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Lawyers or Technicians: Who Make Better e-Discovery Project Managers?

By Jared Coseglia
July 02, 2014

The demand for e-discovery project managers is extreme, thus the bulk of career opportunities for e-discovery professionals are in project management. But not every e-discovery project manager has the same background or is even the same type of project manager.

Although there is a wealth of existing and up-and-coming talent available in the market, the hungry job seekers looking to move up and grow professionally often have radically different professional backgrounds. Typically, hiring managers at service providers and law firms are faced with two divergent archetypes to hire or train as project managers: lawyers/legalists (former practicing attorneys, contract attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants looking to become more technical) or technologists (litigation support analysts, data processors, programmers, legal IT personnel looking to become more strategic and client facing). Which profile makes a better e-discovery project manager, and why can't hiring managers find enough talent who are both technologists and legalists?

Let's examine the variables that factor into choosing a groomable hire or snatching up a seasoned pro. These variables, including technical experience, customer service skills, understanding of the litigation lifecycle, aptitude and attitude, fuel the debate over why hiring managers choose legalists over technologists (or vice versa) to be their next generation of e-discovery project managers.

The Case for Lawyers

“I have hired both technologists and attorneys in project manager roles, and both profiles can be equally successful. However, having studied evidence and civil procedure among other legal courses, an attorney is excellent at identifying legal risks as well as setting up workflows that comport with the type of case and review the legal team has. This is not to say a technologist cannot learn these workflows and risks, but generally the communication factor in the client relationship can flow easier with an attorney project manager at the start of a case.” ' James Bekier, Senior Manager of Litigation Services, Baker Hostetler

When examining the motives of most hiring managers, particularly those working in-house at law firms, the overriding advantage aspiring project managers who are attorneys seem to have over technicians is better communication. The communication factor is defined by an ability to work meaningfully face-to-face, day-to-day, hand-in-hand with a partner, senior associate, general counsel or other client-centric decision maker. This involves not just articulating the goals, plans, results and errors along the way, but developing a strategic partnership with the client where the end result is trust.

How do attorneys have an advantage in establishing trust with the client? Attorneys speak the same language. There is absolutely a vernacular to attorney-speak that can be difficult to learn unless you have studied to be a lawyer. There is also often a kindred spirit between attorneys, having gone through the same schooling and bar admissions process together. Often law firms find that attorneys in staff roles, like e-discovery project management, are better cultural fits for their organization.

Another key advantage attorneys have relates to context: attorneys understand legal work flow better. An attorney understands the why behind what needs to be done to data in order to prepare it for review and examination. An attorney project manager can anticipate the needs of the case team more effectively by knowing intrinsically where the litigation is going and what a client is looking for substantively.

Importantly, attorneys understand how to translate technical process into defensibility. Case teams are always in need of explaining their actions to a judge in order to ensure their process is defensible. Attorney project managers can often be better translators of the technical process into succinct defensibility.

Attorneys are adept at identifying risk in the legal process, but as James Bekier points out, and many of his peers agree, an e-discovery project manager must also understand enough of the technology used to execute that process. So, how much technology understanding is really required to be adept? Bekier explains: “Someone can be a great attorney and be excellent with process, but if they can't handle Excel, they most likely will never get the technical aspects down to own their projects fully.” For some, it might make more sense to hire a technologist from the start.

The Case for Technicians

“We have found it easier and faster to train new hires in the litigation lifecycle and the way we service our customers than to teach the technical skills required to support the highly technical review platforms that our clients use. Our project management team has a high percentage of technology savvy individuals with previous experience in litigation application support, litigation analysis, data processing or programming. We then pair them with individuals who have 12 or more years of expertise in litigation support.” ' TJ Collins, VP of Operations at Iris Data Services

As the e-discovery industry has matured and technology has become more and more sophisticated, the demand for technological savvy and hands-on expertise from an e-discovery project manager has become an increasingly real requirement. What case teams need to achieve with data is complicated and requires agility from an e-discovery project manager, not only to solve the problem, but to execute the solution technically.

Clients need to trust that their goals can be achieved. How do technologists have an advantage in establishing trust with the client? Technicians can troubleshoot a problem for their clients in real time. Technologists can execute as well as consult, and they do not have to delegate the heavy lifting to other members of the team. The often intimate relationship between a technologist and his or her data is essential for the ultimate success of the case, and that relationship also has significant value early in the litigation process.

Technologists are adept at identifying shortcuts when looking at data. Technicians can easily look at data and see patterns or anomalies that may have nothing to do with the substantive essence of a case. Many clients want that perspective from their e-discovery project manager and feel that is the purpose and role of the project manager in the process.

Additionally, technologists can often communicate better with other technologists at vendors when work is aggressively outsourced. Many law firms want their e-discovery project managers to be highly technical simply so they can talk to, validate, back-stop and control the quality of work that goes to and comes from vendors.

Professional background is also relevant. Technologists often come from customer service-driven environments. Help desk professionals and legal IT professionals are prime examples. There is often an embedded commitment and experience with service and troubleshooting in their work history. This can be invaluable when grooming talent into e-discovery project managers.

Finally, technologists can be a better cultural fit for firms and/or vendors. There are certainly some law firms that do not want lawyers in staff support roles. They feel lawyers belong in practicing law and will ultimately always want to practice law. Consultancies and vendors often want deep technology backgrounds over law school pedigrees. These preferences frequently have less to do with skill set and more to do with company culture.

Despite all the advantages technologists might appear to have, most hiring managers will still stress that communication is key to success as a project manager and will often struggle with the experienced technologist's ability to bridge the communication gap between lawyer and technician.

The 'One-Man-Band' and 'Dual Discipline' Staffing Models

“You need a combination of legalists and technologists, both of which need to be dedicated, maintain personal and professional passion, have a phenomenal work-ethic, and an uncompromising desire to provide customer service.” ' Scott Zimmerman, Manager of Automated Litigation Support at Haynes & Boone LLP

“It has always been my belief that a two-tier department structure works best in e-discovery; e-discovery lawyers and technicians together make a perfect team. Otherwise, the key to a successful hire is to choose a candidate with both technical and client-facing skills.” ' Daniel Torba, Manager of e-Discovery Services U.S. Region at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer U.S. LLP

The truth is that the ideal e-discovery project manager is both : a technician, but also someone who understands the legal implications and workflows, with an ability to effectively communicate in both disciplines. However, there is a finite supply of experienced professionals who have this duality and subject matter expertise. So how do law firms and vendors scale their talent infrastructure to compete with demand for service?

Some law firms have departments that are large enough to support a compartmentalization of skills. Most vendors function in this model as well. Professionals in this model tend to have “dual discipline” focus; some are highly technical and spend most of their time dealing with data, whereas their counterparts deal in work flow, cost reduction, and client communication while serving as a liaison to the technicians. TJ Collins explains that he pairs professionals within their project management ranks, believing that “this formula has effectively furthered the growth of highly successful Iris e-discovery project managers who possess a diverse skill package.” By having a larger staff with differing expertise, these departments service their clients in concert, rather than with “one-man” or “one-woman” project manager autonomy over a case or project.

Additionally, most of the “one-man” or “one-woman” e-discovery project managers are simply not motivated to make job moves anymore. Most have been in their current positions for more than a few years and likely get offers from other firms or vendors constantly to make lateral moves to do the same role at a different organization. Most are not interested in such moves and want (perhaps hopelessly) to become managers. Though increased compensation can certainly lure some experienced talent to competitors, there are not enough to go around, and not every firm or vendor is willing to continually pay escalated salary requirements to attract (or retain) talent. Due to the continued commoditization and price compression of e-discovery processing and hosting, vendors are being forced to hire and train less expensive ' and thus less experienced ' talent in order to maintain profitability, particularly in their project management ranks. Cheaper is not always the answer, but as organizations become more skilled at indoctrinating incoming talent to their technology, process, protocols and culture, acclimation and the ability to compartmentally service clients (and bill) faster becomes a reality.

So Who Wins?

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from this debate is that all e-discovery project managers should aspire to be subject matter experts in both the technical and legal aspects of the industry regardless of their background. This maturation of project managers will take time, though. Dan Torba firmly advises: “Being an e-discovery project manager is not something that can be learned by reading off-the-shelf publications; true e-discovery knowledge only comes from experience in the trenches.” So, while many up-and-comers get that experience, the community must also embrace a diversified talent pool and learn how to leverage the unique skills of an individual to better the whole of their team, service, process and business model.

In a future installment, we will explore in-house corporate hiring, how corporations define an e-discovery project manager, and what their appetite is for grooming talent or, conversely, hiring experienced e-discovery professionals.

'


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Jared Coseglia is the founder and president of TRU Staffing Partners and has been a go-to individual in the legal technology staffing and recruiting field for the past 10 years. He has successfully placed over 1,100 people in full-time and temporary positions in a variety of organizations. Coseglia is a published and active voice in the litigation support community, and his thought-provoking podcasts can be heard monthly through ILTA's website (www.iltanet.org). He can be contacted at [email protected].

The demand for e-discovery project managers is extreme, thus the bulk of career opportunities for e-discovery professionals are in project management. But not every e-discovery project manager has the same background or is even the same type of project manager.

Although there is a wealth of existing and up-and-coming talent available in the market, the hungry job seekers looking to move up and grow professionally often have radically different professional backgrounds. Typically, hiring managers at service providers and law firms are faced with two divergent archetypes to hire or train as project managers: lawyers/legalists (former practicing attorneys, contract attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants looking to become more technical) or technologists (litigation support analysts, data processors, programmers, legal IT personnel looking to become more strategic and client facing). Which profile makes a better e-discovery project manager, and why can't hiring managers find enough talent who are both technologists and legalists?

Let's examine the variables that factor into choosing a groomable hire or snatching up a seasoned pro. These variables, including technical experience, customer service skills, understanding of the litigation lifecycle, aptitude and attitude, fuel the debate over why hiring managers choose legalists over technologists (or vice versa) to be their next generation of e-discovery project managers.

The Case for Lawyers

“I have hired both technologists and attorneys in project manager roles, and both profiles can be equally successful. However, having studied evidence and civil procedure among other legal courses, an attorney is excellent at identifying legal risks as well as setting up workflows that comport with the type of case and review the legal team has. This is not to say a technologist cannot learn these workflows and risks, but generally the communication factor in the client relationship can flow easier with an attorney project manager at the start of a case.” ' James Bekier, Senior Manager of Litigation Services, Baker Hostetler

When examining the motives of most hiring managers, particularly those working in-house at law firms, the overriding advantage aspiring project managers who are attorneys seem to have over technicians is better communication. The communication factor is defined by an ability to work meaningfully face-to-face, day-to-day, hand-in-hand with a partner, senior associate, general counsel or other client-centric decision maker. This involves not just articulating the goals, plans, results and errors along the way, but developing a strategic partnership with the client where the end result is trust.

How do attorneys have an advantage in establishing trust with the client? Attorneys speak the same language. There is absolutely a vernacular to attorney-speak that can be difficult to learn unless you have studied to be a lawyer. There is also often a kindred spirit between attorneys, having gone through the same schooling and bar admissions process together. Often law firms find that attorneys in staff roles, like e-discovery project management, are better cultural fits for their organization.

Another key advantage attorneys have relates to context: attorneys understand legal work flow better. An attorney understands the why behind what needs to be done to data in order to prepare it for review and examination. An attorney project manager can anticipate the needs of the case team more effectively by knowing intrinsically where the litigation is going and what a client is looking for substantively.

Importantly, attorneys understand how to translate technical process into defensibility. Case teams are always in need of explaining their actions to a judge in order to ensure their process is defensible. Attorney project managers can often be better translators of the technical process into succinct defensibility.

Attorneys are adept at identifying risk in the legal process, but as James Bekier points out, and many of his peers agree, an e-discovery project manager must also understand enough of the technology used to execute that process. So, how much technology understanding is really required to be adept? Bekier explains: “Someone can be a great attorney and be excellent with process, but if they can't handle Excel, they most likely will never get the technical aspects down to own their projects fully.” For some, it might make more sense to hire a technologist from the start.

The Case for Technicians

“We have found it easier and faster to train new hires in the litigation lifecycle and the way we service our customers than to teach the technical skills required to support the highly technical review platforms that our clients use. Our project management team has a high percentage of technology savvy individuals with previous experience in litigation application support, litigation analysis, data processing or programming. We then pair them with individuals who have 12 or more years of expertise in litigation support.” ' TJ Collins, VP of Operations at Iris Data Services

As the e-discovery industry has matured and technology has become more and more sophisticated, the demand for technological savvy and hands-on expertise from an e-discovery project manager has become an increasingly real requirement. What case teams need to achieve with data is complicated and requires agility from an e-discovery project manager, not only to solve the problem, but to execute the solution technically.

Clients need to trust that their goals can be achieved. How do technologists have an advantage in establishing trust with the client? Technicians can troubleshoot a problem for their clients in real time. Technologists can execute as well as consult, and they do not have to delegate the heavy lifting to other members of the team. The often intimate relationship between a technologist and his or her data is essential for the ultimate success of the case, and that relationship also has significant value early in the litigation process.

Technologists are adept at identifying shortcuts when looking at data. Technicians can easily look at data and see patterns or anomalies that may have nothing to do with the substantive essence of a case. Many clients want that perspective from their e-discovery project manager and feel that is the purpose and role of the project manager in the process.

Additionally, technologists can often communicate better with other technologists at vendors when work is aggressively outsourced. Many law firms want their e-discovery project managers to be highly technical simply so they can talk to, validate, back-stop and control the quality of work that goes to and comes from vendors.

Professional background is also relevant. Technologists often come from customer service-driven environments. Help desk professionals and legal IT professionals are prime examples. There is often an embedded commitment and experience with service and troubleshooting in their work history. This can be invaluable when grooming talent into e-discovery project managers.

Finally, technologists can be a better cultural fit for firms and/or vendors. There are certainly some law firms that do not want lawyers in staff support roles. They feel lawyers belong in practicing law and will ultimately always want to practice law. Consultancies and vendors often want deep technology backgrounds over law school pedigrees. These preferences frequently have less to do with skill set and more to do with company culture.

Despite all the advantages technologists might appear to have, most hiring managers will still stress that communication is key to success as a project manager and will often struggle with the experienced technologist's ability to bridge the communication gap between lawyer and technician.

The 'One-Man-Band' and 'Dual Discipline' Staffing Models

“You need a combination of legalists and technologists, both of which need to be dedicated, maintain personal and professional passion, have a phenomenal work-ethic, and an uncompromising desire to provide customer service.” ' Scott Zimmerman, Manager of Automated Litigation Support at Haynes & Boone LLP

“It has always been my belief that a two-tier department structure works best in e-discovery; e-discovery lawyers and technicians together make a perfect team. Otherwise, the key to a successful hire is to choose a candidate with both technical and client-facing skills.” ' Daniel Torba, Manager of e-Discovery Services U.S. Region at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer U.S. LLP

The truth is that the ideal e-discovery project manager is both : a technician, but also someone who understands the legal implications and workflows, with an ability to effectively communicate in both disciplines. However, there is a finite supply of experienced professionals who have this duality and subject matter expertise. So how do law firms and vendors scale their talent infrastructure to compete with demand for service?

Some law firms have departments that are large enough to support a compartmentalization of skills. Most vendors function in this model as well. Professionals in this model tend to have “dual discipline” focus; some are highly technical and spend most of their time dealing with data, whereas their counterparts deal in work flow, cost reduction, and client communication while serving as a liaison to the technicians. TJ Collins explains that he pairs professionals within their project management ranks, believing that “this formula has effectively furthered the growth of highly successful Iris e-discovery project managers who possess a diverse skill package.” By having a larger staff with differing expertise, these departments service their clients in concert, rather than with “one-man” or “one-woman” project manager autonomy over a case or project.

Additionally, most of the “one-man” or “one-woman” e-discovery project managers are simply not motivated to make job moves anymore. Most have been in their current positions for more than a few years and likely get offers from other firms or vendors constantly to make lateral moves to do the same role at a different organization. Most are not interested in such moves and want (perhaps hopelessly) to become managers. Though increased compensation can certainly lure some experienced talent to competitors, there are not enough to go around, and not every firm or vendor is willing to continually pay escalated salary requirements to attract (or retain) talent. Due to the continued commoditization and price compression of e-discovery processing and hosting, vendors are being forced to hire and train less expensive ' and thus less experienced ' talent in order to maintain profitability, particularly in their project management ranks. Cheaper is not always the answer, but as organizations become more skilled at indoctrinating incoming talent to their technology, process, protocols and culture, acclimation and the ability to compartmentally service clients (and bill) faster becomes a reality.

So Who Wins?

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from this debate is that all e-discovery project managers should aspire to be subject matter experts in both the technical and legal aspects of the industry regardless of their background. This maturation of project managers will take time, though. Dan Torba firmly advises: “Being an e-discovery project manager is not something that can be learned by reading off-the-shelf publications; true e-discovery knowledge only comes from experience in the trenches.” So, while many up-and-comers get that experience, the community must also embrace a diversified talent pool and learn how to leverage the unique skills of an individual to better the whole of their team, service, process and business model.

In a future installment, we will explore in-house corporate hiring, how corporations define an e-discovery project manager, and what their appetite is for grooming talent or, conversely, hiring experienced e-discovery professionals.

'

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