Ad Litem Consulting, Inc.

Traditional Business Hierarchy

Department and Firm Level Initiatives

From a risk management perspective, all law firms must be very careful when considering what goods and services to render. The question is not always one of ability and capacity: one must also consider which responsibilities and liabilities accompany those services.

As example, the client of one of the attorneys supported by your Litigation Support Department brings in a former employee's laptop. The client believes the former employee deleted key files. Bob, from the law firm’s IT department, retrieves deleted files. The technician's credentials should meet or exceed those required to meet the legal scrutiny by opposing counsel. Bob may have to take the stand and testify. Will he provide the other side with the opportunity they need to cast doubt over all resulting exhibits? Attorneys hesitate to buy goods and services on behalf of their clients unless they can justify the expense. There have already been cases, and I predict there will be more, where issues of this sort can result in rulings and sanctions against a firm and its client.

This is not to say that one should outsource all litigation industry goods and services. In reality, your Litigation Support Department should be able to perform basic technical duties—even if they refrain from doing so at particular points.

The need to perform basic technical work in-house is absolutely critical, because 30-minutes of in-house work is better than suffering through a 2 hour turnaround time from a vendor. Practically every time a CD arrives from a third party, there is some amount of technical work to perform. The CD may be missing a load file, or some Access database work may be required. Again, it is better to have that 30 minute in-house option when deadlines are tight and you don’t have time to send the product back to be re-done by the vendor.

The basic reality of this situation is that firms with Litigation Support people who can perform sophisticated technical duties in-house will be much better off strategically than firms whose Litigation Support people cannot perform average to intermediate technical duties. This disadvantage can—and sometimes does--lose cases. Again, the ability to perform a service internally does not mean the department should do so for all cases.

Assessing Your Department’s Abilities

If your Litigation Support Department cannot perform a service to the same standard as a vendor, it is wise to outsource it. Many technical people think, "If I can visualize the solution, I can undertake the task". This mindset disregards the fact that the need to complete the task successfully in a timely manner is the most important goal, and should support the good of the case.

Cases may last for years, moving from periods of high activity to long periods of dormancy. Litigation Support (or a vendor) can expect sudden technical requests with short turn-around times following these months of inactivity. For example, an attorney might call needing new CDs containing the results of various searches. If the database is complete with all appropriate images, fields, data and tags then such a request is simple to fulfill. If, however, the database is flawed or incomplete, Litigation Support may be unable to fulfill a request in a timely fashion. Bear this caution in mind as you decide what responsibilities Litigation Support should shoulder and providing it with the appropriate internal resources.

When the firm decides to offer a service, it must invest in the necessary resources to ensure successful support. As the Litigation Support Department can pay for itself and save clients money through the addition of a service, this opportunity has great appeal. A firm may be tempted to believe a minor investment will result in significant cost recovery for the firm and client. As the decision to bring a service in-house must be a business and legal decision, one must first address the state of the department.

One baseline for any Litigation Support Department is the division between project management and technical work. In both small firms with one Litigation Support professional and large firms with multiple professionals, a single person will fulfill both the project management role and technical role. The larger departments may divide the work for every case by the role, and subsequently responsibilities.

When a department decides to provide a new good or service to the firm, the initial consideration is who will actually perform these new duties and whether they have the time to do so without detriment to their other responsibilities.

Traditional Business Hierarchy

Department and Firm Level Initiatives