Ediscovery Professionals: Order-taking Or Consulting? Consulting Opportunities

In this article, we are going to discuss opportunities to provide consulting services in a typical case

. And, well use the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) as a guide through potential consulting tasks.

Information Management: This first phase of the EDRM is often outside the scope of responsibility and expertise of law firm eDiscovery departments. We know of a few departments, however, that are offering consulting services to their clients in this area. They provide consulting services in:

Drafting document retention and destruction policies and procedures

Drafting computer-use policies

Recommending document and data management technology.

Identification: Consultants can assist in several ways in the identification step:

Selection and use of early case assessment tools to identify sources of potentially responsive documents.

Creating interview questionnaires and conducting interviews of IT and Records Management personnel and custodians

Preparing an identification plan

Preservation: As a consultant, you can assist litigators in preservation in a few ways:

Provide preservation policies and procedures to litigators

Provide template litigation hold letters and notices to litigators for use in distributing to clients

Assist in preparing litigation hold schedules

Record keeping for defensibility purposes.

Meet and Confer: While this isnt a step on the EDRM, it is an area where you can provide helpful consulting assistance. You can assist with:

Determining preferences for handling and producing ESI

Developing a discovery plan

Attending a meet and confer and functioning as a translator and advisor regarding technical issues

Collection: In the collection step you can help with:

Developing a collection plan

Recommending collection tools and technology

Maintaining chain of custody records

Processing: In the processing step you can help with:

Evaluation and selection of vendors and/or technology

Education regarding processing options and determining an appropriate approach for a document collection

Developing procedures for auditing processing activities and doing quality control

Maintaining documentation that demonstrates a defensible approach

Review: In so many cases, review is the most expensive, labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the discovery process. It needs to be carefully planned and executed to ensure that budgets are adhered to and that deadlines are met. There are lots of opportunities for consulting assistance in the review process:

Advise on review objectives and assist the litigation team in determining the right objectives for a case

Evaluation and selection of vendors and review technology

Determining appropriate staffing levels and staffing sources

Assist with drafting review criteria that can be easily and consistently applied by a review staff

Develop training agenda for review staff

Development of quality control procedures

Advise on documentation to be maintained for a defensible audit trail

Analysis: Consultants can play a key role in assisting attorneys with analysis of the ESI collection:

Recommend an approach and a schedule for doing analysis of a collection

Recommend technology tools

Assist with developing search and analysis strategies

Production: As a consultant, you can assist litigators in document production in a few ways:

Assist in determining appropriate form(s) of production for a case

Make recommendations for handling document identification numbering

Make recommendations for an approach and process to handling redactions

Advise on options for media on which ESI will be produced

Advise on appropriate documentation and record-keeping

Presentation: While many law firms have separate departments to assist litigators with presentation, more and more eDiscovery professionals are assisting litigation teams in this area:

Selecting trial presentation technology

Assisting in court-room set up

We hope you found it interesting and helpful. How have you assisted the litigators in your firm in a consulting capacity throughout the life of a case?

by: e-Discovery Daily

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