Peer to Peer Magazine

74 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | FALL 2016 FEATURES Litigation Support Models for Law Firms Insourcing In the insourced model, the litigation support team works directly with aorneys and performs all operations ranging from litigation hold and collection, to processing and production, to trial preparation and courtroom presentation. The litigation support team is responsible for all operations supporting the litigation practice, except where data sets are too large to bring behind the firewall or expert advice is required that cannot be obtained in-house. In most cases, the firm is responsible for updating the soware and managing network security and cybersecurity associated with litigation support. Law firms that insource their litigation support services either prefer to maintain control of their personnel, security and/or work product, or they cannot find the right service provider for their needs. For some, it's a cultural fit; for others, litigation support is another revenue source. Whatever the reason, insourcing means the firm hires the people, integrates the soware and maintains the infrastructure to support the operations. There is a lot of overhead relative to outsourcing, but there are many gains in litigation support being part of the business operations and offerings of the firm. Hybrid In a hybrid model, the firm outsources part of the operations and maintains an in-house support team that services clients and acts as liaison to the external service providers. The in-house team manages the maer through the life cycle of the EDRM and allocates work to internal and external resources. A primary managed services provider usually covers the majority of the EDRM, with peripheral service providers managing areas not covered under the service level agreement (SLA) (e.g., forensic collections, paper scanning, trial support). Collectively, the in-house team and MSPs represent the litigation support operations of the firm and work hand-in-hand to provide service to clients. To achieve this model, in-house resources are usually established first. When it is time to bring managed service providers on board, firms typically go through the same veing process described in the outsourcing model. Law firms that choose the hybrid model enjoy the benefits of both internal and external teams. They rarely want a full-scale operation in-house but want a presence on the ground for aorneys. These firms prefer to use a managed services provider to provide data processing and storage in a hosted environment, coupled with project management and cybersecurity services. In addition, these firms rely on preferred vendors to provide collection and trial support that otherwise cannot be supplied in-house. The hybrid model is supported by the explosion of data in e-discovery and the move toward cloud-based storage. Client data are increasingly loaded to review platforms and hosted in secure data centers or in the cloud. It is rare that law firms will develop their own soware or purchase soware wholesale off the market and support it internally. Rather, they provide project management support to the internal team and partner with managed services providers for the infrastructure and soware. Which Model Is for You? Litigation support is entrenched in the practice of law, and today's law firms must have an effective litigation support plan in place. All three litigation support models have their pros and cons; it ultimately comes down to how much overhead the firm is looking to take on, the scale and scope of their litigation practice, and their ability to host and secure vast data sets. For many, the trend is toward managed services in either an outsourced or hybrid approach to litigation support. P2P There is a lot of overhead relative to outsourcing, but there are many gains in litigation support being a part of the business operations and offerings of the firm.

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