Attorneys as Technologists

We realized we had an opportunity with this group to create a multidisciplinary team of attorneys and technologists who collaborate to provide strategic legal thinking and advanced technology for the management of ESI in a variety of legal matters. We felt very strongly that this was the right approach for our clients.

Separating the Practice Group

Our biggest challenge was to create an organizational infrastructure that could effectively support our growing case load. The goal would be to expand our technology service offerings, and focus only on e-discovery and data management. It was important that our clients recognized the distinction between the value an e-discovery practice group can provide and what the law firm provides, so we made the decision to turn our existing team into a wholly owned subsidiary of Troutman Sanders ' offering separate e-discovery services that are still connected to the law firm.

The separate management of the law firm and eMerge allows e-discovery to be a cleaner cost for our clients, and provides our team the flexibility to quickly and continually reinvest in our technology and our service offerings. It also provides our clients the option to do everything in one place, or shop from a menu of options based on their needs. This structure also allows us to serve our clients on matters that may involve other law firms or that are managed internally by the client's legal department.

eMerge operates through the close collaboration of three important groups: Troutman Sanders case teams, e-discovery lawyers (including document review teams), and technologists. Each group consists of highly skilled professionals with years of training and experience in their area. As a team, they have leveraged their diverse skills to deliver consistent and cost effective results for our clients. Additionally, their close collaboration from collection through trial reduces risks and creates greater efficiencies for our clients at every stage of a case.

The Advantage of Software

Once we defined the structure and services of eMerge, we needed to identify the technology that could most effectively support the specific e-discovery needs of each client. I had previously spent a lot of time experimenting with different software, and was always looking for the next new thing. I quickly found there is no magic bullet that will successfully solve all of your problems. Instead, you need to find a platform that is easily adaptable and allows workarounds for any weaknesses. You also need a company behind the software that is willing to partner with you and is committed to continually improving their product.

In this case, Relativity stood out as a tool that lent itself to our unique approach, as we could translate our processes straight into custom workflows. One of the things that drew us to standardize on Relativity was its universal adaptability. The platform allows you to completely customize the database for both large and small cases.

Our team had years of experience with Relativity, but were limited in maximizing its functionality because we lacked the back-end experience. We saw that we could make our own adjustments to Relativity, even for processes outside of standard e-discovery tasks, and that would provide a competitive advantage for our team. We decided to license Relativity and were able to work with kCura to customize the platform and take full advantage of the data we manage in each case.

Customizing e-Discovery

Since implementing Relativity, we've become super users, developing those tools and case-specific workflows within the software.

We recently built an application in Relativity to manage e-mails that have duplicate stubs caused by the client's e-mail archiving system. The application matches the stub to the full e-mail, which reduces the volume of documents for review. Another example is the custom folder views that we create as part of our data collection and ingestion process. We find out how our clients are storing their data, and we create folder views that mirror the structure within Relativity. This is a small customization that makes a real difference for our clients, because they can readily direct us to find what we need and jump right in, using the paradigm they understand. This is a tremendous time saver for review, and it makes the process easier on everyone involved in the case.

Another customization we typically use involves creating standard templates and workflows that match our managed reviews. This way, standard information ' like the keywords we use in our privileged review sweeps ' is saved for later use, and we don't have to reinvent the wheel for every case. We've also used automatic batching workflows so we can QC new reviewers on our team. This provides our project managers a statistical analysis of whether or not the reviewer understands the issues of a case. It's also a way to alert us of inconsistencies and problems that come up during review sooner rather than later.

Part of our philosophy with eMerge is to look out for the long-term success of our clients and to use technology to reach specific case goals. We want to avoid discovery costs dictating legal decisions and instead make sure that legal strategy and technology work together to make e-discovery beneficial to the client's substantive needs. That often requires doing more with the software like building these types of customizations and continually reinvesting in the technology. As a result, our lawyers are able to combine strategic legal thinking with advanced technology, and ultimately deliver stronger results.

Alison Grounds is the managing director of Troutman Sanders eMerge (www.tsemerge.com) and a partner in the Litigation and Intellectual Property practice groups of Troutman Sanders LLP.

As the founder of the Electronic Discovery and Data Management practice group at Troutman Sanders, I've spent a lot of time advising clients on the efficient management, production, and use of electronically stored information (ESI) in litigation. With the continued growth in the volume of ESI involved in even the smallest of matters, we made a big decision ' to create Troutman Sanders eMerge, a wholly owned subsidiary of the firm dedicated to consulting, project management, and technology services related to ESI in litigation and internal/governmental investigations.

The decision to separate the group in this way required a great deal of thought and effort. We had to ask ourselves: 'How can we continue to offer strategic legal advice on e-discovery while also leveraging the tremendous technological advancements in the space?' We recognized that achieving this would require talented staff immersed in the legal and technical issues ' and the software ' of e-discovery on a regular basis. These are the types of factors law firms should consider when developing e-discovery solutions. For eMerge, this meant leveraging the talents of our team to create a viable business centered on e-discovery and the management of ESI.

Prior to launching eMerge in June 2012, the e-discovery technology capabilities of the firm were fairly dependent on overseeing the work of external vendors. While this solution may be workable, even advantageous for some firms, our experience suggested some good reasons for Troutman Sanders to take more ownership of the entire operation:

1. We had the necessary legal and technical expertise and resources;
2. We wanted to standardize on one review platform to more consistently handle matters; and
3. We wanted to use our tech-savvy attorney project managers as the single points-of-contact on matters.

Our e-discovery and data management practice group was already made up of homegrown Troutman Sanders lawyers who possessed advanced technology skills and were specially trained on our processes, review tools, and the facts and issues of our cases.

We realized we had an opportunity with this group to create a multidisciplinary team of attorneys and technologists who collaborate to provide strategic legal thinking and advanced technology for the management of ESI in a variety of legal matters. We felt very strongly that this was the right approach for our clients.

Separating the Practice Group

Our biggest challenge was to create an organizational infrastructure that could effectively support our growing case load. The goal would be to expand our technology service offerings, and focus only on e-discovery and data management. It was important that our clients recognized the distinction between the value an e-discovery practice group can provide and what the law firm provides, so we made the decision to turn our existing team into a wholly owned subsidiary of Troutman Sanders ' offering separate e-discovery services that are still connected to the law firm.

The separate management of the law firm and eMerge allows e-discovery to be a cleaner cost for our clients, and provides our team the flexibility to quickly and continually reinvest in our technology and our service offerings. It also provides our clients the option to do everything in one place, or shop from a menu of options based on their needs. This structure also allows us to serve our clients on matters that may involve other law firms or that are managed internally by the client's legal department.

eMerge operates through the close collaboration of three important groups: Troutman Sanders case teams, e-discovery lawyers (including document review teams), and technologists. Each group consists of highly skilled professionals with years of training and experience in their area. As a team, they have leveraged their diverse skills to deliver consistent and cost effective results for our clients. Additionally, their close collaboration from collection through trial reduces risks and creates greater efficiencies for our clients at every stage of a case.

The Advantage of Software

Once we defined the structure and services of eMerge, we needed to identify the technology that could most effectively support the specific e-discovery needs of each client. I had previously spent a lot of time experimenting with different software, and was always looking for the next new thing. I quickly found there is no magic bullet that will successfully solve all of your problems. Instead, you need to find a platform that is easily adaptable and allows workarounds for any weaknesses. You also need a company behind the software that is willing to partner with you and is committed to continually improving their product.

In this case, Relativity stood out as a tool that lent itself to our unique approach, as we could translate our processes straight into custom workflows. One of the things that drew us to standardize on Relativity was its universal adaptability. The platform allows you to completely customize the database for both large and small cases.

Our team had years of experience with Relativity, but were limited in maximizing its functionality because we lacked the back-end experience. We saw that we could make our own adjustments to Relativity, even for processes outside of standard e-discovery tasks, and that would provide a competitive advantage for our team. We decided to license Relativity and were able to work with kCura to customize the platform and take full advantage of the data we manage in each case.

Customizing e-Discovery

Since implementing Relativity, we've become super users, developing those tools and case-specific workflows within the software.

We recently built an application in Relativity to manage e-mails that have duplicate stubs caused by the client's e-mail archiving system. The application matches the stub to the full e-mail, which reduces the volume of documents for review. Another example is the custom folder views that we create as part of our data collection and ingestion process. We find out how our clients are storing their data, and we create folder views that mirror the structure within Relativity. This is a small customization that makes a real difference for our clients, because they can readily direct us to find what we need and jump right in, using the paradigm they understand. This is a tremendous time saver for review, and it makes the process easier on everyone involved in the case.

Another customization we typically use involves creating standard templates and workflows that match our managed reviews. This way, standard information ' like the keywords we use in our privileged review sweeps ' is saved for later use, and we don't have to reinvent the wheel for every case. We've also used automatic batching workflows so we can QC new reviewers on our team. This provides our project managers a statistical analysis of whether or not the reviewer understands the issues of a case. It's also a way to alert us of inconsistencies and problems that come up during review sooner rather than later.

Part of our philosophy with eMerge is to look out for the long-term success of our clients and to use technology to reach specific case goals. We want to avoid discovery costs dictating legal decisions and instead make sure that legal strategy and technology work together to make e-discovery beneficial to the client's substantive needs. That often requires doing more with the software like building these types of customizations and continually reinvesting in the technology. As a result, our lawyers are able to combine strategic legal thinking with advanced technology, and ultimately deliver stronger results.

Alison Grounds is the managing director of Troutman Sanders eMerge (www.tsemerge.com) and a partner in the Litigation and Intellectual Property practice groups of Troutman Sanders LLP.