Peer to Peer Magazine

best practices Non-Practicing JDs Turn to E-Discovery by Jared Coseglia of TRU Staffing Over the last 10 years, the intersection of technology and the practice of law has created an entirely new industry and identity for attorneys. Work habits, skill sets and knowledge bases intrinsic to law school graduates are highly applicable and desirable to hiring managers developing human capital resources related to legal technology. Juris Doctors moving more aggressively into non-practicing support staff roles at major law firms and service providers was an undeniable trend in 2012, and this trend will continue. Over the next five years, these nonpracticing attorneys will compete for the same roles that existing legal IT, paralegal and litigation support professionals occupy or aspire to grow into. As a result, clearly defined alternative career paths into e-discovery have evolved for the non-practicing JD. E-Discovery Project Managers J. William Speros, a practicing attorney who consults and testifies about evidence management, believes, "Increasingly, law firm employees, particularly attorneys, who understand e-discovery processing, hosting and production are prepared to develop a more interesting and valued career serving as project managers working with internal attorney clients, their corporate clients and outside vendors." 20 Peer to Peer James Bekier, National Litigation Support Services Manager for BakerHostetler, has hired several non-practicing attorneys and is an attorney himself. He comments, "We have truly fantastic coordinators on our team — some with JDs, some without." Bekier is an example of a project manager (PM) who was promoted organically into a management position by his current employer. He continues, "I started my career as a practicing attorney at a boutique law firm. I moved to a service provider as a project manager, to a major law firm as a senior litigation support analyst and finally landed at Baker as a PM before moving into the manager role. This path gave me well-rounded exposure to all elements involved in developing and managing a litigation support department." Document review experience alone is not enough to take on an e-discovery project management role. Speros makes a compelling point: "E-discovery project management requires deeper knowledge, more extensive experience and more imaginative and nuanced approaches than reviewing documents or even managing litigation support databases." He continues, "Attorneys seeking to grow into e-discovery project management from document reviewrelated roles cannot simply rebrand themselves. Those attorneys need to retool themselves. That is because litigation support databases are relatively static, small, simple, single-dimensional

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