To quote the famous Spice Girls lyric, “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.” But what does a 1996 pop hit have to do with e-discovery? When it comes to a document review project, what you really, really want is a dedicated e-discovery lawyer. Dennis Kiker presents a compelling argument for this conclusion in his March 13th article entitled, “I Want an E-Discovery Lawyer for my E-Discovery Project.”
Although many attorneys have at least a passing knowledge of e-discovery, few have the experience that affords them intimate working knowledge of the unique processes and practices it entails. E-discovery in an inherently interdisciplinary field, derived from the disciplines of law and information technology in equal measure. During the course of a major e-discovery project, an attorney may manage a team consisting of paralegals, IT professionals, and third party vendors, the efforts of which must be coordinated to deliver decisions on the relevancy, confidentiality, and privilege of thousands (or even millions) of documents.
As Mr. Kiker notes, lawyers who specialize in e-discovery have to be more than just an attorney; they must also serve as project managers, technologists, and client service leads. These super specialized attorneys are the ones that can best accommodate the increasing prevalence and necessity of e-discovery in today’s legal profession.
[...] it may seem intimidating or outside the scope of the attorney’s responsibilities, a little bit of education goes a long way towards improving the review [...]
[...] that practice, contributing their technical expertise as needed. However, this paradigm is changing, and now lawyers are taking on more project manager type roles in the e-discovery process that [...]