[Webcast Transcript] Setting Your Sails in eDiscovery: Industry Pros’ Tips for Career Advancement

HaystackID Blog | July 2, 2024

Editor’s Note: Read the latest transcript from HaystackID’s June webcast on career advancement in eDiscovery. From accidental discoveries to strategic pivots, readers will learn how panelists Stephanie Clerkin, Salomon Lewis, Anya Korolyov, Vazantha Meyers, and Adam Rubinger carved out successful careers. Moderated by HaystackID’s Mary Bennett, the panelists start the conversation by sharing what they learned from their first job, from being a door-to-door Kirby vacuum salesperson to waking up at 3 a.m. for a paper route. They share advice for industry professionals looking to make a change or newcomers seeking to make a name for themselves in this industry. As panelist Adam Rubinger said during the webcast, “eDiscovery is complex and full of problems, and it doesn’t go perfectly every time. When you can have that calm demeanor, a good healthy perspective on things, and an understanding of the people involved, it will lead you in the right direction to hopefully have a good experience in business.” Throughout the presentation, the experts share tangible networking tips and how industry professionals can start using AI tools to remain competitive.

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Expert Panelists

+ Stephanie Clerkin
Director of Litigation Support, Korein Tillery

+ Salomon Louis
eDiscovery Program Owner, MassMutual

+ Anya Korolyov
Vice President, Cyber Incident Response and Advanced Technologies Group, HaystackID

+ Vazantha Meyers, Esq.
Vice President of Discovery Services, HaystackID

+ Adam J. Rubinger, JD
Chief Client Experience Officer, HaystackID

+ Mary Bennett (Moderator)
Director of Content Marketing, HaystackID

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By HaystackID Staff

Transcript

Moderator
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar. We have a great session lined up for you today. Before we get started, there are just a few general housekeeping points to cover. First and foremost, please use the online question tool to post any questions that you have, and we’ll share them with our speakers. Second, if you experience any technical difficulties today, please use the same question tool, and a member of our admin team will be on hand to support you. Finally, please note that this session is being recorded, and we’ll be sharing a copy of the recording with you via email in the coming days. So, without further ado, I’d like to hand it over to our speakers to get us started.

Mary Bennett
Thank you so much, Mouna. Hi everyone. Hope you’re doing well. My name is Mary Bennett. I will be your expert moderator today and lead presenter for another HaystackID webcast, “Setting Your Sails in eDiscovery: Industry Pros’ Tips for Career Advancement.” As you all know, this webcast is part of our ongoing educational series to help you stay ahead of the curve to achieve your cybersecurity, information governance, and eDiscovery objectives. As Mouna kindly shared, we will record today’s webcast so you can view it on demand. We will send a recording and presentation in time to follow this presentation.

I’m excited for today’s presentation. We have true industry experts here. If you have any questions or would like to share your own experience throughout the presentation, please use the Q&A feature. We’ll monitor that throughout, and I will field those to our panelists. To kick it off today, Stephanie, I will go over it with you if you want to share a little bit about yourself, your background, and why you’re excited about today’s presentation.

Stephanie Clerkin
Thanks, Mary. I’m looking forward to our discussion today. I’m Stephanie Clerkin, the Director of Litigation Support at Korein Tillery on the plaintiff’s side. I’m based in St. Louis, but we also have Chicago and San Diego offices. I started my career after college in finance, accounting, and consulting, and like everybody else, I accidentally fell into eDiscovery, which we’ll get into more later.

Mary Bennett
Awesome, thank you, Stephanie. Salomon, why don’t we kick it over to you, my friend?

Salomon Lewis
Hi, good afternoon everyone, or good morning depending on where you are. My name is Salomon Lewis. I have been in the eDiscovery industry now for about seven years. I work at a financial services company named MassMutual and lead the eDiscovery program within our governance organization. So, being on the corporate side in a financial services firm, we partner closely with not only the law business area but also our compliance partners, HR, and internal investigators. So, over the years, similar to what Stephanie just said there at the end, I happened to fall into eDiscovery while I was in my last year of law school. From there, I was fortunate enough to get a job at the company I’m at now, and I had a blast just going through that journey. So, I am very excited to have this conversation with my panelists today. Thank you.

Mary Bennett
Thank you so much. And Anya, with her wonderful book collection behind her, why don’t we go to you?

Anya Korolyov
Hi everyone, I’m Anya Korolyov. I am Vice President of Cyber Incident Response and Advanced Technology Solutions at HaystackID. I’m an attorney, and I’m a Relativity Master. My background originally is actually software engineering, and then I ended up in law school and fell into eDiscovery actually via my language skills more than my legal background. I ended up staying and have done pretty much everything in eDiscovery from manage review to project management, working on second request antitrust investigations, and then ended up about three years ago in the cyber world and have since started a division at HaystackID that primarily deals with cyber incident response matters. I am very excited about this conversation because I have seen my career take a lot of turns. I think this industry is great for that.

Mary Bennett
I’m definitely excited to dive into that as well. I think many of us have had windy paths here, so thank you very much, Anya. And then V, why don’t we go to you, please, if Mouna you’d advance the screen?

Vazantha Meyers
Hi, everyone. Good morning or good afternoon, wherever you are. My name is Vazantha Meyers. Everyone calls me V in my family and this industry, so feel free [to do so too]. I came to eDiscovery through big law. I started as a litigation associate and worked in the eDiscovery and records management group at a big law firm before moving over to the vendor side. I primarily work with corporate consulting, but I also come from a managed-review background in operations. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve managed a lot of people, and I hope that my experiences will benefit someone today. And so I’m happy to talk about career paths, including those I have been on.

Mary Bennett
Thank you, V. And last but surely not least, Adam, why don’t you round us out here?

Adam Rubinger
All right, thanks, and good day to everyone. I’m Adam Rubinger, the Chief Client Experience Officer at HaystackID. I’ve been in the eDiscovery/lit support services for nearly 28 years. After graduating from law school, I started a scan and code company because, at that time, lit support services were really paper-based. I’ve had the unique opportunity to spend my career watching and assisting in creating this eDiscovery practice and have watched a lot of different changes throughout the industry. And I’ve really worked on all sides of the business, from corporate to software providers to service providers. I have a unique experience in really not only watching this industry grow but being a part of it in all aspects. I’ve got a good sort of healthy perspective on what has happened and what’s coming, and I definitely have my opinions on where we’re going.

Mary Bennett
I am excited to hear those opinions today. And then, as I said before, friends, I am Mary Bennett. I am the Director of Content Marketing at HaystackID. I have about a decade’s worth of content marketing and storytelling experience, so that’s why I’m very passionate about today’s presentation. You’ll hear stories from just all-star panelists from different backgrounds, but we’ve all found ourselves in this industry. So, really looking forward to today’s conversation. I want to thank our panelists for sharing their time and expertise and some fun photos about their first jobs or early in their careers. If Mouna, you’d go to the next slide, please. Here are some of the photos from each of our panelists. So, why don’t we start with you, Stephanie, in the top left? Why don’t you tell us what one of your first roles was and what you learned from that that helped you navigate your own career?

Stephanie Clerkin
Yes, and that photo is from my 30th birthday at the office here. They put my stapler in Jell-O, and I almost cried tears of joy being a fan of “The Office.”

Mary Bennett
That’s a great joke.

Stephanie Clerkin
For what I call my first real job, where I had a W-2 and had to pay taxes when I was 16, I worked at a Halloween store called Johnnie Brock’s here in St. Louis. These are the days before Amazon sold costumes and before Spirit Halloween took over every single vacant building that exists. It was in October, and it was probably the busiest retail store in St. Louis. From ages 16 to 20, I worked there and eventually became a manager when I was 17. Two things I learned very quickly were time management and staying calm. I would go to school until 2:27 p.m., be at my job at 2:35 p.m., and be there until nine or 10 during the off-season or until midnight or 1:00 a.m. during the Halloween season. And I’d get up and do it again. At one point, I worked 30 days straight as a high school student because I was paying car insurance, car payments, and cell phone bills at a very early age. There’s no other way I could have graduated if it wasn’t for my time management skills there. When you work in retail, you deal with the public, and the general population isn’t always the nicest. So, very quickly, I learned how to handle people yelling at you about things that are not even in your control. At one point, I was hiring and firing people that were triple my age. As a 17-year-old, we hired temporary employees that might’ve been in their 50s. And as a small female, I was a really easy target. And it gave me the backbone that I’ve needed in this industry, and it’s also forced me to be more extroverted. Believe it or not, I was a shy kid up until around that time. And I learned you could either make work fun or not, and I chose fun and would dress up and wear costumes. To this day, many of those soft skills learned are a foundation of how I even work today, managing others and managing projects. So, a fun start to a career I didn’t know existed in eDiscovery as a 17-year-old.

Mary Bennett
And you said 2:27. When did you start your job?

Stephanie Clerkin
2:35. Those were the exact times I would get there. And I did homework on breaks. I will add that, as a humble brag, I graduated with a 4.5 GPA, so I was able to do it. I was able to do it all.

Adam Rubinger
Nice.

Mary Bennett
That’s awesome and crazy how you remember the exact time. 

Stephanie Clerkin
It comes in handy with these weird details because I already do that with Bates numbers now. I just remember weird numbers, so that’s a benefit.

Mary Bennett
Salomon, it looks like you’re enjoying a tasty treat in your photo if you want to tell us about that.

Salomon Lewis
We were celebrating someone else’s birthday at this time, so it was not my own. I was greedy, so I definitely partook in the cake. And at this moment in time, I remember my teammate; he was like, “Well, how’s the cake, Salomon?” And making that sound effective in that moment. That’s when they caught that little candy shot there. And then this was probably my second or third year working at where I’m at now at MassMutual. But in terms of my first job, unlike Stephanie, I knew I could not do it all. So, I knew who I was as a person. I could not go into the typical nine-to-five part-time or anything. My first job was a work-study while I was an undergrad, so I did typical office administration tasks and worked with professors. It was pretty cool at that time to do some research assistant type of work. What I will say from what carried on from there is the soft skills. So, working as a work-study and interacting with different professors, you deal with different personality types. It is similar to my role now, where, depending on the businesses, we interact with different personalities and objectives. [It’s about] quickly processing the information you’re being given to understand the objectives and then figuring out problem-solving to identify a path forward. Those skills that I learned and developed while I was an undergrad definitely have translated and are some of the same things that I’m doing now in my role, especially now that I’m working more on strategy as the program owner. I have to meet with these different businesses and, again, understand their objectives, long-term strategies, and how my team and I can best support them. In addition to that, I would say that time management was something that I quickly had to learn. Even in that role as a work-study, I like to be engaged and varied. My curiosity, at times, can take me in different directions. And so understanding, “Okay, these are the types of things that need to be prioritized to accomplish the tasks in front of me.” Those were some of the things that I learned in my first job.

Mary Bennett
Thank you, Salomon. And Anya, that really beautiful artistic photo.

Anya Korolyov
Yeah, I had to really search high and low for that because at that time, there were no phones with cameras, and taking a photo was a really big deal, so I didn’t have that many. But this is around the time of my first job, probably a little later. My first job was actually, I’m going to beat Stephanie here. I was 14, and I just immigrated to the United States a year before. That job was a little more of a necessity than I would have wanted. But it was a job at Walgreens. Some of the lessons I learned very quickly, similar to Stephanie’s, there are all kinds of people around, and you have to work with all of them. And then the customer is almost always right. And that’s a mentality that I have carried throughout my life. Then I thought about it, Mary, after you asked us this question. One of my tasks on the evenings that I worked was at the end when the store was closed; we had to go through all the shelves and face all the products so they lined up perfectly. That was my least-liked task to do. I had a manager who was really big on it, and he always found little imperfections. But come to think of it, creating a front-facing perfection in my work has stayed with me until this day. I will always open something, a report, or something, take a look, and fix little things just so that they look better and are presented a little bit better. It also plays a role in how you present yourself, the emails you send, and everything you put out there. At least it looks great; I think it is a major kind of part of what we all do.

Mary Bennett
Exactly. As a writer, I don’t remember the stat exactly, but it’s how much credibility you can lose from a simple typo or something. We all make typos, but the power is in the details, so I think that’s a great point. I have another fun photo for you: V from the Summer of 2003.

Vazantha Meyers
That wasn’t my first job, but it led me here. My first job was as a door-to-door Kirby vacuum salesperson at 15 or 16. So, at 16, my mother bought me my first car and said, “It’s on you. I’ve gone this far; you have to support this car and your journey in the streets.” And so I had to earn some money on my own, which requires you to go into a lot of strange homes and meet people you don’t know what you’ll get when you open the door. As Stephanie and Anya have pointed out, maintaining your own personality and integrity requires a certain skill set. No matter who you meet, you’re meeting the people where they are. So, it requires you to be able to lead that sort of introduction and those conversations of I’m just meeting you for the first time. I don’t know what I’m going to get when they open the door, but I have to be prepared to be delightful as a salesperson, effective as a business person. It was at 16 that I realized that I didn’t want to do that anymore. So, it led me straight until I finished school and went to law school so I wouldn’t have to go door to door. But I did take those skills. You have to be brave and confident, and you really have to meet people where they are, especially since you’re trying to convince them to do something for you. Every time you do that, you should also think about how you can benefit someone else in that same exchange. Those are skills that I’ve learned and picked up and honed over the years. I’m definitely better at selling anything than I was for those vacuum cleaners. I might have sold one, y’all.

Mary Bennett
As for vacuum cleaners, as someone who got one recently, they’re not cheap.

Vazantha Meyers
And they weren’t. They were like $1,500 for a vacuum cleaner.

Mary Bennett
Awesome, thank you. And then, Adam, why don’t we go to you, please?

Adam Rubinger
Thanks, Mary. This photo was taken the year I graduated from law school. My first job was actually when I was 13, and I had what is no longer a job. I had a paper route. I would wake up at three in the morning, get on my bike with a bundle of papers, ride around the neighborhood, and throw papers at people’s doors. I did that for a couple of years, which was an awful job. It taught you how to wake up early and that you needed to go to bed early if you didn’t want to be slogging through the day. My first real job actually was after I graduated from law school. I worked throughout college and law school, working at restaurants and things like that. But my first real job was when I started a business; I started a scan and code business, and I talked about that in my introduction. But I’ll tell you about starting your own business, and I recommend starting your own business to anyone who can do it. It teaches you more about everything in business, from revenue and sales to accounting to operations; whatever business you decide to start, I highly recommend it to people with that opportunity. It teaches you about people and that if you have the level of success where you’re hiring employees and managing people, paying rent, and doing all of those things, it’s the best experience you can possibly have for a job. And I ran that business for four years before selling it. That business, being the litigation support business, led me into the eDiscovery business. The one thing I will say is that working with people is something that I absolutely love doing. It’s the best part of my job. Learning how to deal with different personalities is a skill everyone can use and needs because you’re going to work with all sorts of different kinds of people in all types of walks of life. Being a calming voice is something I’ve always tried to project, especially in the face of, and I’m going to say something crazy here: eDiscovery is complex and full of problems, and it doesn’t go perfectly every time. When you can have that calm demeanor, a good healthy perspective on things, and an understanding of the people involved, it will lead you in the right direction to hopefully have a good experience in business.

Mary Bennett
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. eDiscovery is complex.

Adam Rubinger
Yeah, I know. Maybe it’s just me.

Mary Bennett
That’s a great point, being calm. For my first job, I was a hostess at 15 and was not up at 3 a.m., but I had to be at my job at 6 a.m. That was quite early, and people were there ready for food, so I had to learn how to be present. That led me to my first job in the corporate world. I was a B2B healthcare reporter. I had no medical background but was interviewing spine surgeons from Mayo and healthcare administrators from Kaiser and leading health systems about very dense topics. So, I had to learn how to overcome, like Stephanie said, some imposter syndrome. I was a 22-year-old interviewing these true experts in healthcare about fusion surgery and bundled payments. I had to learn to stand on my own, and I also had to learn the value of listening. That’s really helped me be present throughout my career. We all have deadlines to do. There’s so much technology that it’s easy to shift gears, but it’s allowed me to focus on the task at hand. And I think my output is stronger, and I enjoy my work more when I’m more present. That’s what I learned from my first job. All right, and from there, I want to thank everyone again for the photos. Mouna, you can stop sharing, and then we’ll dive right in. In some of the intros, we discussed how many of us have had different ebbs and flows in our careers. We’re increasingly seeing an intersection of all these disciplines, from data privacy to information governance and cyber data discovery. So, Adam, what are your thoughts on how all these paths intersect and what this means for somebody trying to navigate their careers? How do you see careers or jobs changing as these intersect, if at all?

Adam Rubinger
We are seeing some intersections of different data management disciplines, which really cross over between eDiscovery, cyber, information governance, compliance, and privacy. The anchor component to this is data and people. We’re concerned about PII, PHI, breaches, and data getting out. We’re concerned about all the data that’s part of eDiscovery and information governance, and the explosion of data is getting insane these days. The amount of data that we create every day is continuing to grow. And I’ve seen plenty of presentations about that, that it will continue to grow and grow and grow. And being able to deal with it in all of these disciplines, I think, is super important. As people try to navigate into this space, they have to have a healthy understanding of technology. They have to have a healthy understanding of policy, be it law, legal policy, public policy, or just different disciplines of managing all of this information because information is at the center of it. If people want to start a career in eDiscovery, I would say a couple of things. One is to get familiar with the technology, process, and workflow. All of those things are super important. And second, and we’ll talk about this later, AI. And we’ll talk a lot about that. That component will intersect in every single one of the jobs and disciplines we’ve discussed.

Mary Bennett
Thank you, Adam. Stephanie, any thoughts on this in the intersection of the disciplines?

Stephanie Clerkin
Yeah, I definitely find myself having to learn more about each of these areas to do my role. The biggest piece of advice I have is to know when to turn to help for help. If I’m going to have anything cybersecurity-related, well, that’s not me. I’m going to talk to someone in Anya’s role. If it’s forensic collection, I’m outsourcing that to the experts because I’m not in the weeds enough to know what I might be doing wrong. The key point is that you don’t have to know it all, but you need to know enough to know when to turn to others who may know it all.

Mary Bennett
That’s a great point, as there’s so much in each of these niches that, to add to what Adam said, you must understand all of this. But again, because it’s so dense and often high stakes, you don’t want to just rely on yourself. Rely on experts and know the questions to ask, which is why you need that general understanding.

Stephanie Clerkin
Know how workflows are impacted, even if you don’t know the ins and outs. Knowing that piece is a huge foundational baseline people need.

Mary Bennett
Great. Salomon, Anya, V, any thoughts?

Anya Korolyov
I do want to say I am backing both Adam and Stephanie up. I was trying to think back, and I don’t remember taking any class in law school that told me, “You are walking into a legal career, and that means you’re going to deal with 90% data and 10% law roughly.” Nobody ever said that. It was all law. “You’re just going to analyze and write memos, and you’ll be a legal eagle.” However, there was never any mention of the amount of data one would have to weed through to reach any conclusions. We have a lot of people coming out of law schools and walking into a legal field without a very basic understanding of what data is, how to talk about data, and who to even ask for help. They’re also thinking that they can learn something. So, my comment would be to get a better understanding of the basic data you’re dealing with. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you don’t know what is being said or discussed. Don’t be afraid to go to somebody who knows something better and ask questions to get a better understanding. Every day, I learn something new, still to this day. Every day, I see some piece of data that I’ve never seen before. When it comes to how to deal with it and what to do with it, it is ever-evolving and will not stop.

Mary Bennett
We did have a question come through in the chat. I’m going to read it verbatim, and this is open to anyone on the panel. “Do you think law firms and corporate legal departments will be ready to train all of their great staff and attorneys to do anything and everything technological? Since many of us are in our mid-50s or early 50s with about 10 to 15 years more years of work, we are parents, clubs, and activities. We aren’t necessarily able to go back to school to take tests.” For context, this person is a litigation paralegal with more than 30 years of experience in big law. They love eDiscovery, and they want to do more. The [education is] not always there for them when they want to learn those skill sets.

Vazantha Meyers
I’ll take this question because I think that there’s an important answer here. Some of us came into this industry without having opportunities to learn any of the stuff that we’re doing right now out of law school. A lot of it was we learned on the job, and we learned through our relationships in different organizations. We learned through self-teaching, and we had to go out there and get that information. We’ve talked to some law firms throughout some of our AI development, and [they know that] technology is becoming at the forefront of what you have to understand. A lot of law firms are taking that on and offering opportunities for their employees to get some of that technical knowledge. But I will say the same way we all had to go through it: you will have to go out there and seek information. There’s such an intersection as we’ve talked about now; there’s so much technology and so many different skill sets that play out in terms of how we navigate legal data management. That’s changing every day, as Anya pointed out. And so even for those who have been in the industry for a while, and I have been here for about 20 years, we have to go out and seek information constantly. To answer your question, no law firm will be able to teach you everything you need to know about all the things you need to know. However, I think that information is out there and more accessible than it was. And you’re going to have to go out there and seek it. Even as technologically advanced as we are and HaystackID, and we have so many people who are experts, we are all seeking more information because things change and evolve. So, yes and no. So yes, but I think you’ll have to do some of that work on your own.

Mary Bennett
And V, are there any go-to resources, or does anyone have any resources that they can use to stay educated?

Vazantha Meyers
I’m going to plug ACES. It’s a good place to get started if you’re a litigation paralegal in terms of what’s out there, and it’ll help you navigate the next steps to get more information.

Salomon Lewis
Agreed. Platforms like these, where there are webinars on these topics, are good sources. Partner internally with your technical people. These folks are the subject matter experts on that data source that you see percolating within the law firm or corporation. I often have to reach out to the administrators for a specific type of software internally to pick their brains and understand how we use it within the company. You can then leverage the framework and basic principles, like the EDRM workflow. It’s like, “All right, I may not have the technical know-how for managing Slack for example. Okay, well who is the IT person that manages it?” “All right, IT person. If I need to identify a custodian, what steps do I need to take to work with you? How are we going to collect from that? What does it look like when processing it?” Even though you may not have the time to dig into that, understandably, you can still use those basic principles. And then again, partnering with the IT person, whoever is responsible for that, and having that partnership. That’s one of the ways that we’ve been able to grow our program, because we aren’t a large team. However, our partnerships have addressed some of these emerging technologies and data sources.

Adam Rubinger
Another way that has been really helpful for me over the years is to attend conferences. Things like LegalWeek, EDI, ILTA, and Relativity Fest. There’s a lot of different industry conferences that you can attend that have amazing content that really talks about all these things. It gives you an opportunity to not only hear from the people in the space who are leading the efforts but also to connect with peers, benchmark, and talk with other people who are in similar situations. If you have the means and your company’s willing to pay for it, or you’re willing to pay for it on your own dime. I’d say go to as many conferences as you can. You’re going to learn an absolute ton and it’ll be the freshest content and usually a good time too.

Stephanie Clerkin
I’m unsure if you’re a San Diego Paralegal Association member. However, I’ve done multiple presentations for various paralegal associations, and some of the topics came up because one of the members requested a topic to have a presentation about. I’ve done a couple of Excel ones, and I’ve done an Adobe one. If there’s a technology out there and you’re a member of any of those organizations, you can also request content. It may bbe at a price point that is free sometimes or affordable at $25 versus spending three grand to go to ILTA or something like that.

Vazantha Meyers
It’s a really good point, Stephanie.

Mary Bennett
Sometimes, with these conferences, I’m not sure about the ones Adam mentioned, but some have virtual parts, or certain sessions are virtual; sometimes, there are recaps of the sessions that people post on their blogs. Sometimes, even if you can’t attend live, there are ways to access the information during the event virtually or after the event with content. Let’s talk about what’s been mentioned in the elephant in this room and every room and every conversation. We were talking about it at the start of this call, but AI. That is changing how we all work. We’ll start with you, Anya, HaystackID’s AI expert. What advice do you have for somebody who may be earlier in their journey using these tools? How can they ensure they’re leveraging this technology to bolster what they do and stay marketable and competitive?

Anya Korolyov
AI has been around for years. It’s nothing that fell out of the sky on our heads recently. It’s been around, and it just recently became accessible to our grandmas and grandpas. Everybody can come in and type something and get something back, and that’s one of the cool things about AI: you will ask a question and get an answer. Whether that answer is right or not, it’s a little different than Googling. Google will just give you an option, “This is what we have.” And AI will actually give you an answer. For somebody starting out, that’s one of the first things I would say: use it. It is a great tool. Any tool in your arsenal that helps you improve any skill is fantastic, but you still are responsible for what you do with the information you receive from those tools and how you process and put it out there yourself. That information ends up there from somebody, from something. We were talking to each other before this call started. A lot of it is, unfortunately, a little bit outdated. You still have to be very careful what you get out of it. Having said that, I do; obviously, everybody’s talking about it. At the conferences, 90% of the talks are on AI and what it will do for different industries. Time will tell. It will definitely improve everything we do. It will make things more efficient. It may have some cost savings but also create new jobs. It will create an ecosystem that will just be like social media did something. Now we have all these influencers, which is now an official job for somebody. People are making great money on it. AI will also have that effect pretty soon.

Mary Bennett
Yeah, I was talking to a family friend who’s going to law school. She’s an English major like me, and I told her how I use these different tools, and she said, “Oh, I could never do that being a writer and someone who loves to write.” I was like, “Well, if you’re going to law school,” and I didn’t want to go too hard at a family dinner, but I was like, “You really should have a curiosity and start exploring.” Because you have to get over your preconceived notions and be curious, as you said, Anya, there are so many different tools that can improve what you do and make your job, I think, better and more enjoyable.

Anya Korolyov
Easier.

Mary Bennett
Easier.

Anya Korolyov
I had to write something, a report I’d never done before, a standardized report. I just never had to do it in my career. I could have spent hours putting this together and researching, but I decided to ask ChatGPT for a sample and then just use that to build my report. Again, for mundane tasks, I will use all the tools available to put this together. If I’m doing something innovative, of course, I’m not going to ask ChatGPT, but again, some of the tasks, resume writing, some of these letters, and some of the emails improve how people communicate.

Mary Bennett
Someone said she was officiating a wedding and used it to structure [the vows].

Vazantha Meyers
It doesn’t replace everything, but it’s a tool we must start using. I mean, as Beyonce says, “It’s time to face the wind.” These things are happening; this tool is going to be used. And you have to figure out how it works in your life, company, or law firm. I don’t think so. I feel like there were probably conversations back in the day when they started saying, “Hey, we have this new Westlaw thing. Are we going to get out of the library? Or people are going to start researching in the library.” And somebody probably said, “I love the library. I’ll never give up the library.” I wonder where they are researching now. Regardless of how we feel about these tools, we think they’re replacing something better. I don’t think that the better goes away, but the tool allows us to maximize our skills and include what’s better. We must embrace it, learn how to use it, and learn when not to use it, which is also very important.

Adam Rubinger
Being a lawyer requires a lot of writing. And you’re going to start seeing, if you haven’t already, law schools embracing AI and figuring out a way to utilize that as part of the curriculum. Lawyers actively practicing law are at an interesting intersection between legal research, brief writing, contract writing, contract analysis, and all of these things. That AI is going to have a pretty profound effect on it. Young lawyers and law students coming out of law school and becoming young lawyers and even seasoned lawyers will have to start embracing this technology as it comes out. It’s going to be a real necessity and a skill set that every lawyer will have to develop to get not only a good understanding of it to be able to poke holes in it and, on the other hand, potentially utilize it. It’s going to be pretty pervasive in our eDiscovery, cyber, and information governance space. Every knowledge worker, in the next three to five years, will be touched by AI. They need to have a pretty healthy understanding of how the technology works and how to utilize it for their needs. As Anya said, go into ChatGPT or even go into YouTube and put a search in for how to prompt AI tools. You’ll see a pretty amazing wealth of information on the different levels of success you can have utilizing AI just in the way you prompt the AI engine to give you the results you’re looking for. From just a simple question to seeing folks use questionnaires where they tell the AI, “You’re an expert in this, and you need to ask me 20 questions to be able to create the right prompt so that I can prompt you back to get the answer that I’m looking for.” People from all walks of life are doing some pretty amazing things with it. And it will be something that will just be pervasive and part of our toolset. As V said, the tools that are out, and if you’re not knowledgeable about AI, you’re going to not stand out, and you’ll certainly fall behind if you don’t do that. I’m going to date myself. My kids are in their early 20s, and they’re just starting their careers and I encourage them to become familiar with AI and get certified in AI. One of the resources that I’ve seen that I would put out there for the audience is Coursera, which is a website that offers a lot of training. Vanderbilt University has an amazing AI introduction. Google has one, and Microsoft has one. There are a lot of universities that are getting involved in AI training and certification. Both my kids are now certified in AI prompting in various ChatGPT, Gemini, and others out there. There’s a ton of resources for people. I’d say go out there, get yourself educated, and get yourself certified. At this point in the game, it’ll definitely be since we’re a year out from when GAI came to the scene. Anya said that AI has been around for a while, and it has, but we haven’t seen anything like generative AI like we’re seeing now. Getting certified, getting information, and getting an education is super important.

Mary Bennett
I can attest to Adam’s mention of the Vanderbilt training. I did the Coursera course on prompt engineering and thought it was great because someone is talking you through it, and you get a chance to do exercises. You can do it on your own, and then it grades you. The interaction is important there.

Vazantha Meyers
Yeah.

Mary Bennett
Salomon kicking it to you, my friend, we talked about networking. There has always been a conversation around networking throughout our careers, but we’re in a new world. We’re post-COVID, and many people are going back into the office. Many people, like at HaystackID we’re fully remote. Networking is such an important skill. I’d love to hear from you, Salomon. If someone’s newer to the industry or just transitioned in and is trying to build their network, how do you do it in an impactful and meaningful way? Because we all know you don’t want to be the one messaging someone when you’re looking for a gig, like, “Hi, I’m Mary. Can you give me a job?” It’s just not going to get you what you need.

Salomon Lewis
I’m very big on networking. It has benefited my career by building my network and sharing knowledge. One of the things I’d like to recommend that I did was I started cold calling people on LinkedIn. This was during the pandemic when we were all home. And I said to myself, “Well, I’m still fairly new in the industry. I don’t know many people outside my immediate bubble, so let me start cold-calling people.” I was looking up eDiscovery professionals and information governance professionals on LinkedIn. And I just started shooting messages, introducing myself, “Hey, my name is Salomon. I’m in the industry and want to pick your brain.” Even outside of this specific industry, people are more than happy to talk about what they do, especially when they know, “Okay, there’s no secondary agenda behind it.” I started making connections and had a couple of Zoom calls with people. From there, they recommended additional people that I should connect with. One of the outcomes of doing that was an opportunity to speak at EDI. I’ve been able to join a nonprofit organization through this networking. I could connect with someone like a V. If I struggle with something internally at a company and there is something I’ve been researching, I could reach out to her and say, “Hey, what are you seeing? Are you seeing something similar?” Have that type of conversation and build that Rolodex through networking. I’ve gotten a lot of benefits from that.

Mary Bennet
You never know, right? Somebody who has helped me in my career, I’ve helped them make a connection. It’s something that you should always be doing. And Stephanie, you said people have reached out to you a ton on LinkedIn.

Stephanie Clerkin
I have some very specific pieces of advice I give people on this that’ll go outside the box. When I first started, my role didn’t exist. There was no “Hey, go learn from this person.” My first line of education was the cold calls and emails I would get from various service providers. I took every one of them for years because I had the time. Who knows more about the industry than somebody who has been doing this for 20 years in sales? Some of those people, I’m still friends with a lot of them to this day. We’ve done business with some of those people over the years. And they’ve provided me with an even bigger network through their expanded networks. I’ve told quite a few people, “If you don’t know where to start and you’re not a big LinkedIn person, respond to that random email and just have a discussion with someone else in the industry.” If you want to do LinkedIn and are uncomfortable reaching out directly or posting, look in the comment section. If you want something more casual, go to the Gates Dogfish account and look for a meme that you find funny. Comment something in the chat or the comment section. I don’t know how many people that I have met in this industry who, even after 10 years we’ve never crossed paths. We met in the comments section and now communicate quite a bit. Another big resource for anyone, and it’s free, is the San Diego Paralegal Association, which does “Virtual Lunch with Leaders.” And I’ve been a guest a couple of times. I know Mary’s been a guest a couple of times. A great group of people there are so welcoming and supportive, and they’re always happy to introduce each other as well. A couple of very tangible takeaways here that I’m hoping might help some others.

Anya Korolyov
Like Stephanie said, you don’t feel comfortable cold messaging something on LinkedIn, but there are many groups you can join for free. I know Women in eDiscovery has a whole bunch of chapters. You can join all of them. And it’s a great networking place to start. There are a ton of them out there that, again, I’ve joined on LinkedIn, just started following and reading, and, as Stephanie said, just started commenting. Eventually, you can start reaching out to people and say, “Hey, did you see what somebody posted? What do you think of that?” Start a conversation that way.

Vazantha Meyers
There are a lot of groups to join. I’m in several groups with many people on this call for Women in eDiscovery: EDI. So, there are a lot of opportunities to not just network but also to learn. We’ve talked about that, but also give back. There isn’t a significant move I’ve made in my career that didn’t rely on some level of networking. And I know I’ve also been a part of other people making moves via our own intersections in these different organizations. It’s crucial that you are a part of these organizations to network in your own career. But I also think this industry that we’re working in is new enough that a lot of people who started it who can be credited as the first person who did this or the person who wrote the article on X, right analytics, they’re still actively involved in a lot of these groups. Not only will you get a good education and good opportunities, but you’ll also be touching the people who are architects. They’ll tell you the story of the growth and their perspective on where it’s going. You get a lot of insight through networking regarding making your next move or what you want to do. In our conversation, you guys have dropped a ton of gems in terms of what someone could practically do next. And so you get that by being a part of learning and teaching in these organizations.

Mary Bennett
This conversation reminds me too of what Salomon said earlier about talking to your IT team to learn more about the technicalities of things. Don’t undervalue the resourcing or networking inside your own company. I know V’s very involved in our affinity groups at HaystackID. Many of us know our teams well, including a couple of others. But there are great ways to network with people within your own company and learn about them. You never know where they’ll end up, where you’ll end up. So, make that conscious effort to get to know other team members. Speaking of memes, Stephanie, did I hear you say memes before? It’s one of my favorite ways to communicate. We’re in a time right now where not only do we have different generations in the workforce, but there are all these different methods of communication. The conversations may not happen at the traditional “water cooler.” It might be more that your team communicates via Slack, Teams, or email. Let’s talk about communication with those new to work or people from different walks of life. V, why don’t we kick it to you? You communicate a lot with your team. What do you find regarding the dos and don’ts of communication? Is there anything you’ve learned or had to adjust your communication style?

Vazantha Meyers
I will tell you that what I’ve learned is proactive communication is better than reactive communication. We want to make sure that as much as you can, you are trying to control your conversations. Be very affirmative about communication. My approach has tried to be myself in most situations on top of being professional and personable. You do want to have a natural way to communicate so that at least it works for me. I found a lot of my questions from younger folks are, “I’m not too sure if I’m saying the right thing or I feel like I have to force a particular countenance when I’m communicating.” And I usually tell them, at the very least, try to be yourself. Take yourself and your personality and mold it to whatever the situation. Be professional, kind, informative, and educated, but be yourself. And it goes a long way to do one; it attracts people who respond favorably to whoever you are. You can always be your true self and create your own village around that personality, demeanor, and countenance. But also you’ll be more confident in all situations. And that eases communication, no matter what it is. If you are yourself and can rely on yourself to get through a conversation, you’ll be more confident. That’s what I will say about communication, but I think it must be proactive.

Adam Rubinger
Being the elder statesman on this call, I would say there’s a place for informality and formality. Navigating the differences between the two in business is something that people have to learn. Using emojis, memes, and slang, how you text people is different. You speak a different language. You use a lot of shortcuts and different slang if you will. Younger folks are more accustomed to doing that. And there are many unwritten rules about how to communicate using Snapchat, text, and different messaging platforms. That understanding and distinction is something everyone will have to learn. You can’t always speak like you do to your friends on your phone through text as you do to your co-workers through Teams or Slack. I tell my kids this all the time, “Don’t put anything in writing you wouldn’t want the world to see.” People put everything in writing and post everything about their lives. There’s so much content and personal content online that also blends into your business life that when people need to think about what they’re doing and how they’re communicating with people.

Mary Bennett
Especially being in discovery.

Stephanie Clerkin
I have another tip for an AI use case here. I gave this tip to someone newer at my firm. Always err on the side of formality if in doubt. But if you think your email is too casual, throw it, take out anything confidential, and throw it in ChatGPT. Let it evaluate it or rewrite it. Fix the problem really quickly there, so here’s another tip.

Mary Bennett
I’ve stopped adding so many exclamations to mine. I realize that a period does not mean you’re rude.

Stephanie Clerkin
It’s not.

Mary Bennett
But every workplace is different. I think we talked about this in the call: Find a friend or someone you trust in your organization. If you’re new, they can tell you the unwritten worlds, whether it’s communication or meeting cadence. Because it is something you’re not necessarily taught, and it can make a big difference in progressing your career just by learning those different ones.

Anya Korolyov
I want to say that’s something about being respectful and kind. And I want to emphasize that outside of just chatting and typing, we also end up on calls a lot now: Zoom calls and Teams calls. And the advice I received recently, and I rolled my eyes at it, and then I tried it, is just smiling. Smile, and it will change your mood; it will change how you speak. Even if it’s a stressful situation, it will still put you in a different place and take you out of whatever negativity or stress you’re feeling. And it puts you a little bit at ease, even if you just force yourself to smile to begin with. It really does help.

Adam Rubinger
Good advice.

Mary Bennett
Especially when you’re alone in your office.

Anya Korolyov
Exactly.

Vazantha Meyers
One thing I wanted to say when I got on this call that I haven’t said yet is, please find a mentor.

Mary Bennett
Yes, and feel free to message me on LinkedIn. I’ve talked with many people in our industry about how to find a mentor and the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. I’m sure many of us also have, so we are open to giving advice. And so I want to thank the panelists for sharing their great expertise. I learned a lot, and it was great to learn about what’s worked for everybody in their career. I want to thank everybody for attending. I know everybody is very busy, and I want to thank you for taking the time. We will have our next webcast in July. It’ll be on CFIUS reviews on how you can ensure compliance and strategize for foreign investment. That’ll be on July 24th with our experts, Matt Miller and Nate Latessa. We’ll see you then and hope you have a fantastic day.

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Expert Panelists’ Bios

+ Stephanie Clerkin
Director of Litigation Support, Korein Tillery

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+ Salomon Louis
eDiscovery Program Owner, MassMutual

Salomon Louis is the eDiscovery lead in the Privacy, Data, and AI Governance organization at MassMutual. As lead, he is responsible for the strategy, development, and operationalization of eDiscovery technologies and processes in support of the company’s business stakeholders. He has a history of strong leadership skills in bridging the gap between IT and Legal, and identifying potential risks and process improvement opportunities to ensure the company meets its legal obligations for ESI preservation. Louis is also certified as an eDiscovery professional through the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists, and has taught the subject at Western New England University School of Law, and has spoken on the subject at conferences such as the EDI Leadership Summit. He also holds leadership roles at ACEDS and Blacks United in Legal Technology (BUILT).  

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+ Anya Korolyov
Vice President, Cyber Incident Response and Advanced Technologies Group, HaystackID

Anya Korolyov, the Vice President of Cyber Incident Response and Advanced Technologies Group at HaystackID, has 18 years of experience in the legal industry as a licensed attorney, including 15 years of experience in eDiscovery, focusing on data mining, complex integrated workflows, and document review. In her role at HaystackID, Korolyov works on developing and implementing the strategic direction of Cyber Incident Response. She is one of the industry’s leading experts on Data Breach Incident Response, Notification, and Reporting, with a solid understanding of machine learning, custom object development, regular expressions manipulation, and other technical specialties. 

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+ Vazantha Meyers, Esq.
Vice President of Discovery Services, HaystackID

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+ Adam J. Rubinger, JD
Chief Client Experience Officer, HaystackID

Adam Rubinger is currently the Chief Client Experience Officer at HaystackID. In this role, Rubinger works directly with HaystackID’s corporate clients on their eDiscovery team as the executive sponsor. He provides guidance, consultation, and advice to the teams in all areas of the process, from collections to production. He is highly involved in most aspects of the portfolio and works at all levels of the organization. Given both his legal and technical background, he is an excellent liaison between the HaystackID team, the client, and their outside counsel. Prior to NightOwl merging with HaystackID in 2022, Rubinger held various positions at NightOwl including the Director of Discovery Management and the Chief Client Officer at NightOwl Global.  Rubinger has over 20 years of experience and proven leadership in litigation support and information governance, as well as managing large-scale electronic discovery projects. He’s a technologist, lawyer, and expert in the area of electronic discovery, predictive coding, analytics, discovery workflow, and matter management. 

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+ Mary Bennett (Moderator)
Director of Content Marketing, HaystackID

Mary Bennett, HaystackID’s Director of Content Marketing, focuses on the power of storytelling to educate the legal technology industry on pressing issues impacting practitioners. With nearly 10 years of content marketing experience, Bennett joined HaystackID after working at an agency to help B2B tech startups grow their marketing engines through content that drove audiences through the marketing funnel. Before her agency experience, Bennett worked at Chicago-based Relativity as a Senior Producer on the Brand Programs team. She was a founding member, host, and producer of Relativity’s Stellar Women program and producer of the company’s documentary series, On the Merits. In her role, Bennett crafted and socialized important stories that elevated the eDiscovery community and illustrated technology’s potential to make a substantial impact.

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About HaystackID®

HaystackID solves complex data challenges related to legal, compliance, regulatory, and cyber events. Core offerings include Global Advisory, Data Discovery Intelligence, HaystackID Core® Platform, and AI-enhanced Global Managed Review powered by its proprietary platform, ReviewRight®. Repeatedly recognized as one of the world’s most trusted legal industry providers by prestigious publishers such as Chambers, Gartner, IDC, and Legaltech News, HaystackID implements innovative cyber discovery, enterprise solutions, and legal and compliance offerings to leading companies and legal practices around the world. HaystackID offers highly curated and customized offerings while prioritizing security, privacy, and integrity. For more information about how HaystackID can help solve unique legal enterprise needs, please visit HaystackID.com.

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Assisted by GAI and LLM technologies.

Source: HaystackID