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Liam Brown on June 25th, 2010 at 5:24 pm :
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Successful organizations know that being the best is very much determined by who they hire and how they integrate and develop those employees once on board. At Integreon, we pride ourselves on identifying and attracting top talent, and integrating that talent into our workforce to help us deliver high-quality professional services that enable our clients to be more productive.
It is with this in mind that I warmly welcome Bill McClements to Integreon. Bill is a seasoned executive who will serve as our Chief Human Resources Officer as we continue to build our team globally.
Our people are dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly successful professionals who work collaboratively with our clients to impact their businesses. Bill embodies this. In his new role and as part of our senior management team, Bill will have the resources and the mandate to continue our commitment to world class talent management and reinforce our market leadership.
Our success as a company is closely tied to the culture that we create here – a culture of talented and valued people who provide quality client services of which I am very proud. I can say without reservation that the individuals we welcome into our organization are of the highest caliber. Please join me in welcoming Bill to the team. I know he has the expertise to succeed and provide us with the guidance to maintain a world-class workforce – and to ensure that all of us here at Integreon can continue to say that we simply work with the best.
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Ron Friedmann on June 11th, 2010 at 8:42 am :
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On Tuesday I read with interest Jordan Furlong’s blog post The evolution of outsourcing. He opens by noting that though LPO is “in its relative infancy, legal process outsourcing has already had a huge impact on the legal services marketplace”. Furlong focuses on two effects outsourcing has on the legal market:
“The first affects LPOs themselves: they now need to move their value proposition beyond cost savings in a market they helped to make more sophisticated. The second affects everyone: the legal profession’s response to LPO is having an unexpected effect on how legal work is distributed and how legal resources are allocated.”
We agree. As a provider, we know that simply offering lower labor cost is not enough. We therefore work hard to improve processes, introduce technology, increase efficiency, reduce cost, and achieve better outcomes for the lawyers whom we support. Personally, “I’ve put my money where my mouth is”: I recently turned over global marketing to colleagues so I could work in Integreon’s legal operations consulting group to help do exactly that.
Furlong was perhaps even more prophetic than he realized when he wrote that “a surprising number of law firms are adopting — and adapting — the outsourcing model themselves.” On Thursday, Legal Week published Taylor Wessing set to create arm in Cambridge for standardised work.
The article reports that the Anglo-German law firm will set up “an affiliated corporate services business to offer clients standardised work.” Their goal is to offer lower-cost options for routine work such as corporate due diligence. Eventually “it is likely that the firm will offer the service to third parties, including other law firms.” The firm may also partner with an IT outfit to streamline work.
“Adopting the outsourcing model” as Furlong suggests is exactly right. From the limited information we have, it sounds like the firm’s Cambridge unit will be a captive LPO.
We think this development is good news for the legal market. It further validates that law firms must respond to corporate pressure for (1) options, (2) lower cost, and (3) process improvements. Of course, we also view it as an explicit endorsement of the LPO approach.
Until recently, the corporate law market was served almost exclusively by inhouse lawyers and large law firms. Today, however, clients can choose from among boutiques, regional law firms, LPOs, and now, law firms as LPOs. This choice and competition foster innovation and drive costs down - good news for clients. Firms like Taylor Wessing that innovate benefit. And LPOs benefit because in a diverse world of providers, we believe LPOs have the skills, experience, know-how, technology, and global platform to win a good share of the work to support lawyers.
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Ron Friedmann on June 7th, 2010 at 5:09 pm :
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The Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) market is relatively new and rapidly evolving, with a multitude of providers. Like many markets, it will probably consolidate over time, which means careful buyers will consider which providers are likely to be around for the long haul. This adds to the usual challenges of evaluating a crowded playing field, especially for buyers with relatively little LPO experience, but analyst reports that evaluate the market and buying process can help.
One such report is the recently-released “Sourcing Prism” report, Legal Service Outsourcing Edition, published by the ValueNotes Sourcing Practice (”VN”), which has been tracking the LPO market for several years. The report rates 41 LPOs and helps buyers understand key selection criteria. Integreon is pleased to be highly rated across all key criteria, ranking as 1 of just 3 “Pacesetters” identified.
This post summarizes the Sourcing Prism; readers who would like a complimentary copy can register for it here.
VN suggests that buyers consider three main criteria:
- Services Maturity, which consists of depth of service, provider experience, ‘position on the value chain’, and technology
- Sustainability, which consists of financial strength, brand, scale, and risk.
- Strategic Intent, which consists of clarity of vision, clarity of tactics, and demonstrated ability to execute.
Depending on their score on each of these, providers fall into one of three categories: Pacesetter, Contender, and Aspirant. The report uses two types of displays to visualize its ratings.
First, each vendor is scored on a “Sourcing Prism”, a triangular spider chart that shows its scores on each criterion. In this type of display (illustrated below), the vertices of the outer triangle represent the highest score for each criterion. Each vendor’s performance is represented by an inner triangle; the best-scoring vendors have the “biggest triangles”, that is, inner triangles coming closest to outer ones. An inner red, dashed triangle represents the industry average score. To illustrate, below a conceptual diagram alongside Integreon’s Prism:
Second, to facilitate comparison across vendors, VN also provides three “2×2 charts” that map all vendors against combinations of the criteria. As usual in a 2×2, the top-right position is most favorable. In all three charts, Integreon is in the top right quadrant with just two or three other LPOs.
Law firms and law departments considering using an LPO likely will find this report helpful. We encourage buyers who are considering LPO services to register to receive a free copy of the report.
Filed under Legal Outsourcing (LPO)
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Babs Deacon on June 3rd, 2010 at 10:14 am :
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Early Case Assessment (ECA) is the e-discovery solution most in demand, according to the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Report. In my blog post, E-Discovery Takeaways, I discussed the various methods clients are using to reduce the cost of handling e-discovery such as by in-sourcing and moving data to the cloud. Many corporations and law firms are also pinning their hopes on ECA. This hope, however, is often misplaced; effective ECA requires detailed process know-how and avoiding undue faith in a single application touted as an ECA panacea.
The report describes industry wide confusion between perceived and true functionality offered by ECA applications:
“ECA has been a hot topic for the past two years. We believe a major factor for this level of popularity is that it is being portrayed by many as a silver bullet for constraining runaway costs. A concise, generally accepted definition of ECA does not exist. Consequently, defining ECA depends on who you ask. Some purveyors of products are working at rebranding old tools as ECA adding to the confusion.” [emphasis added]
The survey results also indicate that “overselling” by software providers is one of the biggest problems in e-discovery related to ECA. Hand-in-hand with this problem is the need for ESI-specific lawyer education and mentoring.
From Silver Bullet to Gold Rush
Consumers of e-discovery services and software should take note of the Socha-Gelbmann report’s warning. It is always wise to be wary of applications that promise to “do it all”. Most applications do one or two things well and the rest poorly. Recently, it seems that developers slap “Now with ECA!” stickers on products that could potentially be used for ECA (often with an enormous amount of effort) but which don’t actually include any new functionality specifically designed for this purpose.
The confusion surrounding ECA recently prompted George Socha and Tom Gelbmann to author an article on the subject, Don’t Box ECA (Law Technology News, June 2010). They point out that, while ECA can intersect with the discovery process, it actually goes beyond it. For the purpose of this blog post though, I’ll focus on how ECA does apply to discovery.
The Truth about ECA
At Integreon, because we consult with organizations at every stage of the EDRM framework, we have been beating the ECA drum for a long time. There is no replacement for old-fashion know-how, preparation and organization. True ECA is a managed process where the litigation team creates and reviews data maps, conducts and reviews potential custodian interviews, and looks at sample data. There are tools that can make some of this process easier but nothing really replaces this litigation-research.
It is nice there are tools that help litigation teams get a whiff of the data without having to fully process significant numbers of PSTs (a common type of mailbox archive file) or restore stacks of backup tapes. Integreon uses tools such as Index Engines (i.e. Advanced Tape Discovery) and Clearwell (i.e. First Line Analysis), but these are only the tools deployed as part of a comprehensive, documented ECA process.
Simply put, discovery related ECA is all about scope. The goal of this “assessment” or “analysis” is to make an educated prediction as to how much data should be preserved, collected and processed; how much the full discovery effort might cost; and benefits and risks to the client in a variety of discovery scenarios. If the ECA effort is effective, the litigation team will be able to put a relative value on the litigation, prepare for the meet and confer or settlement conference, and correctly target its collection efforts to the truly, potentially responsive custodians and data stores.
Based on a review of interview memoranda and data maps, attorneys should also work with in-house specialists or outside consultants to analyze representative samples of data to understand and document data types, thread topics, participant interaction, timelines, etc. The team can run searches on this data to attempt to extrapolate the amount of information which may be potentially responsive and that will eventually need to be sent into review.
After this phase, which is aided by e-discovery applications but is certainly not a “magic” turn-key process, the team should be able to formulate an initial strategy. If formal discovery is called for, they should be able to make an informed decision as to what to collect. Helpful ECA should allow the team to collect less data overall, and produce more responsively.
Again, ECA is a human process. One hundred custodians dumped into an ECA tool will not miraculously percolate a case strategy, and could be an even bigger waste if the case might be won by collecting only twenty custodians. If the litigation team hasn’t done its homework, then no ECA tool in the world will be helpful. It will be like that All-in-One power tool that just collects dust in the basement, or that blender that is supposed to delicately crush ice but instead makes margarita soup.
Perhaps the persistent underlying distaste for e-discovery is part of the reason that some attorneys look for a magic ECA tool to make all their troubles go away. The Socha-Gelbmann survey had an interesting comment on this:
“As one survey participant put it, ‘electronic discovery is viewed as something you have to do, rather than something that is vital to learning about the case.’ Fortunately, some organizations understand this imperative and have been developing technologies and techniques to help electronic discovery practitioners craft and tell a persuasive tale.”
I reiterate that true early case assessment isn’t primarily about e-discovery. It’s about litigation tasks such as interviewing potential custodians and witnesses. I often hear attorneys complain that document review and production management “aren’t why I went to law school”, and yet I hear almost as often that many of these same attorneys don’t bother to draft or review interview memoranda. I have also experienced litigation teams that don’t even want to look at evidence until it’s been pared down by review and production.
Perhaps the mountain of electronically stored information (ESI) is so daunting that attorneys don’t think they can tackle it early in the process. I believe that litigators will not regain their confident management of the entire discovery process until they are extensively schooled in e-discovery management. The 2009 Socha-Gelbmann survey results do show that education is the weakest link in the e-discovery industry today.
A Need for ESI Professionals
If litigators are beginning to agree that e-discovery is really just part of discovery, then all litigators will have to have some level of comfort with e-discovery management — from Information Management at the far left of the EDRM framework through Presentation. No litigator, or even an attorney in another practice area, should be truly free from the responsibility of attaining basic competence in this area. However, this does not mean that the industry doesn’t need specialists. I may be a real home DIY-er but I still hire a plumber or electrician to do the professional work.
Effective participation in the management and processing of ESI requires a similar level of specialization. The Socha-Gelbmann survey respondents decried the lack of good project managers and litigators who are able to participate fully in cases that involve ESI.
“[M]any participants estimated that no more than 100 to 200 lawyers in the entire country [USA] really get electronic discovery.”
This is especially problematic for law firms and corporate legal departments that are seeking to recruit members to an e-discovery team or practice group. As mentioned previously, corporations are hiring full-time ESI and litigation support personnel. According to the survey, law firms are doing likewise:
“Law firms, for whom the move in‐house means taking on activities previously delegated to providers, hope to retain relevance. Increasingly they feel the need to replace [the] dwindling volume of large case review projects with new electronic discovery revenue streams.”
To meet the demand, new ESI professionals will need to be “created” by the e-discovery community. Early and on-going ESI education — in law schools, firms and corporate legal departments for attorneys, paralegals and litigation support professionals — should be a priority for 2010 and 2011. The curricula should include case law, technology, and project management training. A recent positive sign is that law schools are indeed beginning to offer classes in ESI; note Ralph Losey’s law school lectures available via his blog.
Industry organizations are also stepping in with certification and training programs. For example, the Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) and the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) are both offering online training courses.
However ESI program creation cannot be limited to education and mentoring. ESI competency needs to be a prerequisite for advancement. Conversely, don’t sideline ESI attorneys as “nerds” and push them off of the partner track — a fear I’ve heard articulated more than once from junior associates. Another issue is the time training can take away from reaching billable quotas. Associates should be rewarded for updating their skills, not penalized.
Fernando M. Pinguelo, Esq., of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A. told me, recently, that his e-discovery class at Seton Hall Law School is one of about a dozen or so such courses dedicated solely to e-discovery taught in US law schools. His class members maintain a blog, www.eLLblog.com, as part of their course work which seems like a great way for law students to encourage their peers to sharpen their skills.
If only 100-200 litigators in the USA “get it,” then more attorneys should be availing themselves of the services of a qualified ESI consultant. It is no sin to admit you’re not a techie; rather it’s a sign of foresight to bring in the right kind of technical assistance. Ralph Losey’s blog post from January 12th makes the case that hiring a consultant can in fact be a sign of competence, rather than weakness. Similarly, a recent report of recommendations for changing how e-discovery is handled in New York State Courts states that:
“Court rules should be amended to require that counsel appearing at the PC possess sufficient knowledge about client technology systems to competently discuss them with the court and opposing counsel; counsel may, as appropriate, associate themselves with and bring client representatives or outside experts with knowledge of the issues.”
Clearly, there is much credence to supporting e-discovery educational opportunities and bringing in ESI professionals in order to ensure that an efficient, accurate, and defensible process is conducted.
In the third and final post of this e-discovery blog series, I will next discuss another trend reported in the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann survey: Data Analytics.
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