Category Archives: Client Relations

Are you listening? In-house counsel lay it on the line about #eDiscovery #Risk and #Process – #GeorgetownEDI

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I’ve been outside counsel my whole career and the thing that impresses me the most about in-house counsel, from my seat in the ballpark, is that they have a job to do. So they’re mostly no B.S: they don’t have to convince you to buy what they’re selling. When an inside counsel says “you’re not warming my heart,” outside counsel had better perk up their ears and take good notes.

This year at the Georgetown Advanced eDiscovery Institute in-house counsel from some of the largest companies in the world in each of their respective sectors (finance, tech, retail, insurance) spoke on a panel about how they handle eDiscovery. The dominant themes were consistency, process control and risk management. Not all of them have set up a freestanding eDiscovery shop in their organization, but they have all built out a significant eDiscovery management capacity because that is the best way for them to arrive at a repeatable business process. They want to maximize efficient and consistent data identification, collection and processing, which often means having as few different players and transactions as possible.

The speakers described minimizing the number of service providers and identifying and selecting sophisticated service providers for repeat business. This decision-making applies specifically to outside counsel as well. An organization with a lot of high value litigation needs a discovery “beach master” on their case team to handle discovery who knows the organization and knows the legal strategy. What I found surprising was the in-house lawyer speaking was clearly still dealing with some firms who put a junior associate on electronic discovery because it is perceived as a low status task.

Another counsel spoke of conflicting risk mindsets between outside and inside counsel. Every inside counsel I’ve ever spoken to says “outside counsel are too risk averse.” Inside counsel manage risk just like any other business factor. They don’t want litigation counsel telling them they can’t take custodians off of hold because “something” might happen, particularly if outside counsel can’t offer a knowledgeable, risk based evaluation of why a particular group of custodians is on hold in the first place. Outside counsel as a profession are still doing a poor job of aligning themselves, logistically and economically, with in-house litigators.

The goal with centralizing in-house eDiscovery is to eliminate process “drift” and allow focused, incident specific response when and where it is actually needed. Putting together the right team and ediscovery strategy allows for a proportionate litigation response that works for the business. Outside counsel need to know that in-house counsel constantly have to do more with less. Again, what is most astonishing for me about these messages is that clearly these inside counsel were used to delivering them and probably saying variations recently, to actual outside law firms. How can it be that in-house counsel at a Fortune 100 country is still saying “there’s some good lawyers out there that just don’t understand the technology.” Of course there are, but how are they getting in those doors?

There’s a time and place for outside service providers – counsel, consultants, software and eDiscovery providers. When my clients need outside counsel, they really need them. And it’s nice to be loved, but anyone who’s been doing it for a fraction of the amount of time I have knows that you don’t just sit around waiting for the work to come to you. There’s a big part of being in any service profession that involves convincing people of your worth and your purpose in the world. With inside counsel people might not always be happy to talk to them (so they tell me), but there’s a reason they have a job. And “we” don’t get jobs if “they” don’t think we understand their values and incentives.

So here’s what I took home:

  • Don’t just listen passively, but anticipate what your client needs in terms of risk and cost.
  • “Your” litigation isn’t their only litigation. Litigation isn’t special, it happens all the time. Make it a repeatable business process, quantify the economic risk.
  • Understand the value proposition in eDiscovery. Cheap isn’t always the right price. Fair price for good quality is the goal.
  • For heaven’s sake, know the technology enough to be an intelligent consumer and advisor.

 

I’m a Litigator and I’m Here to Help

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The managing partner of one of my past firms once said, “I hate when litigators come around. It’s just so much bad feeling! Most of what I do is building things and creating things and making people happy. I love making people happy. But when you bring in a litigator, no one’s happy. It’s all fighting and destruction. I see them coming and want to run.'” He was a highly successful M&A lawyer and he was only partly joking.

At the time I was a mid-level associate and his words really rubbed me the wrong way. I loved my job and I loved my clients and was thinking “Why do you have to be hating on litigators! Maybe you shouldn’t screw stuff up so we don’t have to bail you out.” But as time went on, I got a better feel for what he was talking about. No one needs a litigator unless something bad is happening, or is pretty likely to happen soon. Litigation is expensive, it isn’t in anyone’s plan and unless you’re big enough to have constant or regular litigation, it throws everyone off their game and budget. So I tried to get in the habit of telling new clients, “I’m sorry you have to even deal with me. Just because I like my job doesn’t mean you like having me here, and we’re going to try to make this go away as painlessly as possible.”

This is a hard lesson to learn for a lot of litigators. Most litigators do it because they love it. Classic litigation has a gladiatorial adrenaline charge. Even if you’re not going to trial often (and most commercial litigators don’t), the jousting with opposing counsel on the phone, on paper and in hearings can be a lot of fun. At least that’s why a lot of litigators do it. They like the zip and thrill of it: the battle, the risk and the eventual triumph. But commercial litigation costs a lot of money, even if you can turn it into a rational business process (I think you can, but that’s the topic of another post). When I as the litigator get paid, that means someone’s paying me instead of using their money to do something they really wanted to do. I have to keep that in mind.

That’s the other thing I remember learning: the first time I heard someone say “clients aren’t in the business of litigation, they’re in the business of making stuff, or selling stuff or buying stuff.” That’s pretty basic, but it’s a hard thing for outside litigators to remember because we ARE in the business of litigation. It’s the stuff we “sell”. It really does help to say it out loud, to oneself and one’s clients.

So that’s the challenge. Being a litigator means your bedside manner has to be serious and conciliatory. Don’t be the oncologist waltzing in and saying “I looovve these tumors! Let’s do this thing!” Seriously, I’ve been doing this for a while and I’m still reminding myself. Because to be honest, I do kind of love it.