ILTA WHITE PAPER: JUNE 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG
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About the Author
Brian Stempel has been managing, growing and providing strategic leadership to
litigation support departments since 2002. While at Debevoise & Plimpton, he grew the
litigation support department from 12 to 30+ and expanded services into new areas
during a phase of exponential growth in e-discovery. As the current Director of Litigation
Technology at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Brian is responsible for overseeing a team of 45 people
across the litigation support and trial technology departments. Brian also sits on Kirkland's
eDiscovery Committee. Contact him at brian.stempel@kirkland.com.
A Socratic
Needs Analysis
"Know thyself."
— Socrates
Although the great philosopher was not a business consultant,
Socrates's succinct and proactive call to self-examine is at the core of
assembling the right people, process and technology to serve the litigation
and practice support needs within a law firm. For our purposes, it is the
corporate environment of a law firm that you must examine before moving
forward with implementing a business strategy. This is admittedly less
profound than Socrates's intentions but essential to any discussion of
strategic decision-making.
