Digital White Papers

ILTA WHITE PAPER: JUNE 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 19 THE SERVICE PROVIDER POINT OF VIEW A service provider strives to understand the core business objectives of the law firm in order to recommend a solution that will ensure success. He reviews the firm's financial goals, historic data volume requirements, in- house personnel and their expertise, along with the firm's long-term goals for the litigation support department. While a firm might base its e-discovery technology decisions on any number of financial objectives — cost recovery, value add or the litigation support department as a profit center — the majority of clients just want to break even (cost recovery). Most firms, as was true with Jones Walker, want to provide exceptional services to clients as an investment in the relationships. If you're attempting to accomplish this, eliminating capital investments (which cannot be passed on to clients) could be a good fit for the firm. Though the nature of litigation makes it impossible to predict future discovery data volumes, a managed services provider works with clients to review their historic litigation profiles, industry litigation and other factors that might influence the number of cases and related data for which they will prepare. One advantage of managed services is the ability to upsize or downsize seamlessly as demands fluctuate. However, pricing is generally based on data volume tiers, so volume projections inform the initial agreement. Present and future staffing needs are the final evaluation categories. When the decision to shift from an in-house solution to managed services is driven by technology changes, a firm often lacks the in-house expertise to administer the new software. While some clients, as was true for Jones Walker, do not have those capabilities going into the partnership, self-administration is a common desire. The hosting provider can provide remote hands to THE VETTING PROCESS Here are some questions you should ask potential managed services providers during the vetting process: Infrastructure and Security What are the available infrastructure options? • Dedicated Physical • Dedicated Virtual, i.e., private cloud • Shared Physical • Shared Virtual Where are the data centers located? What security and redundancy certifications does the data center have? What disaster recovery options are available? What is the backup frequency? Can capacity across all services be temporarily increased? What are the SLA definitions and guarantees? • Uptime • Disaster Recovery • Throughput • Navigation Speeds Software What review and processing applications are supported/offered? Who owns the software licenses? What management tools are included? Services What services can be contracted? What personnel types can be contracted? Are customized workflows available to fit the firm's needs/culture? What application management and maintenance are offered? Pricing How is environment pricing determined? References Do you have referrals from industry software providers and customers? FITTING AN E-DISCOVERY SOLUTION TO MEET THE NEEDS OF A WORKFLOW: OUTSOURCED/MANAGED SERVICES

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