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There’s a great post up on the ‘3 Geeks and a Law Blog’ that frames the current discussion regarding project managers, or, more specifically, the professional background of and what potentially makes a good project manager.

We’ve discussed this topic on Lawdable before and it’s a worthwhile, ongoing conversation within law firms and other legal service providers like Counsel On Call (although no one is like us, of course). One can very quickly dive into topics ranging from law schools and their e-discovery curriculums (or lack thereof) to whether the disciplines of project management can truly be absorbed by a practicing attorney, among a host of other sidebars.

Here’s what we’d like to tack onto the conversation: excellent project management is completely dependent on the individual project manager. If you look hard enough, there are lawyers out there who are great project managers, who understand how to budget and track metrics, who know how to design and implement proven protocols -- and who have been doing this for years. On the flip side, there are undoubtedly non-lawyers who can come into a project management role, add a lot of value, and do a better job than 95% of the lawyers who currently have project management responsibility. That’s not a knock on those lawyers, but a nod to those non-lawyers’ skills.

The training PMs receive and their personalities affect the people most likely to stay lawyers in the first place. The old adage that ‘I didn’t become a lawyer to do accounting’ is true. However, those who’ve been in law for awhile also see that there are different career development avenues to pursue and to help their clients. (And who’s to say PMs can’t make partner in the law firm of the future? Clients want to work with great PMs; that can mean more business from a PM’s clients.)

Circumstances, experiences and exposure can also help you develop the skills and expertise to push you in the direction of project management. In the same manner that lawyers involved in e-discovery today may not have started with technological understanding or had any initial training; those who have been thrust into the fire might have had an interest created, and then received the training and knowledge to accomplish and even master the topic. So, too, some of those thrust into project management may find that they like it, are good at it and want to pursue it to create the necessary expertise to become premier in the field.

We’ve found great lawyers who make great project managers, but we’re also in a more unique position than, say, a law firm, for instance. Our lawyers were looking for a different way to practice law and that’s why we’ve found one another; that departure from traditional thought also helps us identify those who could potentially make great project managers. And while MBA-types might run individual departments at a law firm, it’s usually a lawyer from within their own ranks who serves as a project manager on a specific case or matter. Some of those lawyers make great PMs, but many are so grounded in traditional lines of thinking that it’s difficult to break away and innovate; great project management requires a balance of innovation and proven protocols.

That’s a long way of saying there are different ways to approach this issue, and it’s going to be a focus as more people become attuned to it. In the end, it’s great for our profession.
 

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I have long argued that companies keep too much e-mail. There are numerous approaches to dealing with this problem that I have seen. First are the companies that have no policy at all. Well, actually they have as many policies as they have employees, as everyone is doing their own thing. This not only enlarges the company’s volume (and therefore cost), but it makes it very difficult to preserve e-mail for litigation or other investigations.

Second are those who have a policy but do not audit it through training or technological means. They’ve gone through the process of creating a policy but never quite got around to seeing to it that their employees follow it.

Third, there are those who have a policy, train on it initially, implement and audit but over time it becomes less important as everyone focuses on their job and no one is assigned the task of making sure there is compliance.

Finally, there are those who arbitrarily deal with their e-mail through a purely technological methodology and do not allow their employees to make any decisions about it at all.

Whatever approach describes your company, you also must deal with the issue of employees using their personal e-mail accounts to handle work e-mail. In a recent survey by Axway, 82% of employees surveyed said they use personal e-mail accounts to send large files that would otherwise not make it through their company e-mail systems. It’s not that they’re trying to hide anything; they are simply trying to get their work done and found that it’s just too much hassle to get IT to let that particular document through the system. Perhaps they even chose to have it sent via a disc of some kind but normally they need that e-mail immediately and thus resort to using their personal account(s) to access it.

This is the reality and thus has huge implications for security, record retention and litigation hold purposes. Is your trade secret and confidential information sitting in Gmail or Yahoo! accounts? Or on the personal computers of your employees? What if it’s the official record that the company has a legal or regulatory obligation to keep for a certain time period? What if that employee becomes subject to a litigation hold that requires the company to preserve that information? Can we simply put a hold on his/her shared drive and e-mail accounts at work or must we now make sure his/her home computers are impounded for the same purposes? Obviously there are privacy issues at work here as well.

The employee is usually doing this for work reasons, efficiency, etc. But do they realize the potential impact on their personal privacy if their home computer is subject to an evidentiary hold? Do the employee’s spouse and children realize that their information might be subject to an attorney reviewer looking at their e-mail if it’s co-mingled with corporate e-mail on a home computer?

If employees and companies start asking the questions and talking about these practical issues even more, perhaps we can come up with solutions that work for the reality of the world we live in. Follow Barry on Twitter.
 

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While calling 2010 the year of deletion might be over the top for most companies, it is a topic to consider during our current economic realities and the constant threat of litigation.

There is no time like the present to undertake a house cleaning of electronically stored information (ESI). Storage costs, poor organization and expensive restoration of backup tapes for litigation purposes are the norm, while at the same time there are many available tools to de-duplicate, organize and store inexpensively.

Most in-house lawyers now understand that a company’s ability to save money when litigation hits starts before litigation hits. That means having an understanding of how your company's ESI is stored and organized and proactively doing something about it. If you have no litigation hold pending that would require you to preserve certain ESI for the duration of the legal proceedings, now is definitely the time to act.

Record retention or ESI management have two parts: retain and delete. Many companies are pretty good at the “retaining” part, although they do need help implementing and organizing it. The harder part is often the “delete” part. This is true not just for the organization as a whole but also for the people who make up that organization. Many people are loathe to delete their lunch invitation e-mails, let alone anything that rises to the level of a substantive subject. It takes a shift in thinking, a shift in policy or, more often than not, a shift of money from your company to a vendor to process the ESI – and the lawyers to review it in a large e-discovery project – before a shift really takes hold.

It often takes that first million-dollar bill during the discovery phase of litigation to wake up a company executive or law department that it might make sense to deal with the excessive ESI issue. Actual money that affects the bottom line is often the only true motivator. Otherwise the expense and/or the mental capital to deal with the issue from a technology, planning and implementation perspective is often too much to handle.

Buy-in at the top is needed. Make your case for how this type of deletion and organization of ESI is critical to the company bottom line. Half of all in-house lawyers believe that their company is not ready to handle an ESI discovery project. I wonder if that’s the half that hasn’t yet been hit with huge litigation and believes that they won’t get hit with litigation this year?

2010 is fast approaching and the new year brings all things new. For many, dealing with ESI would certainly fall under the “new” category -- and makes for a great resolution.
 

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There’s almost nothing like the words ‘record retention policy’ to quickly put a group of grown adults asleep. If you’re lucky enough to be placed on the team to formulate said policy, you probably wonder who you ticked off and should remove from your holiday card list. Reminds me of the Dilbert where the boss starts a meeting and falls asleep while talking, slams his head on the desk only to wake up and ask what the meeting was about. They all said ‘the records retention policy.’

But hey, some of us actually like putting these policies and strategic plans together... they offer a lot of value when properly implemented.

I actually prefer to use the term ‘ESI Management Policy’ because that’s really where you get the most bang for your buck. While it’s important to know how long to keep certain vital records, almost nobody seems to care about the boxes piled up like the Pyramids in Egypt that you still pay monthly storage fees on. What they care about is the cost to store, identify, collect, review and produce electronically stored information (ESI).

In the old(er) days, the concern wasn’t about volume of ESI, but content. Everyone was concerned about the smoking gun e-mail – the stupid thing written that no one thought would ever see the light of day. While that’s still a major concern in this current era of extremely tight budgets, it’s not just the smoking gun that can cost the company, it’s also the mounting volume. There are real costs that must be identified and properly dealt with and managed via a policy that helps employees care about their own ESI management.

Don’t jump straight to technology for your solution, however. First, understand your company culture, where it is and where it needs to be regarding how employees create, send and store ESI. Second, create a policy that moves your company culture in the direction you want to go. Don’t try to make it all in one step; try the incremental approach. Grabbing for too much at one time only breeds unrest, and unrest breeds non-compliance. The only thing worse than not having an ESI management policy is to have one that no one follows.

Once you get the policy and the employees moving in the right direction, then it’s time to implement technology to help the company achieve its overall goals, which is cost savings through less volume, and, finally, organization of that remaining volume.

In a previous post, I stated that people and technology are both needed and must work together. Those words can be applied to most situations these days, but especially here. Training and buy-in on the part of your employees along with technology will help you achieve your goals.
 

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I’m a little late on this one, but this article outlines the use of technology to budget and control the cost of a document review project and could be helpful to some folks. It's sometimes an overwhelming topic, but there's no question that law-related technology tools have advanced in recent years and, when used properly, can drastically reduce the overall data set that is needed to review, code and produce. De-duplication, near dupes, key words, clustering of some type or another and document-ranking technology all can be very effective steps to take. In fact, if you are not using the available technology to reduce the data set needing to be reviewed, it’s practically scandalous.

I've seen more than a few very professional, normally sane in-house counsel practically lose their lunch when they hear about the initial amount of data that must be reviewed on a case. When the word "terabyte" is uttered, or there are three digits in front of "gigabyte," it can be somewhat alarming... that cash register sound starts to go off inside your head. But once everyone has calmed down, reason sets in and the processing stage begins. A majority of that data is going to be culled out. If using an early case assessment (ECA) tool, another huge chunk of data will be eliminated. All told, as much as 95% of the data could be vanquished. Now we have an amount of data we can work with. It can certainly be budgeted, too -- and if the review partner knows what it’s doing, it can be very accurate and for even less money than anticipated.

So technology by itself is not the final answer. Technology combined with knowledge and experience are the keys to understanding the complexities of such projects and bringing back a semblance of simplicity and predictability. Yes technology, used skillfully, can reduce the overall data set and the volume that needs budgeting. But when coupled with skilled, professional reviewers and experienced project management – known quantities that understand the entire collection, processing and review stages, software, and how to measure results and benchmark data – you can better prepare a cost forecast that can be relied upon for the duration of the project and on subsequent matters. I feel confident in stating that any in-house attorney who has worked with a good project manager in particular will gladly share how invaluable that PM has been to his or her department.

So if you aren’t using 1) e-discovery specialist project managers and attorneys and 2) data reduction and/or ECA tools, there are significant savings to be had.

Additionally, in the normal course of business you can also reduce the overall cost of a review project by creating and following a record retention policy, as well as using project management consulting to help with other pre-litigation planning. These measures reduce the overall data set, help you understand where your data is located, and give more certainty and predictability in later creating the review budget.

Data is key in today’s world; technology has made it readily available, but you also need a cohesive approach to tap all of its benefits. It might sound like a tall hill to climb, but there are some very simple steps that can be taken to start the process without causing too much pain. In the end, the cost savings and improved processes that are gained will make all that work worthwhile.
 

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I decided I would begin my Lawdable blogging career with a look at a somewhat light piece of e-discovery case law … if there is such a thing. I do follow case law and I hope that my future posts on the subject will offer more of a “this is the potential bottom-line effect” versus a strictly academic viewpoint – I find that to be much more practical (and interesting). In the meantime, I look forward to your suggestions or thoughts. Here we go:

Lawsuits are about conflict and not always just between the parties. Is there a client that hasn’t complained about its attorney, or a lawyer who hasn’t bemoaned the actions of his/her client? It’s just part of human nature. But what happens when one or both of you fail to fulfill your preservation obligations, and this leads to sanctions? Who pays the piper?

The obligations of the client and the lawyer are clear: you must preserve Electronically Stored Information (ESI) that is relevant to the case at hand. The lawyer must provide the legal advice on what is potentially relevant and the practical advice on how to preserve it – and then monitor the client’s implementation of that advice. Having and implementing consistent best practices will be your best shot at fulfilling this obligation.

In Green v. McClendon 2009 WL 2496275 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 13, 2009), ESI was lost when the client had “the son of a friend” re-install the operating system on her computer. The lawyer apparently did not properly implement a litigation hold and did not properly inspect and search for relevant ESI on that computer before the son of a friend “helped out.”

The court sanctioned both the client and the lawyer for the costs of the motion to compel and noted that if the court found out later that bad faith was involved in the loss of the ESI, the court would impose an adverse inference.

The final issue for the court was this: how to allocate blame between the client and the lawyer? The court concluded that they should work it out amongst themselves and present the court with a plan. (Really, how do you think that conversation went?) If, however, they are unable to agree on cost allocation then they could present the issue to the court “for determination.” (If that were to happen, does anyone else see any potential conflict there?)

The bottom line is this: the lawyer and the client must understand their obligations to preserve ESI. The lawyer and the client must work together to implement the plan. Working together and following best practices to fulfill the preservation obligation will keep your side moving in the right direction and prevent sanctions – instead of battling each other when sanctions are imposed.
 

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I will not attempt (or bore you with) analogies about architects and house building and e-discovery protocols ... but as rapidly as things change in the e-discovery world, it is increasingly important to provide clients prescient and valuable guidance and to build processes that are consistent and reliable. That’s why it’s my pleasure to announce that Barry Willms has joined Counsel On Call’s E-Discovery Division as Senior Attorney + Discovery Process Architect.
 

It's a unique title, but an accurate one. Barry spent the last 14 years managing discovery matters for two prestigious law firms, King & Spalding in Atlanta and Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville. He’s overseen and directed large teams of attorneys and has consulted numerous clients on the tactical use of technology to improve quality control methodologies and results during reviews. His ability to design and implement efficient, repeatable e-discovery processes – along with his background as a great lawyer – synchs perfectly with our E-Discovery Division.
 

We’ve known and respected Barry for many years and have always been impressed by his forward thinking and knowledge of the issues affecting the discovery process. We are particularly excited about his expertise in the document retention arena – those “pre-discovery” issues many of our clients continuously encounter. But he is also the type of e-discovery expert that our clients seek for project management, creating and implementing protocols, and managing quality control for reviews large and small. With his addition to our corporate team, we’ve truly strengthened our ability to provide our clients services up and down the EDRM.
 

Barry will also provide another voice on this blog that we believe you will find informative and interesting. Please feel free to peruse his bio or e-mail him some suggestions for a post. No word yet if he has any advice on home building.

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News of the O’Melveny-H5 partnership was heralded by some -- and likely lost among a list of news blurbs for many in the industry. For those who missed it, the partnership means that one of the globe’s leading law firms has partnered with a legal information retrieval (or “search”) company to offer a uniform litigation support service to clients.

The benefits of this partnership have been outlined by industry bloggers Chris Dale and Ron Friedmann, among others. But moving beyond the deal’s strategy-and-search foundations of service, the partnership is good news for all companies providing litigation support/review services and supplies another indication that law firms are moving towards a different business model. Coming out with a news release is particularly noteworthy, as partnerships like this one have previously been seen as damaging to a law firm’s reputation. Not anymore.

What we consistently discuss with our in-house clients is how to take advantage of the resources they have. In litigation, they have outside counsel to handle and shape the strategy. That’s what law firms do best and why their partners’ hourly rates are often justified (and many of our clients agree with this). That expertise is invaluable and the strategic decisions they recommend can save millions of dollars immediately and on future matters. That is a resource.

Litigation Support providers are another resource. We know how to run an efficient discovery process with strict quality control measures. We have teams of experienced attorneys that can be dedicated to only one client. We have the proven protocols and know how to benchmark and track data. We design our services to save money now and in the future. This is all contained in our value proposition for litigation support services; that's not traditionally the case for a law firm.

So while our methods and costs of actually conducting the review of documents differ from a company like H5, and without knowing how O’Melveny will package and bill its clients for this service, the messages that this partnership sends are 1) some law firms are accepting the need for and creating new business models, 2) they recognize exactly how they are a resource to clients in litigation, and 3) They aren’t afraid to tell the world about it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our Litigation Support Division has seen increased interest from law firm clients in recent months.

Ultimately, these are all good signs for the profession (and especially clients).
 

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We're not in the habit of event promotion, especially with the sheer number of e-discovery-related conferences in the marketplace, but one in particular has us excited. If you're looking for good, substantive programming and a great line-up of speakers, consider:

ACI’s 7th Annual Advanced Forum on E-Discovery & Document Management

We don't have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, but know and respect many of the panelists involved. Collectively, the in-house counsel on these panels have experienced most, if not all, conceivable challenges related to e-discovery and have developed and/or overseen many efficient and cost-saving solutions. 

If you're weighing different conference options -- and your 2010 legal budget-planning process is fast-approaching or will be in-progress -- it would be hard to go wrong with this event. And if you're planning to attend, drop us an e-mail so we can introduce ourselves while on the same plot of South Broad Street space.

The Forum is Sept. 22-23 in Philadelphia.  

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Once upon a time, there were really only a handful of titles in the legal profession: Associate, Partner, Paralegal; General Counsel, Associate General Counsel; or simply Attorney. Sure, there were mini-steps between these positions and other classifications, but for the most part these titles offered a good snapshot of the profession – especially the way business was done. Everything that couldn’t be handled in-house was sent to the law firm. There were no Account Executives, no Client Liaisons, no Information Systems Administrators ... no other business partners to lean on.

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As part of its ongoing series of discovery savings throughout the discovery process, Clearwell’s e-discovery 2.0 blog has a post up about document retention policies. This issue was a very hot topic at Counsel On Call’s Discovery Symposium 1.0 in May and panelists on our “Retention and Holds” session said it is one of the most pressing issues facing litigation managers today.

Attendees at DS1.0 cited several very specific examples of why they have a difficult time implementing company-wide document retention policies, including:

1. Different departments within the company are required to hold onto different documents for different periods of time. While a corporate employee at headquarters can likely delete e-mails at any time, an engineer in a field office may need to retain documents for reference purposes, often for years.
    
2. Some departments/employees do not have computers, so they have everything in hard copy form. The cost of reviewing these documents would be a considerable expense, and the company cannot simply dispose of the documents without reviewing them.
    
3. How do you decide what to keep and appropriately define it so that everyone is on the same page? Try defining “necessary business records.” The scope of this phrase is often difficult to get one’s arms around and can be very arbitrary.
    
4. The goal is to make the document retention process both “defensible and practical,” but questions linger about how to balance the scales between these two goals.

These challenges are independent of a company’s size; we heard the same issues discussed by both small and large companies. There were several companies that had implemented successful procedures, and a common theme was that their respective IT departments were running point on the process with support from legal and security.

Some of the solutions to these challenges – along with policies for litigation holds -- were discussed at length during DS1.0, summaries of which can be found here. We’re also looking forward to updates on the implementation of successful protocols from attendees during future discussions and at Discovery Symposium 2.0, and we’ll post updates as they become available.
 

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This is our final recap from Discovery Symposium 1.0. If you would like more information on the event or to inquire about attending in 2010, please email us.

As more corporate legal departments are looking to bring discovery in-house, this panel was of keen interest to attendees.

What was very striking was how the panelists – an incredible group of leaders who really know about bringing matters in-house and managing the discovery process – have truly become knowledgeable about their respective companies’ IT departments. They're very familiar with IT -- something that likely could not have been said of most attorneys even just a few years ago. This sheds a little more light on the demands of the discovery process today.

Even though each of the panelists work within a large company with substantial IT departments, it was clear that the best practices they brought with them could apply to companies of any size. Creating a team often means including legal, IT, human resources, operations, outside partners – whoever touches the company’s data on a regular basis. And this team helps guide and monitor progress from through collection, production and review.

It’s also worth mentioning that the attorneys on this panel have collectively saved their companies tens of millions of dollars on the discovery process in a relatively short period of time. Talk about demonstrating the value of the legal department ...

Creating Your Own Discovery Team
Panelists: Senior attorneys from Fidelity Investments, Cox Communications, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Georgia-Pacific
Moderator: Candice Reed (Executive Director, Counsel On Call)

Summary of Dialogue
IT staff is critical to the team as well as representatives of other departments specific to your business. Know the people on your team; trust them. Know where the data is located. Know your systems. Trust your company knowledge, which surpasses that of a law firm.

The discussion began with a statement: E-discovery is a management task. Those in charge of discovery cannot be afraid of technology, must serve as traffic cop and coordinator, and need to be a “techie” who can talk to lawyers. When choosing members for your discovery team, it’s about 1) Having the right people on the team, and 2) Trusting your own judgment that you have put the right people on the team. One panelist said her team meets weekly.

Another panelist said she received incredible pushback from her outside law firm when she decided to build a discovery team in-house. Her team includes attorneys with employment and patent experience, a paralegal, representatives from the IT department, as well as a person from the legal department dedicated to e-discovery (who has since been moved to another department and not directly replaced). The team meets once a month.

Another panelist put her team together when in-house e-discovery experience quickly surpassed that of the company’s outside counsel. The core team consists of her, representatives from the IT department, as well as an outside consultant. Other team members are attorneys with commercial, labor, and insurance experience and representatives from Records Retention. Since three-quarters of her company’s corporate employees are members of the IT department, it is important to have everything IT-related documented – how the department is organized, who reports to whom, detailed protocols, and the location of specific data. This information also is in the company’s E-Discovery Manual, which is constantly updated. Due to an increasing number of matters, the panelist wanted to create a “thoughtful and consistent approach to review.” After each project, the team would discuss what data was collected, what part(s) of the process worked and what didn’t, and even examined the overall cost. Perhaps most importantly, they looked at what could be done to make future matters cost-effective. In order to better predict future costs, her company partnered with Counsel On Call, whose team handles several parts of the company’s discovery process, to find a software vendor that would do just that.

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This was probably the most animated session during the two-day event - maybe it was the cocktail reception and songwriter's night that was to follow.

More likely, it was the issue at hand. The in-house attorneys in the room were all under at least a minimal amount of pressure to contain costs, and everyone had clearly examined their outside counsel relationships recently. The panelists had each taken different steps to modify their relationships with outside counsel, and each seemed to be pleased with the direction these relationships were heading.

Working With My Law Firm: The New Dynamics
Panelists: Senior attorneys from International Paper, SunTrust Banks, CVS Caremark
Moderator: Candice Reed (Executive Director, Counsel On Call)

Summary of Dialogue
Themes: Make your voice heard with outside counsel; We hold the power; We often know more about e-discovery than law firms do; Law firms need to budget/plan and work with the vendors we choose

Panelists began the session detailing how they, and many in the legal profession, believe that the law firm model is broken. The dialogue with the audience began immediately once this subject was broached, and many shared anecdotes about their relationships with outside counsel.

With that framework, one panelist said it’s important for a law firm – even firms you’ve been working with for years – to know you will walk away if their pricing or services are not inline with your needs. His department has moved to bidding out all of its work, and every law firm knows that there are at least two or three other firms bidding – and this has changed the way law firms look at the company (in a positive way). It has not changed the quality level of the work they receive (also positive).

Another panelist took this further and stated that involving her law firm in the decision-making process on the company’s e-discovery was not the best decision. The firm’s e-discovery committee was not up to the task, they did not have a disciplined approach and said that no matter who reviewed the company’s documents (namely: discovery attorneys), they were going to re-review them in order to sign off on the agreement.

Panelists them reiterated that in-house counsel must be willing to say, “Give me what I want” and stand up to law firms when necessary.

One specific anecdote that was shared with the group involved a recent conversation with a law firm partner, who was leading a company’s litigation strategy. The attendee loved the value he was getting from that partner, even at $500 per hour. But what he did not like – and what he wanted the partner to understand – was that along with every hour in that partner’s time came another $600 per hour in two junior associates a paralegal.

Another panelist said that we are in an evolutionary period right now, and that law firms must get their value proposition in order. He calculated that his company pays its in-house attorneys $150 per hour; if a law firm associate is doing work for his company, it needs to be at that price or less or it’s not worth it – they will do it in-house or use another vendor. Another panelist said a good practice is to staff a department at 80% of volume at $150 per hour.

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It was clear from the onset that attendees were eagerly awaiting this panel, and that Mr. Efkeman, Mr. Lisi and Mr. Stout were the right attorneys to answer the questions before them.

There was great dialogue between the panelists and the audience, as many attendees were either currently in the software platform analysis process or considering purchases for their in-house dpartments.

Session II: De-dupe, Near Dupe and Being Duped: Software Decisions Good and Bad

Panelists: Senior attorneys from FedEx Express, Fidelity Investments
Richard Stout, Director, Litigation Support Division, Counsel On Call

Moderator: Dennis McKinnie, Executive Director, Atlanta, Counsel On Call

Summary of Dialogue
Themes: Review less data, and do it faster; Establish a good relationship between your legal and IT departments and ensure both are speaking the same language; Purchasing software is costly, and those decisions should be carefully considered, especially in an environment in which there is much consolidation currently -- but a purchase can save time and money in the long run; “Try before you buy.”

The panelists agreed that limiting the amount of data to review was paramount to containing costs. They spoke about the importance of Early Case Assessment (ECA) tools, specifically mentioning Clearwell and Trident (by Wave, a de-dupe/culling tool).

As ways to reduce discovery time and costs, Richard Stout (Counsel On Call) echoed the dialogue about reducing the volume of data to review and discussed how to review the data faster. Implementing the right technology and correctly managing the process are central; the volume of data to be reviewed can be reduced by implementing a Comprehensive Records Management Program (including an effective document retention policy), targeting the collection (searching key custodians, date ranges, specific terms), culling and de-duping data, and using ECA tools. Mr. Stout also mentioned companies with project managers available 24/7 as an important factor in selecting software.
 

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There was a lot of very interesting dialogue at Counsel On Call’s Discovery Symposium, and one (overarching) topic clearly on the front burner was retention, holds and the collection/preservation of documents -- and the internal processes and logistical challenges surrounding these often laborious tasks.

This will be one of our longer summaries from DS1.0’s four main sessions; more will be posted Wednesday.

Good Policies for Retention and Holds; Standards of Care in Preservation and Collection
Panelists: Senior attorneys from Equifax, FedEx Express, Hilton Hotels
Moderator: Anne Whitaker (Vice President, Counsel On Call)

Summary of Dialogue
A properly developed retention program can be a useful tool for reducing the cost associated with document review and other discovery-related matters. The preservation of appropriate data is one of the most pressing issues facing litigation managers today.

Panelists discussed eight basic steps to developing a program that is reasonable, defensible, and practical:

1. Identify when the preservation obligation begins.

Every company has different needs that must be addressed.  One panelist said a preservation obligation may begin with, for instance, an internal employment investigation. It does not begin when a claim is filed for lost goods. Another company begins the process if there is intent to initiate litigation. The in-house attorney asks, “Is this meaningful? Credible?” It’s a judgment call.

2. Determine what ESI (electronically stored information) must be preserved. 

The main question to ask is, “What do we need in order to win or defend this case?” A map of the IT landscape is needed; therefore, a close relationship must be developed between legal and IT and a common language between the two established. It is also important to define “necessary business records” and in some companies’ legal holds, this term is defined and a list of triggers provided (such as an EEOC charge or knowledge of a complaint filing). Another panelist mentioned that custodians must be identified prior to determining what ESI must be preserved and posed the question of whether companies ask custodians to “give him what they’ve got” or if it is sometimes better to retrieve materials.

In terms of what goes into a hold, one panelist said that two pages is too long for a litigation hold, and to be concise (but possibly attach the subpoena to the hold just to be sure to cover all bases). Several panelists suggested including "warnings" in the holds, such as "do not share any information in this hold or you will be in violation of company policy" or something to scare custodians into compliance. Another attendee suggested web-based training for custodians prior to being subject to their first litigation hold.

3. Who is in charge with respect to technology?

Staff from IT, security, and legal are involved, but most agreed that someone from IT manages the effort. All processes and procedures are in writing in order to keep communication consistent. Important to be consistent.

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8:25am
What a day yesterday was here at the Discovery Symposium in Nashville - my brief posts here can't do it justice. The programming ended with an incredible discussion about the new dynamics of working with law firms ... Brian Edwards (SunTrust), Brian Cadwallader (International Paper) and Jennifer Molinar (Caremark) share some incredible insight and experiences with the group, and not surprisingly this led to a very spiritied discussion. Possibly the most interesting tidbit was regarding the bidding out of every significant matter; Brian Edwards spoke about how beneficial this has been and how his firms understand that SunTrust will walk away if they aren't getting the price/services they're after. The group was intrigued by this and asked several pointed questions.

Some of us (namely me) are probably still a little groggy after enjoying the evening's songwriter's night ... Don Schlitz, who has penned 24(!!!!) No. 1 hits, was kind enough to entertain us. Don is a friend of one of our attorneys, and his wife is also an attorney -- so he had a steady stream of lawyer jokes ready for us, which is always fun.

I'll post more later today...

4:15pm
Everyone is on their way home now, probably somewhat exhausted after another substantive day to close out the Symposium ... we started with a powerhouse panel -- Sue Dyer (HCA), Marty Mazzone (Fidelity Investments), Heather Munday (Georgia Pacific) and Kristen Weathersby (Cox Communications), moderated by Counsel On Call's Candice Reed -- discussing how to create your own discovery team. Over 2.5 hours, these women really broke down how their processes work, who is involved, the challenges they've faced, mistakes they've made and what's most important. Each panelist was asked "If you're just now starting to assemble your discovery team, what would be the first thing you would do?" The unanamous answer was "identify the person in IT who is going to be by my side throughout this process and make things happen." These women were very, very impressive as a group and individually, and as I remarked to someone: "You can see we have some great resources to learn from here at Counsel On Call." We were really pleased that so many people got to hear the information/opinions that we have access to every day.

And that seemed to be a common theme ... our post-event survey responses indicated that there haven't been many (if any) events like this one, that the program was relevant and informative, and truly in the 'best practices' mindset. My biggest takeaway is that in-house attorneys are genuinely excited about the value they can provide to their company in the discovery realm, and many shared some great stories about the reactions they've received when showing the cost savings of the processes they've implemented.

A great event all around ... we'll post some of the best practices that were discussed during the event soon.

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Greetings from the packed Discovery Symposium!

If you're not follwoing Dennis McKinnie on Twitter, you can do so here: www.twitter.com/dmac1957. Dennis will tweet periodically from our meeting site and is leading a panel shortly.

I will continue to update this post today and tomorrow as interesting tidbits arise, so please check back and refresh your screen.

1:15pm CST
Our keynote speaker at lunch was Cheryl Mason, VP of litigation at HCA, who is incredibly knowledgeable about the litigation process and its role at HCA. She detailed how HCA's approach -- when they started to really create solutions regarding e-discovery several years ago -- was to create a defensible process, not necessarily a perfect process. And even if HCA's process isn't perfect, it is kept in the perspective of what is best for the company -- and where e-discovery fits into its priorities. Her level of knowledge and her calm deameanor are 'points of light,' as COC President Jane Allen says.

We're getting into the Retention/Holds & Preservation/Collection panel now with attorneys from FedEx, Equifax and Hilton Hotels. More updates soon.

4:15pm CST
We just finished the 'Software Decisions' panel, which I was very pleased to be a part of. Leading/directing the dialogue were Edward Efkeman (FedEx Express) and Mike Lisi (Fidelity), who have both been tasked with handling vendor relationships with all types of software companies. What was most striking -- and probably most encouraging for our guests, many of whom are at different stages of their software selection processes -- was that both FedEx and Fidelity were able to demonstrate a high level of value to their companies in going thru the processes. They clearly knew a lot about dozens of vendors, their capabilities, and how they could help their respective companies. They each spoke about the value of the IT department and good project managers -- and not letting information beyond their firewall. 

There were probably 25 questions from the audience, so this is obviously a hot topic. We'll have to post a more thorough recap next week.

The 'Working With My Law Firms' panel is off and running, then it's off to the Country Music Hall of Fame for what promises to be a great songwriter's night. More to come. 

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Next week, we will have the pleasure of welcoming 35 senior in-house litigation managers, representing 25 companies, to our home base in Nashville for the inaugural Counsel On Call Discovery Symposium 1.0. It’s very exciting for us, as it provides the opportunity to get several of our clients in a room together and talk about best practices in discovery and litigation support.

We tried to limit the event to about 30 attorneys to foster a healthy environment for exchanging experiences, and we’re pleased that the demand has been so high. It's a great program – discussing all areas of discovery – that is completely led by the attorneys who are in the trenches and dealing with these challenges on a daily (hourly) basis. We’re proud to be by their side, but in this instance we’re merely facilitators and believe that’s going to help generate the best possible dialogue among some of the brightest minds in the in-house profession.

Here are a few of the session titles:

• “Good Policies for Retention and Holds; Standards of Care in Preservation and Collection”
• “De-dupe, Near Dupe and Being Duped: Software Decisions Good and Bad”
• “Working With My Law Firm: The New Dynamics”
• “Creating Your Own Discovery Team”
• “Budgeting for E-discovery: Not a Pipe Dream”

We will likely produce a recap that shares some of the best practices discussed during the event, and if you’re an in-house attorney interested in reading it, please send us an e-mail and we will add you to the distribution list. Also, based on the response this year, we are considering opening up the event to non-clients in 2010 (event will be in Atlanta or Boston), so please indicate if you would like to receive information when it becomes available.

And if you like Twitter, we’d recommend following Dennis McKinnie, formerly a general counsel of two publicly traded companies, formerly with PoGo’s IP litigation group, and a past Staff Counsel to the Supreme Court of the United States … he’s been the Executive Director of our Atlanta office the last four years, and he just got his Twitter account up and running and will tweet during the program. Dennis is well-known for his txt/Blackberry skills, so we’re going to put him to the test.

Richard Stout will also post on this blog from the event, so don’t forget to check back May 13-14. Subscribing to the blog (on the right side of this page) is the easiest way to make sure you don’t miss an expanded update.

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There’s an interesting phenomenon happening in the litigation arena right now: nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There is plenty going on, of course, but the sour economy has put a different spin on how litigation is being managed. Cases are not marching in lock-step with a normal timeline. For instance, some companies are putting everything related to a piece of litigation on hold until they are required by time, or the case itself, to act. And action this time around is preceded (in most instances) by a lot of anxious planning and budgeting.

Now this isn’t anything new – many companies have longstanding policies not to act on litigation until forced to do so. It’s often a cash-flow-versus-workflow approach. However, I am seeing a palpable sense of hesitancy with regard to litigation and case management. Companies are taking an ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ stance, whether it’s regarding the various stimulus measures and burgeoning economic turnaround, or the stability of a company and their department's budget, or any number of other things. That attitude is impacting case management. These companies know that eventually they are going to have more work (i.e. revenue), but they simply do not want to spend the money now, when times are tight, addressing litigation matters unless they have to.

All is not dour under this approach. One great side effect is that companies are taking this time to create, refine or institute their approach to e-discovery for when the storm finally does come. If their ducks aren’t already in a row, they are briskly walking toward the line.

We’ve participated in dozens of planning or strategy meetings that are seeking to solve the bigger issues: how to create repeatable discovery processes, how to budget discovery costs, the software tools to use, the action items surrounding a litigation hold, the data collection and management process, analyzing the benefits of early case assessment tools, and creating processes that facilitate collaboration with outside counsel and all their legal vendors, among many, many other issues.

All of this is ultimately focused on cost and efficiency, of course. And it’s never too early to make that a priority – or in some cases, it’s not too late.
 

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I would say that’s been one of the things I’ve been able to do in my three years here at Fidelity that has undoubtedly saved the company the most money of everything I’ve done, and I would put that in the millions, easily."

- Martha A. Mazzone, V.P. and Associate General Counsel, Fidelity Investments, on creating a "three-legged stool" with Counsel On Call and outside counsel
 

As demonstrated on what's become a popular podcast for LegalTalk Network, Marty Mazzone is incredibly well-versed in the discovery process and data management. Her candid comments and detailed descriptions of how Fidelity handles the litigation process have been helpful to many in-house attorneys. 

We've had numerous requests for a transcript of Marty's podcast, and have pasted at least a partial version below... to listen to all of Marty's interview, including an in-depth discussion on data management, please visit LegalTalk's website or our Media Center.


Paul Boynton, LegalTalk Network: In addition to bringing some of this work in-house, are there other service providers other than law firms that have been assistance to you?

Marty Mazzone: Yes, that is key, actually. And this is not to be disparaging of law firms, not at all. But I do think that all of us – clients and law firms, and I was in the law firm for many years -- have to address this changing model.

First of all, there is the whole technology vendor world in e-discovery, and they can be extremely helpful and critical partners in a major e-discovery effort. There are also these groups that I would call something like “discovery attorneys,” or maybe at one time you would have called them “staffing groups,” but they provide high quality attorneys for an extremely minimal cost compared to the cost of law firms. And by using those groups to do your review and manage that in-house, you’re saving your law firm attorneys for building the legal defense.

So to me … I’m building my factual defense up over here with my in-house contract or discovery attorneys, and then I’m transferring the knowledge they’re gaining to our legal defense team out of the law firm who are writing our briefs … and that transfer of knowledge becomes a very important element in what I’m trying to do. But I definitely think that we can almost see a third leg to the stool now instead of a direct link just from client to law firm.

You’ve also now got an opportunity to get a good set of discovery counsel who will continue to work with my company case after case, who will know what I do, will know acronyms, will know leaders and so forth, and they’ll be able to dig out the facts.

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If you're looking for a clear vision of how data/records management and the discovery processes should operate, there are few more qualified voices in our profession than Martha A. Mazzone, vice president and associate general counsel of the legal department of Fidelity Investments in Boston.

Marty recently participated in a podcast with LegalTalk Network's In-House Legal show that is very insightful. Her interview picks up at the 13:30 mark. Note: A partial transcript of Marty's interview can be read here.

If you haven't seen Marty speak before, this is a good opportunity to get a glimpse behind the curtain of the discovery processes of a large company that handles a significant amount of data. For Marty and Fidelity, processes are centered around the ability to efficiently access the "five to ten" pieces of data that are going to make the difference in a case.

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The billable hour has received a lot of attention in recent months as it relates to associate salaries and the value the client receives, among other issues. But it has been especially relevant in the e-discovery field in recent years, as more in-house departments have realized that much of their discovery work can be done for under $65 an hour versus the $200-400 they were accustomed to paying.

So now that this is the norm in our profession – paying $45-65 an hour for e-discovery work – the real question becomes, ‘What am I really getting for that money?’

Once you’ve driven down costs to the $45-65 per hour level for e-discovery, I would argue that the hourly rate makes little, if no difference, on your bottom line. The most important factor is the review rate of the attorneys. In fact, it’s really very simple math.

Let’s take a medium-sized matter: 30 gigabytes of data, or 400,000 e-mails.

Using a traditional (linear) review tool, an average review rate would be approximately 50 document decisions per hour for an attorney. By increasing the attorney review rate by 20 decisions per hour, the cost savings over the life of the project would amount to $125,000 and cut the project’s time by 25-40%. That more than compensates for a $20 per hour difference in an attorney's hourly rate, too.

That’s also a very conservative answer, because many companies now utilize a content analytic review tool that clusters documents together by topic versus a linear tool that only organizes data chronologically. Using the content analytic tool is likely to produce a 300-500% increase in the review rates, which saves in excess of $300,000 and 70% in time on that same 30GB of data. Content analytic tools cost more, but you can see where that difference can be accounted for.

So if you can accept this concept, it truly becomes a question of what you’re getting for your money. Many in-house departments have $48 an hour attorneys handle their e-discovery work, but ultimately the work is re-reviewed by outside counsel, there’s no fluid process in place and the client has no idea what kind of productivity the attorneys are generating. How would they know if they could be doing it better?

The question really becomes about how to increase review rates and thus productivity. There are many ways to do this, but it starts with experienced attorneys who know e-discovery and the technology. It’s supported by proven processes and talented project managers. Everything must be transparent: work closely tracked, benchmarked and learned from. It’s a collaborative, highly communicative process with outside counsel. And it can be repeated from matter to matter, creating more opportunities for learning and efficiency.

Focusing on the process and maximizing productivity -- not the hourly rate -- is where money is truly saved in e-discovery. The math really will speak for itself; all a client has to do is ask for it.
 

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Themes from 2008 and before: Review data faster
Theme for 2009: Review less data

After a jam-packed three days of meetings, panel discussions, and visiting with software vendors from across the country at LegalTech New York, it wasn't difficult to discern the two primary objectives for cost savings in the e-discovery realm: (1) Review the data faster and (2) Review less data. These topics aren't new, of course, but in particular the level of discussion about reviewing less data has clearly reached a new level. 

Reviewing Data Faster

For the past few years, the latest technology trends were utilizing content analytic tools when reviewing data. Leaders in this area include Attenex, Stratify, Metalincs, and Cataphora. In our experience, content analytical tools have proven to be three to five times faster than traditional linear tools. The result: hundreds or thousands of attorney hours saved and thousands or millions of dollars saved in performing the review of electronic data.

The benefits of content analytical tools is now well accepted, so much so that traditional linear software tools have upgraded their platforms to include content analytical capabalities. Indeed, over the past year Content Analyst Company has announced strategic alliances with KCura's Relativity, Onsite's eView, and most recently iCONECTnXT.

Why is this so important, other than the obvious benefits of getting the review done faster? Because it makes the hourly rate of the attorneys less relevant. For a company deciding to conduct a review with an LPO and its low hourly rate, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be less expensive if an onshore company's attorneys can produce review rates that are two or three times faster, even if the hourly rate is double. So when considering this type of work, it's always good to ask the e-discovery company about the review rates their attorneys typically achieve -- it makes it easier to compare apples to apples. 

Reviewing Less Data

In addition to software platforms adding content analytical capacity to their arsenal, the major players are also focusing on the next-largest cost associated with e-discovery: the amount of data collected for review. In the majority of our visits with software review vendors, the common theme was that either their tool now had early case assessment features or they were in the process of adding to their platform. To that end, we had a chance to visit with representatives of Clearwell, Metalincs, Planet Data, and Inference, just to name a few.

In utilizing the technology for our corporate clients, we have seen the benefits first-hand. We have found that by processing through an Early Case Assessment tool that one or two attorneys can quickly and dramatically cull down the data to be reviewed (see our previous posts). In an instant, you can eliminate all e-mails that do not fall within the relevant time periods by performing advanced date searches and filtering those results.

The next step is to identify all sender and recipient domains related to the particular custodian’s files that you are reviewing. With this feature, the attorney reviewer can eliminate thousands of e-mails that clearly have no relevance to a particular matter based upon the sender or recipient information. For example, all e-mails sent from eBay, Travelocity, newspapers and other subscription-type services provide fertile ground to eliminate thousands of irrelevant e-mails across all custodians collected. The ability to search across all data, based upon domain names, also provides opportunity to quickly and comprehensively identify all communications to and from legal counsel. With one click of the button, a single reviewer can segregate as “potentially privileged” all of the documents originating from or involving legal counsel into a separate workflow for a second-level determination of privilege. In addition, by typing in the law firm name you can quickly and comprehensively identify all attorneys associated with that law firm and all e-mail accounts associated with that attorney that have been collected. This feature adds an extra layer of confidence that you are capturing all attorneys involved in a particular matter.

By spending a small amount of time on the front end with these early case assessment tools, it is very achievable to reduce the amount of data that requires review by an additional 25-50% over the initial 20-30% filtered through traditional automated culling processes (de-duplication, file-type suppression). The net result – huge savings with a potential total reduction of 50-80% of files that require review.

One of the most popular drivers of visitors to this blog are searches for 'early case assessment tools,' which on a much smaller scale illustrates how much this issue is in the collective consciousness of the profession. And why wouldn't it be? If there's less data to review -- and we can review it faster -- it's going to make achieving significant cost savings a lot more realistic.
 

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It’s hard to believe that the annual Legal Tech conference is just around the corner, Feb. 2-4 in New York. Hundreds of vendors and thousands of attendees will descend upon the Hilton New York Hotel in what has become a must-attend event for those of us on the technology side of the profession.

If you’ve been to LegalTech, you know it can be a little overwhelming and it’s important to go in with a plan. While sorting through the masses, we have several distinct objectives while we're there:

1. Review the latest technology tools that can reduce the time and expense of litigation in a number of areas. We are particularly interested in technology that can reduce the amount of data to process and review (see: early case assessment tools)
    
2. Learn from legal and corporate counsel the challenges they face and the measures they have taken to address . Panels of interest include: "Executing eDiscovery Inside the Corporation," "Corporate Legal Department vs. Law Firm Perspectives," "Managing eDiscovery in an Alternative Fee Envrionment," and "State of the Art in eDiscovery Automation and Early Case Assessment"
    
3. Meet with technology providers and share what we’ve learned about their services and discuss ways we can work more efficiently together

All of this will help us better serve our clients now and in the future. eDiscovery can be a jungle, and LegalTech aids our efforts to be the best safari guides we can be. In a couple of weeks I will post a post-conference summary with information you’ll hopefully find helpful.

Until then … wish us luck.

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We often hear about the most important factor in creating a cost-effective e-discovery review: the review rate of the attorneys. Without question, the use of a content analytic review tool has greatly enhanced the ability to increase review rates for attorneys who know how to use these tools -- by 3 to 10 times versus a linear tool.

This improved productivity goes directly to the bottom line and dramatically reduces the largest component of the e-discovery cost structure: the attorney reviewer expense. Content analytic tools also greatly reduce the manpower and duration required for review.

Here’s where people often get stuck: The upfront cost of using a content analytic tool is (usually) significantly higher than that of a linear review tool. But as many have discovered, those upfront costs are typically recouped many times over by the end of a case because of the efficiencies that are gained in using a content analytic tool. The additional good news is that there’s a way to decrease the upfront costs by culling the amount of data needed for the review. These early case assessment tools are equally, if not more important, to the bottom line.

Early case assessment software platforms (such as Clearwell, Metalincs, and Autonomy’s Aungate Investigator & ECA, among others) enable corporations and law firms to dramatically and intelligently reduce the amount of data that needs to be reviewed. These programs offer a sneak peak at the data at a fraction of the cost of loading for review with a typical content analytic tool. In addition to standard culling methods like de-duplication and file-type extractions, early case assessment tools provide a means to develop legally defensible keyword searches, identify key players in the litigation (or more importantly identify non-players), and allow for bulk coding of clearly non-relevant materials or potentially privileged documents prior to loading into the review platform.

A quick example: A company's initial collection totals 300,000 documents for review. Using an early assessment tool, that number is dramatically reduced through de-duplication (20%), excluding privileged documents eliminates (another 10%), performing a multi-phrase keyword search (25%) and identifying the responsive data set (70%). The final number of documents to be loaded into the content analytic tool: 48,600 (or just 16% of the original collected documents).

Common volume reduction achieved through an early case assessment tool is 70-80% (the companies mentioned above have case studies on their respective websites that detail even greater reductions). The point is clear: reducing the volume of data, combined with the increased speed in which it can be reviewed via a content analytic tool, is a winning combination for corporations and law firms seeking to better manage e-discovery matters.

It’s always fun to be part of a meeting in which the realization sinks in that not only will the work product be better, but it will save hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars.

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All the discussion in e-discovery typically revolves around e-mails, and obviously that’s where the bulk of electronic communication takes place. But we can uncover some very helpful information from Instant Messaging, too.

Yes, that’s correct – all IM conversations can be collected and processed for review when using the right review software tool (and there are many good ones out there). That means all those employees who keep their Yahoo or AOL messaging open all day represent another significant source of data than can be classified as electronically stored information (ESI).

While there’s been a moderate amount of discussion about this issue, in many industries it has flown under the radar screen or been pushed to the side because it was seemingly too difficult of a matter to deal with properly. That’s not the case. A recent example: I managed a team of five attorneys that utilized Attenex software to review the e-mails and IMs of a corporate client. As a content analytic review tool, the challenge with IMs is that the slang used in texting is very distinct from normal communications and offers a different type of challenge when trying to organize these files by their concept. However, by segregating the IMs and combining them with advanced timeline and keyword searches, we were able to review the universe of IMs in context and with great efficiency. In fact, each reviewer averaged more than 3,000 document decisions per day (e-mails and IMs), which resulted in dramatic cost savings in reviewer expense for the client.

There are certainly some very robust tools that can make the IM part of the review go smoothly; the point is that it should not be forgotten (or avoided) in the process and to make sure your project manager is asking the right questions on the subject.

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