Digital White Papers

LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT 49 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Ediscovery Managed Services How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Ediscovery Managed Services by David B. Siarny of Vedder Price P.C. The managed services model within ediscovery and litigation support has matured in the last few years, and I hope I have as well. When my firm contemplated an upgrade or migration from a legacy desktop application several years ago I initially resisted the idea of giving another organization access to our clients' data. My perspective has evolved, and, as we enter a third year with managed services, I am reminded of how much I have learned and grown professionally while working within this model. The World As I Knew It Much of my career in ediscovery and litigation support has been spent working with thick client, on-premises soware. Aer the first half- dozen years, I was convinced I knew how the niche would always be run: client data would be in the hands and servers of the law firms that worked for their immediate clients' benefit. I knew the soware inside and out and could plan, prepare and efficiently implement appropriate quality control (QC) steps along the way. I felt in control. Up to this point, I had mixed experiences with a few exceptionally large maers that necessitated transactional service providers. Although the work got done, and on a scale I could not readily provide, I had so lile control or insight into what was going on that I would grind my teeth night and day. I implemented what planning and QC I could and made sure deliverables le my hands without blemish. In the mid-2000s, I began to see articles, panel discussions and presentations about the cloud. I had heard for years that the cloud would change ediscovery forever, but, other than a handful of application service provider (ASP) engagements, I had lile contact with the cloud and did not fully understand what operational benefits

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