The Inevitable Reinvention of the e-Discovery Industry

Consolidation

The vendors are getting bigger. We have seen that 2015 was another landmark year for acquisition in e-discovery: Inventus' buy of Unified and Kooby LLP; Ubic's purchase of Evolve; Epiq grabbing Iris Data Services; DTI absorbing Merrill Inc.; and even TRU Staffing Partners acquiring The Kennett Group and forming the TRU Cyber division. As the larger e-discovery vendors get larger, they will require more people at lower prices in order to maintain coverage both geographically and for the sheer volume in their e-discovery business dealings. Conversely (yet similarly), smaller vendors will need to pay less compensation because their pricing is usually lower than big vendors, they have less overhead, and they need to price to compete. This year saw more hiring, but at lower salaries and for fewer employers. This is good news for newcomers in e-discovery, but challenging for everyone else ' including employers.

Certification

Certification means little financially in e-discovery, but a great deal in terms of professional growth. Even the once elusive Relativity Certified Administrator (RCA) credential is experiencing slowly diminishing instant financial returns for individuals in e-discovery. Where having an RCA once commanded a speedy bump in pay when transitioning employers, the RCA has now become more of a requirement to get seen by some employers. The certification is still wholly credible, so much so that having one might be the reason you get the job over someone else. But the premiums in compensation paid to RCAs in 2014 and 2015 will not continue in 2016 and beyond. Instead, combinations of Relativity-based certifications will determine the bidding value on an employee in e-discovery sight-unseen when working for exclusively Relativity-focused vendors and consultancies, which is most of them.

Shrinking Job Market

For e-discovery professionals who only want to work at law firms or corporations, there were fewer openings at the Am Law 100 in 2015 than in the three years prior. Those roles also take up to 10 times as long to fill. Firms are interviewing seven to 10 people for an open role, compared with vendors who typically interview three to four before making a decision. Firms are also hiring less e-discovery talent at the analyst level. Those jobs are going to vendors. Firms are now hiring fewer project managers as they are not experiencing the same level of attrition as in years past, or they demand in-house arrangements with the growth of master service agreements. Additionally, firms are billing their clients less hourly to compete with vendors offering the same services directly to their corporate clients. All of this is driving salaries down or laterally in law firms and making law firms more risk-adverse to hiring the wrong fit for their litigation support staff.

As e-discovery becomes commoditized at every level, including employment, there will be increasingly limited opportunities for vertical mobility beyond project management for professionals in the space. However, with the focus on the right reinvention of professional skills and ambitions, a world of opportunity awaits in a new high demand, high impact sector of the legal and/or technology world: cybersecurity.

Why Cyber for Lawyers

Cybersecurity law, which for the purposes of this article fully encompasses privacy, data breach and response planning, is a sector that is showing increasing demand for talent and salary potential for practicing attorneys.

Between 2004 and 2008, many e-discovery professionals expected the Am Law 100 to develop practice groups that were specifically focused on e-discovery services. There are some groups like this, including Paul Weiner's at Littler, Scott Carlson's at Seyfarth, and perhaps the eData group at Morgan Lewis. Data privacy and protection, however, has evolved into a separate, clearly defined practice group within the multitudes of law firms globally. BakerHostetler's Privacy and Data Breach Protection practice group led by Gerald Ferguson and Theodore Kobus III, Miriam Wugmeister of Morrison Foerster, Christopher Wolf at Hogan Lovells, Mary Ellen Callahan of Jenner & Block and Jones Day's Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection practice group, led by Jeffrey Rabkin, are just some growing practices to watch in 2016 and beyond.

There is also opportunity in this explosive practice area to become a young rainmaker ' something elusive in more traditional, established practice groups. Cybersecurity is an area where computer savvy and experience, specifically in a relatable discipline like e-discovery, make for a credible and desirable counsel. Relationships that mid-level and senior associates have maintained over the years are now moving into leadership positions in corporate America, and are often in decision-making roles. There is also an association of “youth” to cybersecurity, giving the sales-savvy associate social opportunities to win business through professional networking, social networking, and calculated visibility internally within their firms.

The main area of focus for practicing attorneys in cyber will include governance and compliance. This covers responsibilities like understanding NIST, developing cybersecurity frameworks, negotiating with regulators, incident response planning and BYOD mobile policies and best practices. There is a wealth of certifications that these attorneys and practitioners share and seek: CGEIT, CIPP, CRISC, CSX, GSEC, GSNA, CISSP, CCFP, HCISSP, CCISO, ENSA, CIPT or CIPM. This laundry list seems intimidating at a glance. The CIPP (Certified Information Privacy Professional) remains the best baseline cert to pursue for the practicing attorney as the focus will be on privacy. A key hint to rapid mobility: Seek the international CIPP certifications as the laws on privacy are different and the more you understand the global impact and implications of privacy, the greater your employability.

Why Cyber for Techs

The reinvention of technical e-discovery professionals into cybersecurity professionals might be the hardest of all, but this is where most (60%) of the opportunities will be both within and outside of legal. A recent survey by Burning Glass, “Job Market Intelligence: Cybersecurity Jobs, 2015,” shows that in 2014 there were over 42,000 jobs posted online for cybersecurity engineers, almost 29,000 for cybersecurity analysts, 15,000-plus for specialists/technicians and 7,500 for IT auditors. Together, these postings constitute 59% of cybersecurity jobs online in 2014 ' all extremely technical in nature ' while postings for cybersecurity managers, directors and architects was only 24%. The demand in cybersecurity will be at the technical level, and managers and directors will need to come from technical disciplines in order to command credibility and leadership of teams of cybersecurity support and service delivery.

According to a number of job reports online, the average salary for a cybersecurity professional now exceeds $100,000 in annual base compensation and has been steadily increasing year-over-year. The 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that cybersecurity jobs take “25% longer to fill” than traditional IT roles. Additionally, cybersecurity jobs are growing at twice the rate of other IT-related positions and command a 15% salary premium. The demand is increasing and supply is not increasing fast enough, so inevitably, salaries will go up for cybersecurity professionals in order to attract and retain talent. Professionals in e-discovery have a short, but viable window of opportunity during the next five years to stay ahead of the curve, leverage their current skills and transition professionally to cybersecurity.

The best way to reinvent yourself as a cybersecurity professional is to go “the certification route” or “the degree direction.” Unlike for e-discovery, there are cybersecurity bachelor's and master's programs at many leading institutions across the world. In the United States, the list is long but includes: George Mason University, Utica College, Carnegie Mellon, Oklahoma State University, Colorado Technical University, St. John's University. The best long-term investment and way to fortify a meaningful transition into a relatively different discipline is to get a degree. An important sidebar: Make certain the school you attend is accredited. Seek out graduates from that program. Ask about their experience during their degree program and their assistance (or lack thereof) with post-degree employment or relationship brokerage. For the less patient and perhaps less certain aspiring cybersecurity professional, there are a number of certifications you can pursue to get your foot in the door and/or determine if cyber is the right reinvention for you.

The foundational certification that all cybersecurity professionals share is CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional). This certification, however, requires a minimum of five years of information security experience. If you do not already have these five years, start positioning yourself at your current employer to get them. Often, especially at law firms, there are overlapping shared responsibilities between departments like IT, e-discovery and InfoSec which cover tasks related to cybersecurity. Volunteer to assist on projects related to these disciplines within your firm. This may include things involving vulnerability assessments, cloud-solution implementation, identity management and more. Seek out relationships with partners and associates who reside in the aforementioned Privacy and Data Breach practice groups. Find ways to get exposure and skills to qualify you as you study for the CISSP.

If this is too temporally epic, consider the “gateway certification” for e-discovery professionals transitioning to cybersecurity: EnCase or EnCE. The one skill that overlaps in the Venn diagram for e-discovery and cybersecurity talent is the forensic collection of data, typically using Guidance's EnCase. If you can collect data ' specifically on mobile devices ' you can begin the shift almost instantly. Large consultancies and cyberservice providers need talent to assist with data breach and incident response who know how to collect data. Niche skill note: Cellebrite is becoming more and more valued by hiring managers in combination with EnCase, specifically for burgeoning cybersecurity professionals. This “gateway certification” in forensics, however, still requires the transitioning employee to start at the bottom of the food chain and work their way up. This will not work as easily for the higher-level professional looking for a leadership role in moving from e-discovery to cyber.

Up and In

This article does not intend to suggest that e-discovery professionals need to involve themselves in cybersecurity to survive. However, in order to thrive and drive decisions, find new challenges, stay increasingly relevant or attain greater financial mobility, cybersecurity is a clear path with potential for the right individuals. Cybersecurity, as an industry, boasts more credible certifications that qualify individuals for jobs available in its market than e-discovery ever has or will. There is an opportunity to diversify your skills in the areas in which you want exposure, whether on the front end of cyber, in infrastructure or breach prevention, or the back end in incident response, and employers are willing to pay top dollar for top talent. Just as e-discovery was 10 years ago, cyber is a fractured and new industry with abundant opportunity.

Jared Michael Coseglia is the founder and president of TRU Staffing Partners (www.trustaffing partners.com) and co-founder of TRU Cyber. He can be reached at [email protected].

Electronic discovery professionals should consider a future where their current skills no longer merit the salaries they are accustomed to commanding. The current talents and knowledge bases that allow for professional leverage or vertical mobility in today's e-discovery job market still have, and will always have, immense value to their employers. However, the growing reality for a large constituency of emerging and veteran e-discovery professionals is that employers will not need ' or be able ' to compensate the professional population with premiums in salary to maintain their human capital, whether they are growing organically or replacing from attrition. For individuals in e-discovery with a “show me the money” mentality about their career or for veterans looking for stability (perhaps positioning for retirement at their current or next and final employer), the ability to reinvent yourself and redefine your expertise as something more valuable and less commoditized is no longer a luxury; it is a requirement.

Why Try To Redefine

There are several factors that have pushed the commoditization of e-discovery to finally begin to affect the salaries of those who work in the market.

Consolidation

The vendors are getting bigger. We have seen that 2015 was another landmark year for acquisition in e-discovery: Inventus' buy of Unified and Kooby LLP; Ubic's purchase of Evolve; Epiq grabbing Iris Data Services; DTI absorbing Merrill Inc.; and even TRU Staffing Partners acquiring The Kennett Group and forming the TRU Cyber division. As the larger e-discovery vendors get larger, they will require more people at lower prices in order to maintain coverage both geographically and for the sheer volume in their e-discovery business dealings. Conversely (yet similarly), smaller vendors will need to pay less compensation because their pricing is usually lower than big vendors, they have less overhead, and they need to price to compete. This year saw more hiring, but at lower salaries and for fewer employers. This is good news for newcomers in e-discovery, but challenging for everyone else ' including employers.

Certification

Certification means little financially in e-discovery, but a great deal in terms of professional growth. Even the once elusive Relativity Certified Administrator (RCA) credential is experiencing slowly diminishing instant financial returns for individuals in e-discovery. Where having an RCA once commanded a speedy bump in pay when transitioning employers, the RCA has now become more of a requirement to get seen by some employers. The certification is still wholly credible, so much so that having one might be the reason you get the job over someone else. But the premiums in compensation paid to RCAs in 2014 and 2015 will not continue in 2016 and beyond. Instead, combinations of Relativity-based certifications will determine the bidding value on an employee in e-discovery sight-unseen when working for exclusively Relativity-focused vendors and consultancies, which is most of them.

Shrinking Job Market

For e-discovery professionals who only want to work at law firms or corporations, there were fewer openings at the Am Law 100 in 2015 than in the three years prior. Those roles also take up to 10 times as long to fill. Firms are interviewing seven to 10 people for an open role, compared with vendors who typically interview three to four before making a decision. Firms are also hiring less e-discovery talent at the analyst level. Those jobs are going to vendors. Firms are now hiring fewer project managers as they are not experiencing the same level of attrition as in years past, or they demand in-house arrangements with the growth of master service agreements. Additionally, firms are billing their clients less hourly to compete with vendors offering the same services directly to their corporate clients. All of this is driving salaries down or laterally in law firms and making law firms more risk-adverse to hiring the wrong fit for their litigation support staff.

As e-discovery becomes commoditized at every level, including employment, there will be increasingly limited opportunities for vertical mobility beyond project management for professionals in the space. However, with the focus on the right reinvention of professional skills and ambitions, a world of opportunity awaits in a new high demand, high impact sector of the legal and/or technology world: cybersecurity.

Why Cyber for Lawyers

Cybersecurity law, which for the purposes of this article fully encompasses privacy, data breach and response planning, is a sector that is showing increasing demand for talent and salary potential for practicing attorneys.

Between 2004 and 2008, many e-discovery professionals expected the Am Law 100 to develop practice groups that were specifically focused on e-discovery services. There are some groups like this, including Paul Weiner's at Littler, Scott Carlson's at Seyfarth, and perhaps the eData group at Morgan Lewis. Data privacy and protection, however, has evolved into a separate, clearly defined practice group within the multitudes of law firms globally. BakerHostetler's Privacy and Data Breach Protection practice group led by Gerald Ferguson and Theodore Kobus III, Miriam Wugmeister of Morrison Foerster, Christopher Wolf at Hogan Lovells, Mary Ellen Callahan of Jenner & Block and Jones Day's Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection practice group, led by Jeffrey Rabkin, are just some growing practices to watch in 2016 and beyond.

There is also opportunity in this explosive practice area to become a young rainmaker ' something elusive in more traditional, established practice groups. Cybersecurity is an area where computer savvy and experience, specifically in a relatable discipline like e-discovery, make for a credible and desirable counsel. Relationships that mid-level and senior associates have maintained over the years are now moving into leadership positions in corporate America, and are often in decision-making roles. There is also an association of “youth” to cybersecurity, giving the sales-savvy associate social opportunities to win business through professional networking, social networking, and calculated visibility internally within their firms.

The main area of focus for practicing attorneys in cyber will include governance and compliance. This covers responsibilities like understanding NIST, developing cybersecurity frameworks, negotiating with regulators, incident response planning and BYOD mobile policies and best practices. There is a wealth of certifications that these attorneys and practitioners share and seek: CGEIT, CIPP, CRISC, CSX, GSEC, GSNA, CISSP, CCFP, HCISSP, CCISO, ENSA, CIPT or CIPM. This laundry list seems intimidating at a glance. The CIPP (Certified Information Privacy Professional) remains the best baseline cert to pursue for the practicing attorney as the focus will be on privacy. A key hint to rapid mobility: Seek the international CIPP certifications as the laws on privacy are different and the more you understand the global impact and implications of privacy, the greater your employability.

Why Cyber for Techs

The reinvention of technical e-discovery professionals into cybersecurity professionals might be the hardest of all, but this is where most (60%) of the opportunities will be both within and outside of legal. A recent survey by Burning Glass, “Job Market Intelligence: Cybersecurity Jobs, 2015,” shows that in 2014 there were over 42,000 jobs posted online for cybersecurity engineers, almost 29,000 for cybersecurity analysts, 15,000-plus for specialists/technicians and 7,500 for IT auditors. Together, these postings constitute 59% of cybersecurity jobs online in 2014 ' all extremely technical in nature ' while postings for cybersecurity managers, directors and architects was only 24%. The demand in cybersecurity will be at the technical level, and managers and directors will need to come from technical disciplines in order to command credibility and leadership of teams of cybersecurity support and service delivery.

According to a number of job reports online, the average salary for a cybersecurity professional now exceeds $100,000 in annual base compensation and has been steadily increasing year-over-year. The 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that cybersecurity jobs take “25% longer to fill” than traditional IT roles. Additionally, cybersecurity jobs are growing at twice the rate of other IT-related positions and command a 15% salary premium. The demand is increasing and supply is not increasing fast enough, so inevitably, salaries will go up for cybersecurity professionals in order to attract and retain talent. Professionals in e-discovery have a short, but viable window of opportunity during the next five years to stay ahead of the curve, leverage their current skills and transition professionally to cybersecurity.

The best way to reinvent yourself as a cybersecurity professional is to go “the certification route” or “the degree direction.” Unlike for e-discovery, there are cybersecurity bachelor's and master's programs at many leading institutions across the world. In the United States, the list is long but includes: George Mason University, Utica College, Carnegie Mellon, Oklahoma State University, Colorado Technical University, St. John's University. The best long-term investment and way to fortify a meaningful transition into a relatively different discipline is to get a degree. An important sidebar: Make certain the school you attend is accredited. Seek out graduates from that program. Ask about their experience during their degree program and their assistance (or lack thereof) with post-degree employment or relationship brokerage. For the less patient and perhaps less certain aspiring cybersecurity professional, there are a number of certifications you can pursue to get your foot in the door and/or determine if cyber is the right reinvention for you.

The foundational certification that all cybersecurity professionals share is CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional). This certification, however, requires a minimum of five years of information security experience. If you do not already have these five years, start positioning yourself at your current employer to get them. Often, especially at law firms, there are overlapping shared responsibilities between departments like IT, e-discovery and InfoSec which cover tasks related to cybersecurity. Volunteer to assist on projects related to these disciplines within your firm. This may include things involving vulnerability assessments, cloud-solution implementation, identity management and more. Seek out relationships with partners and associates who reside in the aforementioned Privacy and Data Breach practice groups. Find ways to get exposure and skills to qualify you as you study for the CISSP.

If this is too temporally epic, consider the “gateway certification” for e-discovery professionals transitioning to cybersecurity: EnCase or EnCE. The one skill that overlaps in the Venn diagram for e-discovery and cybersecurity talent is the forensic collection of data, typically using Guidance's EnCase. If you can collect data ' specifically on mobile devices ' you can begin the shift almost instantly. Large consultancies and cyberservice providers need talent to assist with data breach and incident response who know how to collect data. Niche skill note: Cellebrite is becoming more and more valued by hiring managers in combination with EnCase, specifically for burgeoning cybersecurity professionals. This “gateway certification” in forensics, however, still requires the transitioning employee to start at the bottom of the food chain and work their way up. This will not work as easily for the higher-level professional looking for a leadership role in moving from e-discovery to cyber.

Up and In

This article does not intend to suggest that e-discovery professionals need to involve themselves in cybersecurity to survive. However, in order to thrive and drive decisions, find new challenges, stay increasingly relevant or attain greater financial mobility, cybersecurity is a clear path with potential for the right individuals. Cybersecurity, as an industry, boasts more credible certifications that qualify individuals for jobs available in its market than e-discovery ever has or will. There is an opportunity to diversify your skills in the areas in which you want exposure, whether on the front end of cyber, in infrastructure or breach prevention, or the back end in incident response, and employers are willing to pay top dollar for top talent. Just as e-discovery was 10 years ago, cyber is a fractured and new industry with abundant opportunity.

Jared Michael Coseglia is the founder and president of TRU Staffing Partners (www.trustaffing partners.com) and co-founder of TRU Cyber. He can be reached at [email protected].