Why internal litigation support does not work
As more electronic litigation proceedings continue to hit the news, many firms are choosing to try and establish their support teams internally. Some employers look to legal, others to IT departments and still more to both for their eDiscovery litigation support needs. However, this puts businesses in truly precarious positions, as the knowledge level, attentiveness to detail and awareness of associated software is at a level far beyond most internal departments can understand.
This isn’t in any way a knock to the intelligence of internal personnel, but rather common sense. For example, would it be a good idea to hire an electrician to take care of the plumbing? Or, maybe a puppet master to conduct all records management compliance training for employees? Well, the second one might actually work quite well, but the point is that eDiscovery is a whole new world for most companies, even those with strong legal and IT backgrounds.
Just walk away;
Law Technology News recently listed several reasons why companies should outsource litigation support, including the fact that law departments and firms already have their hands filled with general legal practices. According to the source, essential functions of electronically stored information (ESI) processing, software configuration, forensic analysis and much more are far beyond the scope of traditional law.
The news provider noted that the training needed to have a strong grasp of eDiscovery support can be extremely expensive and generally inefficient for most law firms and businesses with legal departments. Beyond the skills training savings companies can avoid by outsourcing their litigation support, there are also the benefits of lower hardware and software costs.
LTN explained that the costs of software can be extremely expensive as a result of a nearly perpetual change in the best options, and outsourcing can help curb these expenses. Finally, the news provider explained that outsourcing eDiscovery support is more ethical and comes with much lower risk than attempting to take care of everything internally.
Staying competitive ain’t easy;
Predictive coding, ESI management and eDiscovery software development are among the most complex and uncharted technologies around in enterprises today, maybe only met in difficulty by certain cloud computing services and big data analytics. While this should all scare even the most hard-jaw-lined individual into searching anxiously on web browsers for a litigation solutions provider, pouring sweat and all, actually choosing the provider can be just as complex as the technology itself.
The eDiscovery industry has come under much harder scrutiny in recent years, as firms are beginning to see that overcharging and other expensive and morally vacant practices are widespread. However, managers can better mitigate the challenges of electronic litigation and threats of either purposeful or negligent poor decision making by choosing a firm with a broad range of software choices and a history of reliability.
Sources:
https://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202576971399&thepage=2”