Digital White Papers

90 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT You Do What, Now? : Building a Method to Identify and Communicate Roles, Responsibilities and Solutions For Ediscovery Services Teams What Is a Load File and Why Are You Charging My Client? eDiscovery managers in a law firm constantly walk a line between value and cost. The function is essential in virtually all litigation, but there is still resistance when the charge hits the bill. Adam Rosenthal, litigation support manager at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP, oversees a complex team with multiple layers of personnel. He has specialists, project managers and even some paralegals. His team entered time for projects and tasks completed on behalf of the client but oen received pushback, and his internal and external clients seemed to ask the same questions every billing cycle. Because there was not a consistent process, he oen had to explain (and defend) the work of his team. Rosenthal solved this problem by creating a task-oriented billing matrix. His first step was to define the categories of work his team performed. He then created tasks associated with each category. Finally, he created a consistent description for each of these tasks so there was never a question as to why it was explained differently on previous bills. The matrix is a living document and iterative in nature, and took his team beyond just being organized. It allowed them to cra a crystal clear methodology of billing that increased realization and collections. Tools Maketh the Human "I was thinking somewhat about, you know, how do we effect change in the legal profession? And sometimes it's a carrot and sometimes it's a stick." — Browning Marean (The New Tonight Show, 2009) It oen falls to litigation support personnel to lead aorneys in the right direction to remain defensible and follow best practices; Browning Marean's statement reminds us that we can use many methods to effect change. One of the best ways we can influence the direction a maer takes is to recommend the proper tool for the job. Every day litigation support professionals are tasked with providing solutions and resources that go beyond the team and technology resources available for a project. This can range from "what's free" inquiries (answer: nothing is free) wanting to know what the organization already has in place without external invoicing, to "what's possible" inquiries trying to find the best fit and maximizing the best bang for the buck with large projects that may require outsourced resources. It is imperative to provide relevant and useful tools in the most direct way, or at least effective workarounds when the best tools are unavailable due to budgets, timing or functionality limitations. Indeed, there are many tools for many types of projects, and the projects litigation support handle can vary widely among organizations. Below are just some of the tools widely used in litigation support departments, prefaced by a few questions that may help guide your quest. These are not complete lists of all tools available for any given task but rather some solid go-to applications for analysis, work product and even workarounds when needed. We are not endorsing any specific application, just providing options – each tool of interest listed may or may not be available in-house for use so it is important to check available resources first. ERIC PULSIPHER Eric Pulsipher, MBA, CEDS, is a Project Manager at Baker Hostetler LLP. Eric has 15+ years of experience in legal IT, enjoys serving on ILTA's Content Coordinating Team for Practice & Litigation Support as well as ILTA's LegalSEC Summit 2018 Team, previously served on ILTA's Peer Support Team, and was ILTACON's 2016 Browning Marean Scholarship Recipient (US). He has a passion for all-things-data in eDiscovery projects, data management/security/privacy compliance, emerging technologies, and overall collaboration with his teams.

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