Digital White Papers

67 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT How Ediscovery, Cybersecurity and Privacy Certifications Can Differentiate your Firm and Win Work as proof of the ability to apply learning and discipline to work. Law departments and law firms now want certified team members who can help them reduce their overall business risk. Individuals want certifications as these make them more aractive to current and potential employers. Arguably the area where certifications help most is discovery. Law departments exercise as much control as possible to minimize the discovery process. Discovery executed by certified professionals using a defensible, repeatable process designed to minimize costs while maximizing the return of relevant information is mission critical to staying within the litigation budget. Competence in many other applications helps, too. The ability to efficiently use even basic soware applications such as MS Word, MS Excel and PDF soware shortens completion times on low value work. Certifications in cybersecurity and privacy are important in identifying potential risks inherent in big data. Certifications can be important considerations for certain types of legal work because certified professionals typically make greater use of advanced features in applications, delivering more utility on those tasks. Research shows that the very presence of certified members on a team improves project productivity. Now is the time to seek certified professionals and encourage current staff to pursue certifications. Helping the Request for Proposal Process The request for proposal (RFP) and request for information processes help law departments make beer choices of its outside counsel and vendors through the question-and-answer process. RFPs have long been used by law departments in counsel selection, but the process has become hyper-competitive for law firms and allied professionals in the current "buyers' market." RFPs are a proven way for law departments to reduce risk in outside counsel selection and for law firms to get and keep key maer engagements. A big part of a law firm's beauty contest is providing evidence of competence with critical maer-specific certifications. Today firms must demonstrate some measure of learning in basic security for all law firm members that touch the client's data. Law departments in highly regulated industries require a deep dive into the firm's overall security and will oen demand the same be done for firm vendors who touch the client's data. Firms bidding on maers with large stores of data have an advantage with certified ediscovery and security specialists. Certifications in the soware that is expected to be used are also helpful. Maers involving data subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may need a privacy professional when GDPR compliance conflicts with U.S. state and federal regulations. The path to compliance or maer resolution will be more efficient when certified professionals are on the team. RFP questions have become more pointed because just about everyone in legal has a story to tell about a maer where costs escalated due to lack of subject maer expertise, especially in ediscovery. Most legal professionals also have experience with "great training" that no one remembers and "great soware" that no one uses, or at least uses well. Certifications are the way to verify learning and proficiency in those applications. Through organizations such as the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, legal operations professionals have collaborated to create great technology- Certifications can be important considerations for certain types of legal work because certified professionals typically make greater use of advanced features in applications, delivering more utility on those tasks.

• Cover