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.
LegalTalk Network: Are there any particular discovery counsels that you categorized in that you’ve worked with that you would recommend to our listeners?
MM: Well, one of the best things I ever did was sign up for listserv [for in-house counsel], and I highly recommend reading those things, even if you don’t have time, because you never know what you’ll learn.
I saw a request for a discovery attorney … the whole concept for discovery attorneys was kind of new to me, and somebody from an extremely large company that I knew well had recommended a group called Counsel On Call. Counsel On Call is a Nashville-based company, they have offices all over the country, but are based in Nashville and what they do is seek out very experienced attorneys who are really looking for a different way of life than the normal law firm or in-house life … so they’re attorneys who would be in law firms or in-house but for their desire for a different world, or a different schedule, they are highly, highly vetted. So this person on this listserv who I respected said, “I used them and I never looked back and I have had enormous success with this group.”
So in the end it’s a big win for everybody, and I just recommend people really look hard at this sort of three-legged model.
[Counsel On Call] understands the review process, they have a vision for the whole discovery process that mirrors mine, they understand the need to work with the law firm to provide the knowledge that the attorneys are gaining through their document review to the law firm – but to provide it in an efficient way. And so, I’ve found that, over time, the great thing is that you start to work with the same lawyers who then become available just to you, and Counsel On Call has set up almost a Fidelity team for us … and I know these lawyers and I can say, “I want Suzie on this case” or “I want Steve on that case,” as they have different qualifications, different credentials. You end up with almost a little mini-law firm that you can call on to work with your law firm on any major case -- but at a quarter of the price. And I would say their experience with the various review tools, their experience with doing this kind of fact-finding and investigation makes them, actually, probably better at doing this than the first-year at a law firm might be.
LegalTalk Network: Marty, we have time for one more question. Now that you’ve been with Fidelity for a few years and implemented several new discovery initiatives, what advice would you give to someone who would find themselves where you were a few years ago? What are your primary lessons learned?
MM: One thing I would say is if you are talking about the technology side, make sure you have the right technology people working with you. It’s hard to find the right litigation support technology people. We have an awesome team here and that has been a lifesaver for me because [they provide] the ability to manage that kind of triangle -- lawyers over here digging up the facts and lawyers over there developing your legal defense. A lot of that is dependent upon good technology and peoples’ ability to use it. [So it’s important to] first of all, make sure that you’ve got a technology backbone and technology support people who are really your partners and are trying to build discovery capability in-house.
I would say that although there are always going to be times where you will have to turn everything over to a law firm, I think that the old law firm model may be a little bit outdated. And I think that the way the firms have been experiencing some pressure on their rates and so forth is [reason to] develop this kind of triangle of working with a Counsel On Call and a law firm to get work done in a most efficient way. 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. And it has the most impact because everybody loves it – everyone loves the system. And I include in that the law firms who would really like to have the revenue but in the end they want to focus on what they want to focus on and not have to review documents.
So in the end it’s a big win for everybody, and I just recommend people really look hard at this sort of three-legged model.
The full podcast can be heard on LegalTalk Network’s website.
