Managed Review services:  The Contractor must be able to establish a 47,000 square-foot document center in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and be able to support all the needs of a handful of JAGC attorney/paralegal teams handling a variety of investigations and litigations, and perform document reviews on multiple cases simultaneously (e.g., document reviews to determine responsiveness, privilege, etc.) to substantive services (i.e.: classification reviews for SECRET level), including redaction and creation of privilege logs.  The review team(s) should include a review manager who will serve as liaison between the Army case team and document review attorneys, and be able to develop best review workflows including use of advanced analytics and/or TAR, draft legal review manuals, document review protocols and procedures, run reviewer metric reports, and performing quality control.  The managed review team should consist of individuals with appropriate clearance and language capabilities, and may be remote, at the document center, or on-site, as the cases may require.

Robust best-in-class legal review tool:  The Contractor’s legal review tool must provide an intuitive user interface and experience utilizing the latest technologies that are acceptable for government agencies to provide common sense and simple experience for the end user.  The software should be intuitive, browser-based and logical, with a minimal couple of hours training needed by the larger user base for user acceptance.  The legal review tool should promote litigation teamwork, allowing multiple users to access the same database simultaneously and control user access based on case requirements.  The legal review tool should permit for various permission levels including but not limited to case admin, review manager, and reviewer. It should be customizable to meet the differing needs of specific investigations and litigations, and should be broadly compatible with legacy or third-party software as needs require.  The legal review tool should provide flexible and dynamic document tagging, and native/non-native/text/image views of a variety of document types, email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, mobile devices, social media, Slack, removable/portable media, microfiche and hardcopy records, and transcription for search and review.   Furthermore, the legal review should provide full redaction capabilities, with the ability for Contractor to burn-in redactions at export, and the ability to NULL metadata and remove redacted text to ensure this protected information is not disseminated.  It is critical that the above functions are available in a single platform, streamlining the Army’s reviews.

Employ eDiscovery best practices and use of best-in-class software and hardware:  The Contractor should perform all data-related tasks using proper and vetted eDiscovery workflows, and employ the use of software and hardware that will ensure data integrity (e.g., use of scripts and write-blockers during data transfers and copies to ensure Hash values and metadata are not altered).  The Contractor should have a technology subject matter expert who is available to provide an affidavit or testify to any and all of its processes and workflows, if the need arises.

Provide production capabilities in any standard production format:  The Contractor must have the ability to produce Army data in various agreed upon formats (e.g., native, TIF, text, PDF, loadfiles).  The Contractor must be able to provide image file conversion services to convert original images to single page TIF, for example, in preparation for production or loading to a database system.  The Contractor must be able to maintain a maximum throughput rate for export of 450,000 native documents (or 3,000,000 single-page TIFs), during any one week calendar period (rate derived from average 7 pages/document industry standard).  First, the Contractor must be able to export the original native files with a metadata loadfile and include all extracted metadata as required.  The ability to export documents in their original native format will reduce the cost and time associated with productions, reduces the Army’s processing time, and typically allows for the transfer of data via approved transfer methods, including Secure File Transfer Protocol (“SFTP”), CD/DVD, Blu-ray, flash-drive, hard-drive.   Second, the legal review tool must have the ability to convert native files into TIF images, and concurrently endorse the images with a unique Document ID or Bates number and page number of the imaged document, and/or other endorsements (i.e.: Confidentiality) along with a metadata loadfile and image loadfile.  Third, the legal review tool must be able to convert native files to searchable PDFs, and concurrently endorse the PDFs with unique Document ID or Bates number and page number of the converted document.  Fourth, the tool must allow for mixed productions (i.e.: native/TIF) and the ability to select specific filetypes that must be produced in one format instead of both.  These various formats would allow the Army to fully cooperate with opposing or third parties and produce data more efficiently, and allow for full tracking and auditing within the tool.  Fifth, the tool must allow for correction of mistakes made during the production step, including overwriting previously used Bates numbers used in testing or in error.  Additionally, the legal review tool must allow for clawback and/or deletion of data produced.  Finally, the legal review tool must track all productions, both incoming and outgoing, including production sets, volumes, and Bates numbers.  In addition, the Contractor resources managing productions and other exports must be able to complete proper quality control before dissemination, including validation that the production completed without errors, and/or provide and explain error logs.  Finally, the Contractor must be able to export and create metadata reports, including privilege logs based on metadata and privilege tagging in the legal review tool.

Staffed with appropriate resources for all required professional legal support services:  The Contractor must have sufficient staff to support current and expected surges in case-work, and must be able to support virtual workforce initiatives and demands of a mobile workforce, including via telecommuting.  The resources will be trained on the Army eDiscovery Program SOPs but should have sufficient industry knowledge of project management and Electronic Discovery Reference Model (“EDRM”) best practices in office and mobile settings, and should be available to assist JAGC users with questions about processes, procedures, workflows, and to assist with the contractor’s legal review tool, as needed.  At a minimum, the contractor must provide dedicated: (1) Program Management services to oversee the program for JAGC, including serving as liaison with Contracting Officer’s Representative (“COR”), EDD, Project Manager, and the JAGC case team; involved in drafting project plan; providing regular reporting on program as a whole; involved in troubleshooting, budgeting, etc.; (2) Project Management services to manage cases through the entire EDRM; serving as liaison between contractor teams and client (EDD and JAGC case team); drafting project plan, providing regular reporting including providing ETAs, and potentially a separate opposing counsel project manager to support cases where opposing or third parties have direct access to data; etc.; (3) Technical services and customer supporting assist legal review tool users with, for example, technical issues and providing virtual support for custodian self-collection; and (4) Analyst resources assigned to case for specialized work (e.g., photograph documents at NARA, access to search and export specific databases, etc.).  Other resources including processing and production engineers will be required for various professional legal support work related to data ingestion and export.

Provide pre-trial, trial, and post-trial support services:  The Contractor will serve as an extension of the JAGC case team, and must be able to provide pre-trial and trial support services including the presentation of data to third parties (e.g., courts, arbitration panels, and other audiences); providing, administering, operating and maintaining equipment and other resources in support of litigation (including setup and takedown of equipment); gathering trial documents, video clips, and demonstrative evidence for use, search and retrieval during trial; exhibit preparation; timeline preparation; courtroom presentation and audio/visual services; and performing quality control.  The contractor must also be able to provide post-trial services (e.g., ensuring record is complete - confirming documents used at trial, all exhibits, and demonstrative aids are included in record, and copy of court filings is maintained).  Additionally, the contractor must be able to provide court reporting services; deposition support services (e.g., assistance with scheduling depositions and maintaining schedules; audio/visual services including recording of depositions; and maintaining deposition repository/record; etc.); on-site language interpretation (globally); deposition transcription services; able to assemble and prepare Army appeal records (e.g., Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (“ASBCA”) Rule 4 documents; electronic or paper filings in accordance with the applicable Laws, Rules and Regulations; and able to assemble the Army’s Administrative Records, consisting of non-deliberative documents including factual, technical, and scientific material or data considered in making the decision) in accordance with the applicable Laws, Rules and Regulations.

Provide expert analysis and related services:  The Contractor will need to staff an expert or historian with sufficient subject matter expertise to conduct outside document discovery searches, who for example, has knowledge of the recordkeeping processes and policies and can conduct legal research online and in facilities such as NARA/FRC, understands the Army’s records management system, the DoD security classification systems, Privacy Act, FOIA, privilege, Touhy requests, Contract Disputes Act cases, medical tort litigation, and how to recognize and handle sensitive documents. The Contractor should staff an Expert who can also provide legal consultation on different national laws (e.g., support for all countries where the Army has a routine/substantial presence in but lack US funded host nation attorneys); provide expert written or verbal testimony as required.  The Contractor should also have a technology subject matter expert who is available to provide an affidavit or testify to any and all of its processes and workflows, if the need arises. The Contractor should also be able to provide, within 5 days of any request, such expert assistance that becomes necessary during the course of criminal or civil litigation, or administrative matter.  Expert assistance may include appropriate subject matter expertise to provide assistance with discovery requests, discovery responses, quantification of damage assessments and attendance at pre-trial depositions, witness interviews and evidence/record collection efforts worldwide.  For example, in a government contract dispute, the Contractor may be requested to provide an expert(s) in construction, critical-path scheduling, damage quantification, accounting (including defective cost and price issues), and/or engineering, etc.

Other specialized professional legal support services:  In addition to the above, the Contractor shall provide other specialized professional legal support services as required, including but not limited to: language translation (manual or machine); audio and video transcription; document storage; financial analyst services (including ability to obtain pay/time data and calculate damages); and process server services (including printing, filing and serving pleadings that cannot be electronically filed or served).

C. Security

The Contractor and proposed solution shall conform to all applicable federal and industry security standards.  In addition, the Contractor shall work closely with Army and DoD Security Teams to ensure the proposed implementation comports with the DoD’s internal security requirements and appropriate FedRamp certification in order to ensure the overall protection of data due to loss, disaster or malicious attack.  Contractors shall meet all existing DoD security requirements.  “All-Service” Contractors, or any Contractor hosting Army data, will also be required to submit a System Security Plan (”SSP”) that meets or exceeds the requirements of NIST SP 800-171, and any amendments or replacements to NIST, FIPS, or other security standards. 

D. Contractor Resources

The Contractor will be responsible for providing contract and corporate level resources, including a dedicated Army Program Manager and dedicated Army Project Manager(s) for performing all work ordered under the IDIQ contract that will also supervise each task order.  The Contractor shall provide all management, staffing, planning, scheduling, procuring, pickups and deliveries for all items/services required under the IDIQ contract and any task order.  This includes, but is not limited to:

1.  Screening prospective contract staff for conflicts of interest, and to ensure Contractor employees used under this IDIQ contract meet personnel hiring and employment security approval requirements, and coordinating with Army and OPM staff as needed to complete the required clearances.  Contractor must retain all personnel security files for all individuals who perform work under the IDIQ contract for the life of the IDIQ contract plus five years.

2.  Ensuring facilities and computer networks and equipment used for the Contractor’s performance of this IDIQ contract meet all security requirements of the Agreement, and coordinating with Army staff as needed.

3.  All activities associated with management and handling of interim and deliverable pipeline products, such as media containing electronic data.  For example, the Contractor must forward, monitor, and track each “container” of documents, from receipt, through data processing, delivery, recovery and destruction. 

E. Training

The Contractor shall train its own staff so as to ensure that all personnel are able to perform their duties under the Agreement satisfactorily.  For example, the Contractor shall provide staff trained and experienced in litigation processes and terminology; and specific software packages, including database and processing software and/or other similar platforms used as early case assessment/review applications.  The Contractor shall also be prepared to provide Army personnel training on any Contractor provided litigation processes and terminology; and specific software packages, including database and processing software and/or other similar platforms used as early case assessment/review applications.

F. Responses to RFI/SS

Classification Code: R – Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services

NAICS Code: 541199 – All Other Legal Services

Interested businesses responding to this RFI/SS shall limit their responses to ten (10) pages (excluding cover page and table of contents) and provide the following information:

1.  Company name, address, CAGE Code, DUNS, POC name, phone, and email;

2.   Does your company desire to be the prime contractor for the award, or interested as a subcontractor to a prime contractor?

3.  Within the last (5) years, does your company:

Have relevant experience described under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. Provide a summary of experience to include skills, expertise and years of experience. Then for recent relevant awards provide a detailed narrative that includes contract number, contract value, period of performance, whether your company was the prime contractor or subcontractor, Government /Agency/Company point of contact name(s) with current telephone number/email address, briefly explain the scope, and provide a description of how the contract scope relates to this potential solicitation.

      a. List each separately by relevant contract along with narrative.

      b. Explain how this relevant experience relates to the requirements described under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

 4.  Reponses to all the questions below. Responses to the below questions cannot exceed one page in total.
 

a. Are you FedRamp certified, and at what level?

b. Are you able to host unclassified (NIPR) data in a web-based solution that includes analytics capabilities for Early Case Assessment (ECA), and support up to 500 concurrent users for unlimited concurrent cases, with system availability to the users 99% of the time; external data transmission rates of at least 1Gbit/s; a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 4 hours; a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours; and a Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MDT) of 24 hours?

c. Are you able to host classified (SIPR) data in a stand-alone/physical solution accessed by resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a SCIF, worldwide, depending on location, at the SECRET level, and support up to 25 concurrent users for upwards of 5 concurrent cases; and system availability to the approved users 99% of the time?

d. Are you able to perform a forensic collection of data from a variety of sources such as computer systems including hard drives, network systems and fileshares, email from active Email Exchange, mobile devices including smart devices, virtualized machine and file storage collections, social media, Slack, Sharepoint sites, web pages, and the Cloud, so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection?

e. Are you able to perform email decryption of PKI-encrypted emails (utilizing custodian private keys collected from the Army’s key recovery agent)?

f. Are you able to ingest 5 terabytes of decompressed input files and deliver to the government fully processed data (text, metadata, images) within any one week calendar period?

g. Are you able to provide image file conversion services to convert original images to single page TIFF, for example, in preparation for production or loading to a database system at a throughput rate of 3,000,000 images any one week calendar period?

h. Are you able to perform and scale up for document reviews on multiple, large and/or urgent cases (e.g., document review to determine responsiveness, privilege, etc.) to substantive services (i.e.: classification review for SECRET level in a SCIF)?

i. Are you able to provide resources/consultants (analysts, experts, historians) with sufficient subject matter expertise and knowledge of the recordkeeping processes and policies and can conduct legal research online and in facilities such as NARA/FRC, understands the Army’s records management system, the DoD security classification systems, Privacy Act, FOIA, privilege, Touhy requests, Contract Disputes Act cases, medical tort litigation, and how to recognize and handle sensitive documents?

j. Are you able to provide pre-trial, trial, post-trial, court reporting, translation/transcription, preparation of administrative and appeal records, expert analysis including testimony, and other specialized professional legal support services?

k. Are you able to satisfy the following scenario of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC) requirements:  Establish a 47,000 square-foot document center in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to support the simultaneous needs of multiple litigation teams comprised of approximately 55 JAGC attorneys/paralegals handling a variety of investigations and civil litigation cases involving multiple legal disciplines (e.g., torts, medical malpractice, employment discrimination, general litigation, military personnel disputes, contract dispute and appeals, bid protests and environmental issues, etc.).  This scenario involves simultaneous prosecution or defense of 10 investigations and 30 civil litigation cases before 25 separate courts and quasi-judicial administrative proceedings located nationwide.  Such cases involve a potential cost recovery to the U.S. Army in excess of $3 billion and liabilities of $5 billion.   A set of Case Management Orders impose punishingly fast schedules for these matters including: (1) three investigations requiring closure in 30 days; (2) five civil litigation matters starting trial in the first three months; (3) fifteen civil litigation cases starting trial in one year; and (4) ten remaining civil litigation cases beginning discovery in successive years, each taking three years to get to trial.  The civil litigation cases are estimated to last 1 to 3 years in duration on average but can last longer or be resolved in a shorter amount of time.  Across all the matters, 50 Terabytes of unclassified electronic data and millions of pages of paper, and 25 Terabytes of classified electronic data and millions of pages of paper) will be produced by the JAGC; and 40 Terabytes and millions of pages will be produced by our adversaries.  The JAGC documents are located worldwide but mostly located at various installations and National Records Centers nationwide.  As a result, active files needing collection will be physically or electronically stored at upwards of 15 installations / locations in the U.S. and no less than 5 installations / locations located outside the continental U.S. including, but not limited, to Europe, the Middle East, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Asia.  Much of that data will need to be collected in a forensically sound manner. Adversary documents are located nationwide and/or worldwide.   In this scenario 25 law firms represent the 30 adversaries in civil litigation cases, and they all have various production format requirements.  Of the paper documents, 5 million will need to be imaged and made available on-line full-text for attorney review and research.  In addition, the U.S. Army has integrated office systems for word processing and email and two prior legacy integrated systems that were decommissioned but now stored on backup tapes, which the U.S. Army estimates that for the civil litigation cases in this scenario 30% will be relevant and need to be reviewed to verify relevance and establish privilege claims.  The unclassified electronic data and paper documents can be web hosted.  The physical documents and electronic data to be collected and stored in this scenario will include records at the SECRET level which must be hosted in a stand-alone solution accessed by resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a SCIF in a Washington, DC location.  Over the course of the litigation, there will also be a need to provide discovery support, including transcription of 500 depositions held both virtually and in person worldwide.  Additionally, this scenario requires discovery support in searching and analyzing case records and generating recommended interrogatories and interrogatory responses in every civil litigation matter.  Further, you will be required to search for, and sub-contract for expert assistance to assist litigating counsel in the pre-trial, discovery, case assessment, trial and post-trial periods of 50% of the civil litigation cases.  Such expert assistance may include travel and collection and analysis of records, interviews and preparation of witnesses, attendance and assistance at depositions, created recommended discovery requests, interrogatories and deposition questions for litigation counsel in 70% of the civil litigation cases.  Experts will also be expected to generate expert analysis reports in 60% of the cases and testify in 90% of the cases an expert report is issued.  Experts will maintain a privileged relationship with Army counsel / paralegals to the extent allowed under the law.  Litigation support in the document center will include the necessary paralegal support, document / ESI support, and administrative support necessary to support this scenario. The document center must be fully equipped, tested, and staffed within 3 months of contact award.
 

5.  For Small Businesses:

a. Identify the applicable socio-economic category SDB/8a /HUBZone /WOSB/ EDWOSB/VOSB /SDVOSB /HBCU/MI etc):
 

b. Identify your company's small business size standard based on the assigned NAICS. For more information refer to http://www.sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards.
 

c. If your company is interested to prime this effort and if awarded a contract, will you comply with the limitation on subcontracting? If so, indicate (with support rationale) how your company would be compliance given the restrictions identified in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013, which states that at least 50 percent of the total contract cost will be performed by the small business prime contractor or small businesses with similarly situated entities. 
 
Reference: PL 112-239-Jan.2, 2013, NDAA FY2013 as amended, at Title XVI, Subtitle C, Part IV, Section 1651 discusses limitations on subcontracting. 
 
6.  Does your company have SECRET Level Clearance for:
 

a. Facilities Clearance: Required for the contractor’s personnel to perform on the work on contract.

7.  Please provide positive or negative feedback regarding the attached Description of Requirements document such as recommended changes, noted exceptions, ambiguities, etc.

4. SUBMISSIONS

All submissions should be emailed no later than 12:00 p.m. on 1 December 2020 to gerald.a.simmons2.civ@mail.mil , Gerald A. Simmons, Contract Specialist, ACC-APG. 

Finally, the Government does not intend to respond to submissions as the intent of this RFI is to develop the acquisition strategy for these services. Continue to monitor betaSAM.gov for new or updated information.

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FOR

PROFESSIONAL LEGAL SUPPORT SERVICES  

JAGC Large Scale Civil Litigation Support

1. OBJECTIVE

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)/SOURCES SOUGHT (SS) ONLY. This request is for planning purposes, and is not to be considered an invitation for bid, request for quotation, or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this RFI/SS or any follow up information request.

This RFI/SS is issued in support of the anticipated acquisition of professional legal support services for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC).  Professional legal support encompasses a wide range of professional services and products that help attorneys collect, organize, develop, and present evidence throughout the course of all types of litigation (civil or criminal) and board proceedings, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, and through post-trial briefs and the appeals process. Contractor personnel will furnish administrative, logistical, professional, and technical labor, supplies, equipment, facilities, materials, and technologies necessary to provide a wide range of professional services and products through the course of litigation, including early case assessment (ECA), investigations, and responses to subpoenas and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The types of professional legal support required under this contract will generally fall into the following areas: (1) Database creation and Hosting services; (2) Collection services; (3) Electronically stored information (“ESI”) processing services; (4) Hardcopy or Microfiche services; (5) Production services; (6) Forensic services; (7)  Litigation Support resource services (i.e., resource planning, implementation, and administration); (8) Managed review services; (9) Pre-trial, trial, and post-trial support services; (10) Expert analysis and testimony services; and (11) Other specialized professional legal support services (e.g., legal research and writing, translation and transcription, trial support, etc.).  A full description of the professional legal support services is set forth below as Requirements under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

This RFI/SS is being issued by the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency (USALSA) and will be primarily used for JAGC and USALSA requirements but any responses received could be used by other entities within the Department of Defense.  The purpose of this RFI/SS will be used to determine the acquisition strategy, including small business participation.  Through this RFI/SS and when appropriate, USALSA is requesting the capabilities and past performance of small business contractors interested in providing these services. Interested small business contractors including Small Disadvantaged Business, Women-Owned, 8(a)’s, HUBZones, Veteran-Owned, or Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses are encouraged to respond.

USALSA is contemplating a single award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract and, based on responses to this RFI/SS, will be able to determine the appropriateness of small business participation.  The IDIQ contract is anticipated to have a 3-year base period and two 1-year option periods.

2. BACKGROUND

The Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGC) provides legal services for the Army, its Soldiers, family members, and retirees.  The JAGC is comprised of military Judge Advocates, civilian counsel, military para-professionals, and civilian paralegals that all serve in a variety of roles.  Judge Advocates may serve as prosecutors and defense attorneys for criminal matters under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, while both Judge Advocates and civilian counsel may serve as litigation attorneys in civil litigation in both Federal and State venues (e.g., Courts and Boards), and practice operational, labor, contract, environmental, tort and administrative law, including investigations, and Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act matters.  These legal matters require the JAGC, in often short suspense timeframes, to collect, scan, copy, decrypt, process, review, and produce increasingly large volumes of paper documents, emails, computer and network files, other electronically stored information (“ESI”), and utilize other professional legal support services (e.g., legal research and writing, translation and transcription, trial support, and expert testimony).  

USALSA is an Army field operating agency of the Office of The Judge Advocate General (OTJAG) that supports Army and Joint Force priorities by representing the Army in legal matters before courts and administrative bodies.  This representation is accomplished in compliance with electronic discovery (eDiscovery) requirements found in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Army policies and regulations, as well as Board and Court rules of practice.  The Army eDiscovery Division (EDD), housed within USALSA on Fort Belvoir, VA, provides in-house litigation support for these legal matters, and is responsible for managing and coordinating legal support services for the JAGC relating to ESI and services utilizing ESI.  These legal matters, however, increasingly involve urgent and/or large scale professional legal support needs beyond EDD’s existing capabilities. 

Most relevant to this RFI/SS is the need for a flexible and responsive IDIQ contract solution to meet such large scale and/or urgent professional legal support needs in support of the JAGC mission. While the primary focus of this RFI/SS and subsequent solicitation is to support the civil litigation mission, the Army expects to use these professional legal support services in other areas of the JAGC practice, such as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), military justice, and investigations.  Moreover, any future contract may be utilized by the JAGC and other DoD affiliated entities.

USALSA, through EDD, will serve as the program office for this RFI/SS and subsequent IDIQ contract. 

3. SCOPE

The scope of this engagement is to provide worldwide professional legal support services, including: project management; managed review; expert analysis; technology processes, and; products from early case assessment/pre-processing ingestion through trial presentation and post-trial phases.  These services utilize state of the art technology, including analytics and technology assisted review (“TAR”), and employ eDiscovery best practices to collect, decrypt, process, ingest, analyze, review, host, and produce ESI for investigations, inspections, examinations, and/or litigation.  Assistance may be required to respond to information requests from many sources, including, for example, Congressional requests for information and third-party subpoenas and audits, as well as to provide assistance to Judge Advocates and other professional staff members to acquire, organize, analyze and present evidence as part of unofficial or official discovery in a lawsuit or investigation. 

A. Level of Service

USALSA will accept responses to this RFI/SS from an All-Service Provider.  Descriptions of work to be performed under this service level are set forth below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

B. Requirements

The Contractor will be required to meet the professional legal services requirements summarized below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS, and technical and security requirements summarized below under Sec. C in this RFI/SS.

Based on the Contractor’s ability to meet the criteria set forth below under Sec. B in this RFI/SS, the Army program office will submit a request for proposal (RFP), and a qualified Contractor will be selected to execute an IDIQ contract under which Task Orders may be issued, as needed.

The period of performance of the IDIQ contract will be 3 base years with two additional 1-year option periods.  Additionally, the IDIQ contract may include a contract extension clause. Task orders will be various lengths and may be issued during the full ordering period of the IDIQ contract.

The solution must meet a number of specific criteria, including:

FedRamp certified:  The contractor shall meet Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization requirements in accordance with NIST Special Publication 800-53 (Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems) and Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) PUB 199 (Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information Systems). In addition, the contractor shall meet the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements in regards to protecting Department of Defense (DoD) Information Systems (IS).

Specifically, the contractor shall adhere to the following NIST, FedRAMP and FISMA guidelines:

1. Risk Categorization: The contractor must categorize the information system in accordance with FIPS 199 to ensure that sensitive information is given the highest levels of security.
2. Risk Assessment: The contractor must conduct a security or risk assessment of the information system in accordance with NIST SP 800-30 to identity vulnerabilities and implement mitigation actions.
3. System Security Plan (SSP): The contractor must develop and maintain a SSP to identify security controls implemented within the Risk Management Framework (RMF). The SSP must be kept up to date and document the security posture of the organization.
4. Third-party Assessments:  The contractor must establish a program to ensure third-party assessments of implemented security controls in accordance with NIST and RMF guidance.
5. Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M):  The contractor must establish POA&Ms for all non-compliant security controls to track identified vulnerabilities and set milestone dates for compliance.
6. Continuous Monitoring:  In accordance with FISMA and NIST guidelines, the contractor must establish of a program of continuous monitoring of the security posture of the information system through self-assessment of appropriate security controls. In addition, the contractor must perform monthly security scans of the system to identify and mitigate critical and high vulnerabilities within 30 days of discovery.  
7. Authorization to Operate (ATO): The contractor must ensure the information system obtains and maintains an approved ATO in accordance with FedRAMP and NIST guidelines.

Provide hosting of unclassified (NIPR) and classified (SIPR) data:  Contractor must provide a non-classified internet protocol router (NIPR) managed solution to web host unclassified native, image and text files that includes: database creation and hosting, processing, ingestion, analytics, review, and production capabilities throughout the course of litigation, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, through post-trial briefs and the appeals process; support up to 500 concurrent users for unlimited concurrent cases; system availability to the users 99% of the time; external data transmission rates of at least 1Gbit/s; a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 4 hours; a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours; and a Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MDT) of 24 hours.  Contractor must provide support for Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) cases on the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET) and/or Internet-connected information systems.  Contractor must also be able to stand up a secret internet protocol router (SIPR) stand-alone/physical solution accessed by contractor and/or Army resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), worldwide, depending on location, to host classified native, image and text files at the SECRET level that includes: database creation and hosting, processing, ingestion, analytics, review, and production capabilities throughout the course of litigation, from pre-filing investigation and early case assessment (ECA), through complaint, discovery, and trial, through post-trial briefs and the appeals process; support up to 25 concurrent users for upwards of 5 concurrent cases; and system availability to the approved users 99% of the time.  Contractor must be able to stand up and provide a SIPR Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the SECRET level that meets current Intelligence Community Standards (ICS) 705-01 and 705-02 requirements. 

Provide non-forensic collection, forensic collection and other forensic services:  The JAGC may require on-site and/or remote IT (non-forensic) collection (e.g., of email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, removable/portable media including hard drives, microfiche and hardcopy records), so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection, including all associated metadata from, but not limited to: CONUS and/or OCONUS installations, National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”)/Federal Records Centers (“FRC”) facilities, Army museums, historian repositories, state libraries and historical society resources, Pentagon library, college libraries, Library of Congress, Defense Technical Information Center or DTIC repository, Army Center for Military History, Army Heritage and Education Center, DCMA repositories (DoD Electronic Data Access (EDA) system, Standard Industrial Financial System (SIFS), the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), Defense Visual Information Center, etc. (Army Research Lab Technical Library in Adelphi, MD, Joint Munitions Command’s WARP database, Picatinny Arsenal Technical Research Center, Fort Gordon, Army Transportation Museum, Fort Eustis, Army ordnance museum Fort Lee, Army Environmental Command repository, and CECOM historical databases.  The JAGC may also require on-site forensic collection (using forensic collection software) (e.g., of computer systems including hard drives, network systems and fileshares, email from active Email Exchange, mobile devices including smart devices, virtualized machine and file storage collections, social media, Slack, Sharepoint sites, web pages, and the Cloud), so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection, including all associated metadata from, but not limited to, the aforementioned sources and locations.  Forensic collection includes bit-by-bit forensic imaging of source data, restoration, forensic expert analysis of forensically collected data from a variety of devices/sources (including ability to detect geo-spatial data), distinguishing potential relevance based on expert forensics knowledge and experience as well as information provided by the Army, and provide expert written or verbal testimony as required.

Provide decryption, processing, indexing and searching capability:  The Contractor must have the ability to fully process, ingest, and host Army data (e.g., email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, mobile devices, social media, Slack, removable/portable media, microfiche and hardcopy records) including, when required, email decryption of PKI-encrypted emails (utilizing custodian private keys), password cracking, rapid and robust processing (including text and metadata extraction including OCR’ing, deduplication, de-NISTing, filetype filtering, indexing, and keyword searching / dtSearch functions that enable users to cull and review documents that are collected in JAGC investigations and litigations so as to quickly identify all responsive and non-privileged evidence for production.  This includes the ingestion of load-ready data (e.g., natives with loadfiles, images with loadfiles), received from opposing or third parties, and structured data from databases. The JAGC requires that the Contractor have a comprehensive processing engine and legal review tool with the ability to perform document review with all of the expected above-mentioned functions designed to meet current FRCP requirements and handle large datasets.  At a minimum, the Contractor should be able to process and ingest 5 terabytes of decompressed input files and load fully processed data (natives, images, text, metadata) within any one week calendar period.  In addition, the Contractor must be able to complete proper quality control, including validation that the data has been processed and ingested without errors, and/or provide and explain error logs.

Provide advanced analytics capability services and technology:  In addition to the basic searching and indexing features necessary in any legal review, the Contractor must be able to consult and establish proper workflows, and perform advanced analytics through its legal review tool that make the review process significantly more efficient, and in so doing, maximizes the Army’s scarce resources.  The Contractor’s legal review tool must contain functionality that uses conceptual text analytics technology to allow users to search for documents that match a document that the user identified.  Such functionality allows the user, for example, to highlight a paragraph within the selected document to find other documents containing similar concepts and issues.   The legal review tool must have the ability to identify near duplicates based on any given percentage similarity.  The legal review tool must have the capability to perform fuzzy searches that automatically takes inputted key words and finds similar words or misspellings to help identify other documents that may not be an actual hit on the original term, but might address the issues of interest to the user.  The legal review tool must have the capability to thread emails that visually organizes emails so that the user need only review the most inclusive email to speed up review and ensure consistency in tagging.  The legal review tool must have clustering capabilities so that it pulls information from metadata properties to identify communication bubbles.  The legal review tool must have technology assisted review to help expedite review of ingested data using artificial intelligence that recognizes reviewer coding.   Additionally, the legal review tool must have visual graphics to help managing attorneys hone in on missing information or alternatively find hot docs.  Such advanced analytics are critical for expedient and consistent reviews of thousands of documents.

Provide Managed Review services:  The Contractor must be able to establish a 47,000 square-foot document center in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and be able to support all the needs of a handful of JAGC attorney/paralegal teams handling a variety of investigations and litigations, and perform document reviews on multiple cases simultaneously (e.g., document reviews to determine responsiveness, privilege, etc.) to substantive services (i.e.: classification reviews for SECRET level), including redaction and creation of privilege logs.  The review team(s) should include a review manager who will serve as liaison between the Army case team and document review attorneys, and be able to develop best review workflows including use of advanced analytics and/or TAR, draft legal review manuals, document review protocols and procedures, run reviewer metric reports, and performing quality control.  The managed review team should consist of individuals with appropriate clearance and language capabilities, and may be remote, at the document center, or on-site, as the cases may require.

Robust best-in-class legal review tool:  The Contractor’s legal review tool must provide an intuitive user interface and experience utilizing the latest technologies that are acceptable for government agencies to provide common sense and simple experience for the end user.  The software should be intuitive, browser-based and logical, with a minimal couple of hours training needed by the larger user base for user acceptance.  The legal review tool should promote litigation teamwork, allowing multiple users to access the same database simultaneously and control user access based on case requirements.  The legal review tool should permit for various permission levels including but not limited to case admin, review manager, and reviewer. It should be customizable to meet the differing needs of specific investigations and litigations, and should be broadly compatible with legacy or third-party software as needs require.  The legal review tool should provide flexible and dynamic document tagging, and native/non-native/text/image views of a variety of document types, email, non-email ESI, audio and visual files, mobile devices, social media, Slack, removable/portable media, microfiche and hardcopy records, and transcription for search and review.   Furthermore, the legal review should provide full redaction capabilities, with the ability for Contractor to burn-in redactions at export, and the ability to NULL metadata and remove redacted text to ensure this protected information is not disseminated.  It is critical that the above functions are available in a single platform, streamlining the Army’s reviews.

Employ eDiscovery best practices and use of best-in-class software and hardware:  The Contractor should perform all data-related tasks using proper and vetted eDiscovery workflows, and employ the use of software and hardware that will ensure data integrity (e.g., use of scripts and write-blockers during data transfers and copies to ensure Hash values and metadata are not altered).  The Contractor should have a technology subject matter expert who is available to provide an affidavit or testify to any and all of its processes and workflows, if the need arises.

Provide production capabilities in any standard production format:  The Contractor must have the ability to produce Army data in various agreed upon formats (e.g., native, TIF, text, PDF, loadfiles).  The Contractor must be able to provide image file conversion services to convert original images to single page TIF, for example, in preparation for production or loading to a database system.  The Contractor must be able to maintain a maximum throughput rate for export of 450,000 native documents (or 3,000,000 single-page TIFs), during any one week calendar period (rate derived from average 7 pages/document industry standard).  First, the Contractor must be able to export the original native files with a metadata loadfile and include all extracted metadata as required.  The ability to export documents in their original native format will reduce the cost and time associated with productions, reduces the Army’s processing time, and typically allows for the transfer of data via approved transfer methods, including Secure File Transfer Protocol (“SFTP”), CD/DVD, Blu-ray, flash-drive, hard-drive.   Second, the legal review tool must have the ability to convert native files into TIF images, and concurrently endorse the images with a unique Document ID or Bates number and page number of the imaged document, and/or other endorsements (i.e.: Confidentiality) along with a metadata loadfile and image loadfile.  Third, the legal review tool must be able to convert native files to searchable PDFs, and concurrently endorse the PDFs with unique Document ID or Bates number and page number of the converted document.  Fourth, the tool must allow for mixed productions (i.e.: native/TIF) and the ability to select specific filetypes that must be produced in one format instead of both.  These various formats would allow the Army to fully cooperate with opposing or third parties and produce data more efficiently, and allow for full tracking and auditing within the tool.  Fifth, the tool must allow for correction of mistakes made during the production step, including overwriting previously used Bates numbers used in testing or in error.  Additionally, the legal review tool must allow for clawback and/or deletion of data produced.  Finally, the legal review tool must track all productions, both incoming and outgoing, including production sets, volumes, and Bates numbers.  In addition, the Contractor resources managing productions and other exports must be able to complete proper quality control before dissemination, including validation that the production completed without errors, and/or provide and explain error logs.  Finally, the Contractor must be able to export and create metadata reports, including privilege logs based on metadata and privilege tagging in the legal review tool.

Staffed with appropriate resources for all required professional legal support services:  The Contractor must have sufficient staff to support current and expected surges in case-work, and must be able to support virtual workforce initiatives and demands of a mobile workforce, including via telecommuting.  The resources will be trained on the Army eDiscovery Program SOPs but should have sufficient industry knowledge of project management and Electronic Discovery Reference Model (“EDRM”) best practices in office and mobile settings, and should be available to assist JAGC users with questions about processes, procedures, workflows, and to assist with the contractor’s legal review tool, as needed.  At a minimum, the contractor must provide dedicated: (1) Program Management services to oversee the program for JAGC, including serving as liaison with Contracting Officer’s Representative (“COR”), EDD, Project Manager, and the JAGC case team; involved in drafting project plan; providing regular reporting on program as a whole; involved in troubleshooting, budgeting, etc.; (2) Project Management services to manage cases through the entire EDRM; serving as liaison between contractor teams and client (EDD and JAGC case team); drafting project plan, providing regular reporting including providing ETAs, and potentially a separate opposing counsel project manager to support cases where opposing or third parties have direct access to data; etc.; (3) Technical services and customer supporting assist legal review tool users with, for example, technical issues and providing virtual support for custodian self-collection; and (4) Analyst resources assigned to case for specialized work (e.g., photograph documents at NARA, access to search and export specific databases, etc.).  Other resources including processing and production engineers will be required for various professional legal support work related to data ingestion and export.

Provide pre-trial, trial, and post-trial support services:  The Contractor will serve as an extension of the JAGC case team, and must be able to provide pre-trial and trial support services including the presentation of data to third parties (e.g., courts, arbitration panels, and other audiences); providing, administering, operating and maintaining equipment and other resources in support of litigation (including setup and takedown of equipment); gathering trial documents, video clips, and demonstrative evidence for use, search and retrieval during trial; exhibit preparation; timeline preparation; courtroom presentation and audio/visual services; and performing quality control.  The contractor must also be able to provide post-trial services (e.g., ensuring record is complete - confirming documents used at trial, all exhibits, and demonstrative aids are included in record, and copy of court filings is maintained).  Additionally, the contractor must be able to provide court reporting services; deposition support services (e.g., assistance with scheduling depositions and maintaining schedules; audio/visual services including recording of depositions; and maintaining deposition repository/record; etc.); on-site language interpretation (globally); deposition transcription services; able to assemble and prepare Army appeal records (e.g., Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (“ASBCA”) Rule 4 documents; electronic or paper filings in accordance with the applicable Laws, Rules and Regulations; and able to assemble the Army’s Administrative Records, consisting of non-deliberative documents including factual, technical, and scientific material or data considered in making the decision) in accordance with the applicable Laws, Rules and Regulations.

Provide expert analysis and related services:  The Contractor will need to staff an expert or historian with sufficient subject matter expertise to conduct outside document discovery searches, who for example, has knowledge of the recordkeeping processes and policies and can conduct legal research online and in facilities such as NARA/FRC, understands the Army’s records management system, the DoD security classification systems, Privacy Act, FOIA, privilege, Touhy requests, Contract Disputes Act cases, medical tort litigation, and how to recognize and handle sensitive documents. The Contractor should staff an Expert who can also provide legal consultation on different national laws (e.g., support for all countries where the Army has a routine/substantial presence in but lack US funded host nation attorneys); provide expert written or verbal testimony as required.  The Contractor should also have a technology subject matter expert who is available to provide an affidavit or testify to any and all of its processes and workflows, if the need arises. The Contractor should also be able to provide, within 5 days of any request, such expert assistance that becomes necessary during the course of criminal or civil litigation, or administrative matter.  Expert assistance may include appropriate subject matter expertise to provide assistance with discovery requests, discovery responses, quantification of damage assessments and attendance at pre-trial depositions, witness interviews and evidence/record collection efforts worldwide.  For example, in a government contract dispute, the Contractor may be requested to provide an expert(s) in construction, critical-path scheduling, damage quantification, accounting (including defective cost and price issues), and/or engineering, etc.

Other specialized professional legal support services:  In addition to the above, the Contractor shall provide other specialized professional legal support services as required, including but not limited to: language translation (manual or machine); audio and video transcription; document storage; financial analyst services (including ability to obtain pay/time data and calculate damages); and process server services (including printing, filing and serving pleadings that cannot be electronically filed or served).

C. Security

The Contractor and proposed solution shall conform to all applicable federal and industry security standards.  In addition, the Contractor shall work closely with Army and DoD Security Teams to ensure the proposed implementation comports with the DoD’s internal security requirements and appropriate FedRamp certification in order to ensure the overall protection of data due to loss, disaster or malicious attack.  Contractors shall meet all existing DoD security requirements.  “All-Service” Contractors, or any Contractor hosting Army data, will also be required to submit a System Security Plan (”SSP”) that meets or exceeds the requirements of NIST SP 800-171, and any amendments or replacements to NIST, FIPS, or other security standards. 

D. Contractor Resources

The Contractor will be responsible for providing contract and corporate level resources, including a dedicated Army Program Manager and dedicated Army Project Manager(s) for performing all work ordered under the IDIQ contract that will also supervise each task order.  The Contractor shall provide all management, staffing, planning, scheduling, procuring, pickups and deliveries for all items/services required under the IDIQ contract and any task order.  This includes, but is not limited to:

1.  Screening prospective contract staff for conflicts of interest, and to ensure Contractor employees used under this IDIQ contract meet personnel hiring and employment security approval requirements, and coordinating with Army and OPM staff as needed to complete the required clearances.  Contractor must retain all personnel security files for all individuals who perform work under the IDIQ contract for the life of the IDIQ contract plus five years.

2.  Ensuring facilities and computer networks and equipment used for the Contractor’s performance of this IDIQ contract meet all security requirements of the Agreement, and coordinating with Army staff as needed.

3.  All activities associated with management and handling of interim and deliverable pipeline products, such as media containing electronic data.  For example, the Contractor must forward, monitor, and track each “container” of documents, from receipt, through data processing, delivery, recovery and destruction. 

E. Training

The Contractor shall train its own staff so as to ensure that all personnel are able to perform their duties under the Agreement satisfactorily.  For example, the Contractor shall provide staff trained and experienced in litigation processes and terminology; and specific software packages, including database and processing software and/or other similar platforms used as early case assessment/review applications.  The Contractor shall also be prepared to provide Army personnel training on any Contractor provided litigation processes and terminology; and specific software packages, including database and processing software and/or other similar platforms used as early case assessment/review applications.

F. Responses to RFI/SS

Classification Code: R – Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services

NAICS Code: 541199 – All Other Legal Services

Interested businesses responding to this RFI/SS shall limit their responses to ten (10) pages (excluding cover page and table of contents) and provide the following information:

1.  Company name, address, CAGE Code, DUNS, POC name, phone, and email;

2.   Does your company desire to be the prime contractor for the award, or interested as a subcontractor to a prime contractor?

3.  Within the last (5) years, does your company:

Have relevant experience described under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. Provide a summary of experience to include skills, expertise and years of experience. Then for recent relevant awards provide a detailed narrative that includes contract number, contract value, period of performance, whether your company was the prime contractor or subcontractor, Government /Agency/Company point of contact name(s) with current telephone number/email address, briefly explain the scope, and provide a description of how the contract scope relates to this potential solicitation.

      a. List each separately by relevant contract along with narrative.

      b. Explain how this relevant experience relates to the requirements described under Sec. B in this RFI/SS. 

 4.  Reponses to all the questions below. Responses to the below questions cannot exceed one page in total.
 

a. Are you FedRamp certified, and at what level?

b. Are you able to host unclassified (NIPR) data in a web-based solution that includes analytics capabilities for Early Case Assessment (ECA), and support up to 500 concurrent users for unlimited concurrent cases, with system availability to the users 99% of the time; external data transmission rates of at least 1Gbit/s; a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 4 hours; a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours; and a Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MDT) of 24 hours?

c. Are you able to host classified (SIPR) data in a stand-alone/physical solution accessed by resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a SCIF, worldwide, depending on location, at the SECRET level, and support up to 25 concurrent users for upwards of 5 concurrent cases; and system availability to the approved users 99% of the time?

d. Are you able to perform a forensic collection of data from a variety of sources such as computer systems including hard drives, network systems and fileshares, email from active Email Exchange, mobile devices including smart devices, virtualized machine and file storage collections, social media, Slack, Sharepoint sites, web pages, and the Cloud, so that the data is ready to process within two business days of the completion date of the collection?

e. Are you able to perform email decryption of PKI-encrypted emails (utilizing custodian private keys collected from the Army’s key recovery agent)?

f. Are you able to ingest 5 terabytes of decompressed input files and deliver to the government fully processed data (text, metadata, images) within any one week calendar period?

g. Are you able to provide image file conversion services to convert original images to single page TIFF, for example, in preparation for production or loading to a database system at a throughput rate of 3,000,000 images any one week calendar period?

h. Are you able to perform and scale up for document reviews on multiple, large and/or urgent cases (e.g., document review to determine responsiveness, privilege, etc.) to substantive services (i.e.: classification review for SECRET level in a SCIF)?

i. Are you able to provide resources/consultants (analysts, experts, historians) with sufficient subject matter expertise and knowledge of the recordkeeping processes and policies and can conduct legal research online and in facilities such as NARA/FRC, understands the Army’s records management system, the DoD security classification systems, Privacy Act, FOIA, privilege, Touhy requests, Contract Disputes Act cases, medical tort litigation, and how to recognize and handle sensitive documents?

j. Are you able to provide pre-trial, trial, post-trial, court reporting, translation/transcription, preparation of administrative and appeal records, expert analysis including testimony, and other specialized professional legal support services?

k. Are you able to satisfy the following scenario of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC) requirements:  Establish a 47,000 square-foot document center in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to support the simultaneous needs of multiple litigation teams comprised of approximately 55 JAGC attorneys/paralegals handling a variety of investigations and civil litigation cases involving multiple legal disciplines (e.g., torts, medical malpractice, employment discrimination, general litigation, military personnel disputes, contract dispute and appeals, bid protests and environmental issues, etc.).  This scenario involves simultaneous prosecution or defense of 10 investigations and 30 civil litigation cases before 25 separate courts and quasi-judicial administrative proceedings located nationwide.  Such cases involve a potential cost recovery to the U.S. Army in excess of $3 billion and liabilities of $5 billion.   A set of Case Management Orders impose punishingly fast schedules for these matters including: (1) three investigations requiring closure in 30 days; (2) five civil litigation matters starting trial in the first three months; (3) fifteen civil litigation cases starting trial in one year; and (4) ten remaining civil litigation cases beginning discovery in successive years, each taking three years to get to trial.  The civil litigation cases are estimated to last 1 to 3 years in duration on average but can last longer or be resolved in a shorter amount of time.  Across all the matters, 50 Terabytes of unclassified electronic data and millions of pages of paper, and 25 Terabytes of classified electronic data and millions of pages of paper) will be produced by the JAGC; and 40 Terabytes and millions of pages will be produced by our adversaries.  The JAGC documents are located worldwide but mostly located at various installations and National Records Centers nationwide.  As a result, active files needing collection will be physically or electronically stored at upwards of 15 installations / locations in the U.S. and no less than 5 installations / locations located outside the continental U.S. including, but not limited, to Europe, the Middle East, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Asia.  Much of that data will need to be collected in a forensically sound manner. Adversary documents are located nationwide and/or worldwide.   In this scenario 25 law firms represent the 30 adversaries in civil litigation cases, and they all have various production format requirements.  Of the paper documents, 5 million will need to be imaged and made available on-line full-text for attorney review and research.  In addition, the U.S. Army has integrated office systems for word processing and email and two prior legacy integrated systems that were decommissioned but now stored on backup tapes, which the U.S. Army estimates that for the civil litigation cases in this scenario 30% will be relevant and need to be reviewed to verify relevance and establish privilege claims.  The unclassified electronic data and paper documents can be web hosted.  The physical documents and electronic data to be collected and stored in this scenario will include records at the SECRET level which must be hosted in a stand-alone solution accessed by resources with appropriate clearance and need-to-know basis in a SCIF in a Washington, DC location.  Over the course of the litigation, there will also be a need to provide discovery support, including transcription of 500 depositions held both virtually and in person worldwide.  Additionally, this scenario requires discovery support in searching and analyzing case records and generating recommended interrogatories and interrogatory responses in every civil litigation matter.  Further, you will be required to search for, and sub-contract for expert assistance to assist litigating counsel in the pre-trial, discovery, case assessment, trial and post-trial periods of 50% of the civil litigation cases.  Such expert assistance may include travel and collection and analysis of records, interviews and preparation of witnesses, attendance and assistance at depositions, created recommended discovery requests, interrogatories and deposition questions for litigation counsel in 70% of the civil litigation cases.  Experts will also be expected to generate expert analysis reports in 60% of the cases and testify in 90% of the cases an expert report is issued.  Experts will maintain a privileged relationship with Army counsel / paralegals to the extent allowed under the law.  Litigation support in the document center will include the necessary paralegal support, document / ESI support, and administrative support necessary to support this scenario. The document center must be fully equipped, tested, and staffed within 3 months of contact award.
 

5.  For Small Businesses:

a. Identify the applicable socio-economic category SDB/8a /HUBZone /WOSB/ EDWOSB/VOSB /SDVOSB /HBCU/MI etc):
 

b. Identify your company's small business size standard based on the assigned NAICS. For more information refer to http://www.sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards.
 

c. If your company is interested to prime this effort and if awarded a contract, will you comply with the limitation on subcontracting? If so, indicate (with support rationale) how your company would be compliance given the restrictions identified in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013, which states that at least 50 percent of the total contract cost will be performed by the small business prime contractor or small businesses with similarly situated entities. 
 
Reference: PL 112-239-Jan.2, 2013, NDAA FY2013 as amended, at Title XVI, Subtitle C, Part IV, Section 1651 discusses limitations on subcontracting. 
 
6.  Does your company have SECRET Level Clearance for:
 

a. Facilities Clearance: Required for the contractor’s personnel to perform on the work on contract.

7.  Please provide positive or negative feedback regarding the attached Description of Requirements document such as recommended changes, noted exceptions, ambiguities, etc.

4. SUBMISSIONS

All submissions should be emailed no later than 12:00 p.m. on 1 December 2020 to gerald.a.simmons2.civ@mail.mil , Gerald A. Simmons, Contract Specialist, ACC-APG. 

Finally, the Government does not intend to respond to submissions as the intent of this RFI is to develop the acquisition strategy for these services. Continue to monitor betaSAM.gov for new or updated information.