White Papers
Over the past 50 years the legal industry has experienced an unprecedented shift from a tightly knit profession into a global enterprise driven by the traditional business motivations of growth and profit. The current economic downturn has caused the industry to reexamine the way lawyers practice, law schools educate and clients relate to their counsel. This report is the first in a series that combines insights from a cross-section of the legal community, ranging from the deans of law schools and prominent practitioners, to in-house counsel, law professors and other industry experts, to examine whether the profession is experiencing a short term blip or if it is in the middle of a paradigm shift that will materially change the way law is practiced.
Corporations are increasing their level of involvement in the electronic discovery process to reduce cost and risk. In fact, more than half of the respondents to a recent survey of corporate counsel said they are in-sourcing more aspects of discovery than in previous years to control costs and enhance management of the process.
In a January speech, the general counsel of Cisco Systems stated, "the most fundamental misalignment of interests is between clients, who are driven to manage expenses, and law firms, which are compensated by the hour." His point highlights the ever-present challenge of corporate administrators to weigh the costs of risk management against the practical aspects of controlling them.
DiscoverReady's CEO and co-founder, Jim Wagner publishes an innovative white paper highlighting best practices for Native File Review & Production. This document is a companion to the Web Seminar on the same subject.
Historically, in the practice of law, it is quite common for tasks initially performed within a law firm or legal department – often for an elevated price – to eventually become ripe for an outsourced solution. From making photocopies to scanning pages to coding documents for the discovery process, tasks once thought to be solely law firm or legal department activities are being performed by outside vendors with greater efficiency and lower costs.
When a nationally-recognized investment firm (the Fund) received a pressing inquiry from the SEC, the principals of the Fund engaged a top law firm (the Firm) to guide them through the process. The Firm’s immediate challenge was how to digest a substantial volume of client email in a matter of weeks in order to prepare the Fund’s management team for imminent SEC depositions.
Discovery, though an essential part of the legal process, has increasingly become the bane of existence for many clients and law firms. Recent case law provides numerous examples of matters decided not by the underlying merits, but by missteps in the discovery process.
Although the law of electronic discovery – both with respect to statutory requirements and case law precedent – is evolving rapidly, one thing has long been clear: electronic documents1 are just as discoverable as any piece of paper. That fact is increasingly relevant, as each day brings a higher percentage of documents created electronically, a higher percentage of documents that never get printed out, and a higher number of critical communications, often with important attachments, that are transmitted by email or instant messaging.
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