Ad Litem Consulting, Inc.

About Mark Lieb

To Attorneys and Paralegals

In most law firms, an argument between attorney and support staff will always end in favor of the attorney, and the dispute will probably not be mediated by the managing committee. The question is not how to win these disputes; it is how to get both the firm and the firm’s attorneys to delegate certain authority to Litigation Support, and then to support that delegation by providing enforcement of procedures.

Many people comment about how different from a corporation it is to work in a law firm, where the commodities being provided are billable hours, legal advice and filings. Despite this, a law firm is a business—and like any other business, a firm will take actions that make business sense.

This book enables one to build the case for resources, standards and firm-wide compliance. Several methods of institutionalizing the procedures recommended by this manual are as follows:

• Have the Accounting Department use cost codes to track all vended litigation technology goods and services, such as ediscovery processing;
• Bill clients as any vendor, attorney or paralegal would;
• Move all discovery vending through Litigation Support;
• Institute a Firm Standards document; and
• Understand case lifecycle.

Cost Codes ­

A cost code is how a company (law firm or any other) tracks where it spends money. Accounting keeps track of how much a company spends on every category of business, from supplies to legal research, in order to identify spending trends and other numbers necessary to usefully allocate financial resources.

With regards to Litigation Support, assigning cost codes to items such as discovery and litigation technology is a fundamental first step in tracking the contributions and value of a Litigation Support Department. By assigning cost codes and having the Accounting Department track these items, Litigation Support can:

• Spot cases where teams are vending discovery on their own;
• Determine future firm or departmental resource needs;
• Build a case for bringing types of work "in-house";
• Identify what types of litigation technology services are growing or shrinking;
• Argue for better rates with vendors; and
• Identify how much Litigation Support billable time is "written off."

If "electronic discovery" shares a cost code with "legal research", then management receives a skewed financial picture. This book has the Litigation Support Department work with the vendors to have them incorporate the appropriate cost code into their invoices. The Accounting Department would normally have to look up this code every time an invoice arrives. Incorporating cost codes saves the firm time and can help the vendor get paid more quickly.

More information about "cost codes" is available in the Cost Codes section of the text.

Billing

In a firm that does not bill Litigation Support's time, the point of cost coding is to get Litigation Support Department goods and services on the Accounting Department books. Don't be too disappointed if attorneys decide to "write off" the bill, because at the end of the month, quarter, or year, Accounting can present the total potential income to the firm—both the total billed and also the total written off. At that time, the firm will be able to see what kind of revenues the Litigation Support Department can generate. Then, presumably, partners will talk to the "write off" attorneys.

These accounting reports are the tools that your department can use to make the business case for additional staff. When a department member bills $150,000 a year (1,000 hours at $150 per hour), the decision and ability to add staff, supported by accounting reports, is much simpler.

Remember, if a vendor would bill for the work, Litigation Support should too. The question of rates is one for each firm and the marketplace to decide.

Centralize Vending

There are definite advantages to having one department handle the vending of all electronic and paper discovery; that department can get better rates and spend time finding the best vendors. Paralegals and attorneys do not have the time.

Further, when the Litigation Support Department administers all litigation technology for the firm, the Department can work directly with the vendor, explaining technical requirements.

The Litigation Support Department can also concentrate on project management. For large cases and "rolling" productions, the Department can provide weekly reports and make certain each attorney understands key issues along with budget and deadline updates.

The final advantage for the Litigation Support Department is that vendors deliver a higher quality product that matches internal technical needs. The attorneys and paralegals get quicker turnaround times coupled with lower bills from the vendor and Department.

Institute a Firm Standard

The greatest problems for Litigation Support today stem from technical details. Sample considerations include any firm preferences for file format, which metadata fields the vendor should capture, database field names and field order. These answers are not case specific. They are firm specific. The same answers should apply irrespective of client, matter or attorney. A document that outlines all the possible specifications will operate as a template, and when these specifications are not met, the Litigation Support Department must make appropriate adjustments. Often it is more expedient to correct the vendor delivery than to have the vendor attempt another potentially incorrect product. If Litigation Support bills this time to the client, the client is essentially "double-billed."

Through institution of a firm-wide standard, all incoming product will match the firm's technical standards, or "template." The Litigation Support Department can then pre-qualify vendors. Any vendor who can match the firm template is thereby qualified to perform that service for all firm cases. Litigation Support can point to the firm's technical standards when any vendor product does meet the firm specifications.

This template, Litigation Support Technical Standards, is available as a free download from the Ad Litem Consulting site, http://www.eDiscovery.org. It is also included at the end of this book.

Understand Case Lifecycle

Everyone must understand the litigation case lifecycle but for different reasons. The attorneys and the paralegals need to understand how to use technology at every phase of litigation to win the case. They must also understand how to use software options to strategic advantage. Through such means, a very large collection of materials may become much smaller. However, strategy must extend beyond the collection, review and production phases.

The Litigation Support Department and the legal team must understand technology will enable the team to identify useful documents, and use them as exhibits. As every case lifecycle is the same, so the technology and considerations are the same. Only the legal team cares about the document content. Consistent approaches to technology for all cases means a minimal learning curve for the legal team member and the Litigation Support industry professional.

Litigation Support professionals need to understand how the legal team uses the content of the database to win their case. If technicians understand the larger picture, they can perform a better job. When technicians understand how technology applies to the business for the entire case lifecycle, they can help the team.

About Mark Lieb

To Attorneys and Paralegals