The video below shows what it is like on a Friday afternoon in the Litigation Support Departments of most law firms in the U.S. and U.K.. That’s because most lawyers are still clueless about technology in general, much less the intricacies of electronic discovery work and ESI processing. There are some exceptions of course. A few firms have it all together and everyone gets it. They are called sole proprietorships. Then there are also some large law firms like mine where this does not occur. Why? What’s our secret you may wonder? We outsourced our whole litigation support to a top vendor. I’m sure you know who they are. Now as the partner in charge of our litigation support department, my Friday afternoons are relatively stress free. I just approve KO doing it, and they do it well. It is their problem, and their core competence.
I no longer have to supervise a litigation support department. Instead I manage a relationship with a vendor. It is much more pleasant, believe me. When not working on projects and serving clients, I focus my internal e-discovery firm management time on the training and education of my firm’s lawyers and paralegals. IMO this is the way it should be. Law firms should stick to their core competency, practicing law and teaching law, and should not try to run little vendor corps in their midst.
With a smoothly running outsourced deal my Friday afternoons are much nicer. I can now look at this video and laugh. My cringing at the same time has substantially diminished. The anguish and bitter ironies are almost all gone. I know that it is getting better every day, that real learning is happening, and, for me, these scenes have disappeared, well, at least they’ve moved to a better venue. To those of you still living the old dream, you have my sympathies and condolences. Know that there is a way out.
From reading your text and viewing the video, it seems to me that the problem is not solely that the lawyers are “clueless about technology in general” but that they are also inept at time management. Is there some reason that an attorney cannot pass on a request as soon as it is received instead of waiting three weeks? By waiting until the last minute, even with an outsourced legal tech department, you can still have the extra costs and stress of work being done outside of normal business hours. Sometimes I think we attorneys become so focused on what we need right now that we don’t remember to plan ahead.