Digital White Papers

69 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT How Ediscovery, Cybersecurity and Privacy Certifications Can Differentiate your Firm and Win Work » Detail how you determine whether training was actually effective and trainees came away from the training possessing the subject skills. (p. 42) Responses to questions such as these are more easily supported when a reputable, independent organization has verified through a testing process that the applicant has the requisite knowledge to achieve the level of competency to be awarded a certification. Finally, firms would do well to have initiatives in place which support another ACC suggestion for RFPs: "Include any additional information that you consider important/useful for client to have in order to understand how technology training is integrated into firm's delivery of legal services to client." (p.42) Firm-wide initiatives that integrate certified professionals into the practice help ensure that the firm has the necessary experiences to respond to these directives with meaningful information. Certifications as Part of a Firm-Wide Initiative: KYL's CCM Process To ensure litigation maers are appropriately staffed, Keesal, Young & Logan (KYL) requires every maer that potentially involves significant volumes of electronically stored information to be automatically assigned a certified ediscovery specialist (CEDS) with a certification from the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists. KYL's ediscovery pros also maintain soware-specific certifications to support the ediscovery practice. At KYL, all litigation maers have formal CEDS consultation meetings (CCMs) at the outset, during which a CEDS professional consults with the lead aorney concerning client-specific protocols, jurisdictional considerations and best practices on ediscovery. If the maer is not expected to have significant electronically stored information volumes but that later changes, the CEDS professional is brought in again for consultation and support. The professionals who achieve and maintain ediscovery-specific certifications and implement and refine the CCM process itself have become integral to KYL's client service delivery model. The CCM process is oen described in KYL's responses to RFPs. Staff and Company Both Benefit According to International Data Corporation's 2015 white paper titled, "The Business Value of IT Certification," "the average tenure for certified staff members is about 15% longer." Soware-specific certifications also mean these team members can add billable hours immediately. In back office functions, certified security staff bring confidence and immediate efficiency for both law firms and law departments.

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