Ethics of eDiscovery: The Contract Attorney, Part 1

As I’ve posted before, most blogs talk about the logistics of document management operations and the budget concerns that go with it.  Others talk about the what’s happening on a global and upper-management level of the LPO industry.  All of this stuff is great and important, but it is important for us to gather a “global” understanding of everything that goes into a document review.  Today I’d like to start at the “bottom”; and although it sounds a bit derogatory to those who do the job, it is the most crucial aspect of running an efficient eDiscovery project.  Meet the Contract Attorney.

If you’ve worked as a Contract Attorney, known one or read the Temporary Attorney blog, you probably don’t get the best impression of the industry.  Most who work as one are disgruntled and listless – if they aren’t then their spouse probably does fairly well for the both of them.  A Contract Attorney has no real career track, but can make decent money, which usually is enough to scare and even mesmerize those who originally wanted to work in public interest or non-profit or anywhere else for that matter.  A lot also blame their law school because they believed it was the school’s duty to help provide for a good career in law.  Unfortunately those people were misinformed on what a law school is.  It is an institution based on a largely profitable industry created to bureacracize and profit from it.  But this is for another debate.

What’s important is understanding the type of employees you’re dealing with and the goals you’re trying to accomplish.  The fact is both of these are changing.  Typically over the past few years in the US, eDiscovery was a field where the big law firms who practiced it held all the cards.  There was no transparency and there was no incentive to be efficient.  Because client companies had no idea about eDiscovery software, metrics, output and how much this work actually cost, firms had little competition and little pressure to work collaboratively with their clients.  So whereas today the law firm goal is to retain clients and provide a cost-efficient service, in the past it was a means to extract money from the client – gouging if you will.

So I digress, but now with the evolution of a law firm’s goal, it becomes more important to understand, monitor and manage your contract attorneys.  These are changing as well in that, 1) there is a need for fast and quality reviewers, 2) these jobs are moving overseas to motivated and highly capable lawyers.  Either way, whether in the US or India or the Philippines, a PM must acknowledge the people under her and embrace the nuances to utilize them.

In Part 2 I plan on breaking down the biggest fundamental problem to managing Contract Attorneys:  Incentive.

News and Notes for September 17th 2009

Thursday news:

• A nice discussion on whether the LPO boom is good or bad for India over at Merinews.com.  A nice reference to GATS and how this factored into the governments decision to loosen its stance on letting outside firms set-up shop.
•  A few weeks ago, Integreon released eView 3.0 for its e-discovery operations.  Its intent is to offer everything a client needs from one provider.  Some of its offerings include: concept searches, central and secure document protection, and priv log streamlining.  Seems like a swell idea to me.
• And I can’t forget to include the “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” Award that was given to Rohit Kochhar, Chairman of Kochhar & Co.  It was presented to him last month at the 12th Annual Rajiv Gandhi Awards.  Having started five different companies involved in five different business segments, makes him one of the most interesting businessmen not only in India, but in the world. (Thanks to MyBangalore.com).
• Kian Gantz at Legally India discusses the new corporate law forum started by students of ILS Pune.  It’s goal is to increase awareness of the changing legal industry, share experiences and add to graduate employability.  I think we’ll see this more and more throughout law schools world-wide.