October 2010

Yesterday, we talked about the skill sets and areas of expertise that are required to effectively handle an electronic discovery project.  Those skills and expertise are diverse and you won’t find everything you need in a single person.  You need to put together a team.  So, where do you find the right people for your team?    Most likely your team can be made up of individuals from these sources:

Law Firm Personnel

• Partners, associates and paralegals working on the case will have knowledge of the facts at issue and the strategy for using documents.  They will know what documents are responsive, privileged, significant, helpful and harmful.  They will also have knowledge of the litigation process and the rules of civil procedure.  Paralegals are also likely to have a very good handle on the document collection as the case moves forward.
• Law firm litigation/practice support and technical staff will have knowledge of the electronic discovery process, electronic discovery tools and electronic discovery service providers.  They also may have skills in collecting forensically sound data.  And, litigation support professionals will have project management skills.

Client Personnel

• Members of the corporate legal department will have knowledge of the issues in the case, the case strategy and goals, the documents, and the business operations and key characters at issue.
• Corporate IT and records management personnel will have knowledge of the computer systems in use at the client’s offices, knowledge of document retention, computer use, backup and disaster recovery policies and practices, and how and where documents are stored and accessed.
• Client personnel who are familiar with the business units, facts and events that are at issue in the case, and the relevant documents that are likely to exist.

External Resources

Depending on what tasks need to be done and on what computing resources /expertise you require, you may need to add electronic discovery consultants, service providers, and forensics experts to your team.  You may not need to involve them right away.  You might get the rest of the team in place and have the team determine what external resources are needed.  If, however, you are inexperienced with electronic discovery, involving a consultant early can be invaluable.

What do you think?  Who do you include on your electronic discovery teams?  Please share your comments and let us know if you’d like more information on a particular topic.

 

There are lots of tasks associated with a large electronic discovery project.  A number of skill sets and areas of expertise are required to do them all well.  It’s not likely that all of those skills and knowledge will reside in a single person.  You need to create the right electronic discovery team to ensure that there are no glitches.

Under a common case scenario that involves collecting electronic discovery, processing, analyzing/culling, review, and production, you should have all of these areas covered:

• Knowledge of electronic discovery:  Knowledge of the process, technology tools, and service providers.
• Technical knowledge and skills:  Skills in collecting forensically sound and defensible data and knowledge of your client’s technology systems and practices.
• Knowledge of your client’s document policies and practices:  Knowledge of document retention policies and practices and knowledge of what types of files exist and how and where they are stored and accessed.
• Knowledge of the facts at issue in the case, and the strategy for using documents in the case:  You need someone who can make decisions on what document content is responsive, privileged, significant, helpful, and harmful.
• Familiarity with the cast of characters and knowledge of who is likely to have documents and knowledge about what.
• Knowledge of the litigation process and the rules of civil procedure that apply to electronic discovery.
• Expertise in search technology, techniques and strategies.
• Project management skills and experience.

It is critical that a project manager is identified early on.  There are lots of steps in the process that will require continuous oversight and monitoring.  The project manager will be responsible for creating project plans, creating budgets and schedules, identifying required resources, ensuring that decisions are made by the right people, ensuring that deadlines are met, and so on.  On a case with a large electronic discovery collection and a short schedule, this is a full-time job.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what types of people are likely to have the right skill sets, and then we’ll move on to assembling the right team for a specific task that requires significant numbers of people.

What do you think?  Who do you include on your electronic discovery teams?  Please share your comments and let us know if you’d like more information on a particular topic.

Yesterday, we talked about why written procedures are important in eDiscovery and the types of procedures you should be writing.  Today I’m going to give you some tips for creating effective procedures.

First, let me say that writing procedures is easy.  In fact, it’s probably the easiest writing task you’ll ever do.  You don’t need to be creative.  You don’t need to develop an elegant writing style. In fact, the best procedures are simple and to the point.  All that’s required to write good procedures is knowledge of how to do the task and some guidelines.  Here are the guidelines:

• When possible break a task down into its subcomponents and draft procedures for each sub-component.  It’s likely that different parts of a task may be handled by different people and done at different times.  Each component, therefore, should have its own set of procedures.  For example, your procedures for collecting responsive data may have components for notifying custodians, interviewing custodians, copying the data, maintaining records, and preparing and transporting media.
• Use simple, clear language.  Keep sentences short and simple.  Use simple words.  If you are writing instructions to be used by attorneys, avoid using technical terms and acronyms with which they may not be familiar.
• Make the procedures detailed.  Assume your reader doesn’t know anything about the task.
• Make sure the steps are well organized and in the right order.
• Format the procedures so that they are easy to read.  Use bullets, numbered points, and outline formats.  It’s much easier to follow instructions that are clearly laid out in steps than it is to follow procedures written in paragraphs.  This, incidentally, makes it easier to write procedures.  You don’t need to worry about the flow of sentences or paragraphs.  You just really need to put together a set of clear bullet points.
• When possible, use illustrations:  If you are providing instructions for using a technology tool, include screenshots, and mark up those screen shots with annotations such as arrows and circles to emphasize the instructions.

It’s always a good idea to test your procedures before you apply them.  Ask someone who hasn’t done the task before to apply the procedures to a sample of the work.  Holes in the procedures will surface quickly.

So, what do you think?  Do you have any good tips for drafting procedures in eDiscovery?  Please share any comments you might have or tell us if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

 

Even for simple eDiscovery tasks, good written procedures are critical.  They will:

• Ensure that everyone doing the work understands the task.
• Cut down or eliminate inconsistencies in the work product.
• Cut down or eliminate the need for re-work.
• Foster efficiencies that will help prevent cost over-runs and missed deadlines.
• Eliminate time spent “reinventing the wheel” each time a task is done.

Written procedures are a good idea for all tasks, but they are especially important for work done by multiple people.  Often procedures are overlooked for simple tasks.  It’s easy to feel comfortable that everyone will do a simple task well.  The problem is that it’s very easy for two people to interpret a task differently.  When you have a large group of people working on a task – for example, a group doing a review of an electronic document collection – the potential for inconsistent work is enormous.

Let me give you some examples of the types of procedures you should be creating:

• Procedures for gathering potentially responsive documents from your client:  These procedures should include instructions for notifying custodians, for interviewing custodians, for the tools that are to be used, for the types of copies that are to be made, for the storage media to be used, for keeping records of the collection effort, and for delivering data for subsequent processing.
• Procedures for a document review:  These procedures should include clear, objective criteria for responsiveness and privilege, instructions for using the review tool, instructions for retrieving batches of documents to review, and instructions for resolving questions.

In a perfect world, you would have detailed, written procedures for all of the tasks that you do yourself, and for all of the tasks done by those who report to you.  Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t there yet.  If you don’t have a complete set of procedures yet, create them whenever a task is at hand.  Over time, you will build a library of procedures for the tasks that you handle.  Procedures are not hard to write.  Tomorrow I’ll give you some tips that will serve as a guideline for creating effective procedures.

So, what do you think?  Have you worked on eDiscovery projects where written procedures would have helped?  Please share any comments you might have or tell us if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.