Being proactive can be as simple as a production strategy meeting with your case team as early in the lifecycle of the matter as possible or taking the “edu-marketing” approach where you and your litigation support team address document production best practices for your firm at a lunch n learn training session for your paralegals & attorneys.

Proactive Preparation:

Define your firm’s production format best practices based on the technology you have available. Draft a “cheat sheet” for your attorneys to take with them to discovery conferences.

EDRM and elawexchange.com both provide direction and definitions:

• E-Discovery Paralegal Checklist
• EDRM Guide to Document Productions
• Rule 34 & Form of Production

Resources for consulting with your case teams regarding document productions:

• Ralph Losey video: “Paper or Plastic” – a fun discussion of production formats
• An example of what NOT to do can be found here

We discuss document productions, the best formats and production technology management in our LitWorks CLSP and CLSPM classes.

To register for the event, please visit The American Society of Digital Forensics & eDiscovery website here.

The topic will be:

“Developing Standard Operating Procedures for Managing eDiscovery & Digital Forensics”

Erika will also moderate the Association of Litigation Support Professionals – Atlanta Chapter meeting on June 16th. The expert panel discussion topic will be

“Cost Containment Strategies & Best Practices in E-Discovery”

To register for this event, please visit the ALSP website here.

Emory University Paralegal Instructor Cicely Barber joins LitWorks’ Erika Santiago to present introduction and practical application of basic methodologies

ATLANTA – June 1, 2010 –LitWorks™, a DTI company, and the first and most comprehensive organization dedicated to developing and sharing best practices in the litigation support industry, announces a special one-day e-discovery seminar for legal professionals. LitWorks’ Training Director Erika Santiago will be joined by Cicely Barber, a recognized expert in paralegal training and litigation management. The unique one-day seminar will be held on Wednesday, June 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at LitWorks’ Atlanta training facility located at Two Ravinia Drive, Suite 850.

The event is designed for paralegals or legal professionals of all levels who are seeking to learn the basics about electronic discovery. The seminar will include:

• An overview of discovery in both federal and state courts
• An introduction to electronic discovery
• How to apply project and case management methodologies to electronic discovery
• Careers in electronic discovery

Cicely Barber is the owner and principle of Litigation Training Solutions LLC. Ms. Barber has been involved in legal education for several years, and civil litigation since she was licensed to practice law in 2000. Prior to attending law school Barber received an ABA-approved paralegal certificate with a specialty in civil litigation. She is a paralegal educator at Emory University and has taught at Clayton State College & University and Kaplan University in Florida.

LitWorks is among the industry’s premier providers of formal training courses specifically developed for litigation support professionals. The company offers a Certified Litigation Support Professional Training course, as well as a Certified Litigation Support Project Manager Training course and a Certified Litigation Support Manager Training course. Last year, LitWorks also added custom Web-based training courses for law firms and corporate legal departments.

The registration fee for the e-discovery seminar is $125 per person, which includes lunch and parking. To register for these or any upcoming LitWorks training courses, visit www.LitWorks.net.

About LitWorks™

LitWorks™, a DTI Company, is a leading provider of comprehensive training programs for litigation support professionals in AmLaw 200 law firms and Fortune 500 corporate legal departments. For more than five years, LitWorks™ has been dedicated to developing and sharing best practices in the litigation support industry through a variety of training programs.

About DTI

Document Technologies, Inc. (DTI) is the nation’s largest independent provider of legal support services and document outsourcing, servicing clients through offices in 22 markets across the U.S. DTI delivers end-to-end solutions for electronic discovery, including forensics, data acquisition, processing, and an array of hosting platforms to meet the various litigation support needs of top law firms and Fortune 500 clients. For more information, visit www.DTIGlobal.com.

Contact

We used to joke around that it was it difficult to get fired from a litigation support job. Today’s legal market environment tells us it’s not a joke anymore. Law firms, government agencies and corporate legal departments have been making cuts for the last 18 months but according to The Cowen Group’s recent job survey, we are on the upswing again with “60 Percent of Legal Industry Expects to Hire eDiscovery Staff in Next Six Months.”  However, for those who have suffered through the downsizing and the changes that have occurred in the legal economy, it’s not easy to forget the anxiety and trauma. According to the article “Misery Loves Company: Team morale has taken a beating – but it’s not too late to prevent a mass mutiny,” found in the April 2010 PM Network magazine, the author outlines the warning signs that should have you concerned about your litigation support project management team:

• Tension or anxiety in the workplace
• Excessive gossip & rumors
• Isolationism & territorialism

It’s never too late to fix things… some causes will be within your control while others will not but you have to be vigilant in protecting the fabric of your team.  Here are some ways to improve morale and get your litigation support / e-discovery project management team focused on their work again:

• Communication – keep team members in the loop, pay attention to non-verbal feedback and create an “open door” policy … don’t leave room for team members to assume the worst
• Training to reduce skills gaps (if you don’t have a training budget here are some ideas)
• Honesty, Consistency and Respect

Our litigation support manager class addresses team building and mentoring for departmental success. The following excerpt from an article I found online highlights some of the concepts and ideas we discuss in our class (the entire article can be found here).

Invest both time and effort in your staff members. Human nature and office politics will always create problems; be there to listen and try to defuse the situation. Always strive to have all parties leave the conversation feeling they’ve gained something, even if it was just an ear to hear them out.

Ask questions and learn your staff members’ personal goals. It’s a little like asking, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Help define their goals, if necessary, and work to align them with departmental and institutional goals. Then invest the time and effort to help your staff attain those goals. People work better when they are doing something they like.

Take the time to jointly define departmental goals. Our five-year self-study really helped us in this respect. We put forth the effort to identify our mission and goals and, even more importantly, our strengths and weaknesses. We then went to work on our weaknesses as a team, and we continue to do so.

Realize that not everyone will be happy with your department’s services. When the criticism comes, back up your staff in front of others. If there is a real problem, resolve it privately with your staff. Most problems arise from a lack of communication that has led to a misunderstanding or a bad working relationship.

Everyone has limits. Recognize those limits and work within them. This is tricky because there is a fine line between holding people back and letting them work within their limitations. Push a little and see how staff members handle their own limitations. Talk with them, find out how you can help, determine their attitudes. If the work still doesn’t get done, you’ve probably hit someone’s limit. A more difficult situation is when someone stretches beyond his or her capabilities and doesn’t recognize it. Trying to resolve that situation without disillusioning a hard worker can be a delicate matter.

Invest not only time and effort, but money. In our industry, training–including conference attendance and structured courses–is critical and well worth the time and money. Not only does training hone skills and teach tools your employees need to do their jobs, it improves morale and self-esteem. Paying for training shows people they are valued by the organization. Most universities include travel and training in the same budget line, and that is the line that is most vulnerable when budgets are cut. Still, it’s good practice to put as much money in your training budget as possible, even if you have to rob your supply budget to do it. Two years ago, I had a $5,000 budget for training and travel for 19 employees. Last year I increased it to $10,000 and this year I upped it to $20,000; we set a departmental goal to get everyone to at least one training session or conference this year.

What if my organization doesn’t have a training budget this year? Training does not have to be expensive. Maintain a library of resources like the ones found here.

As a manager, you have a tremendous impact on the enthusiasm or lack thereof of your team. This article quotes one of my favorite American authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson who once wrote ”nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” The big kids eventually realized that if they were going to have fun, we all had to have fun so they took the time to “mentor” and “train” me to play Monopoly with them. When your litigation support & e-discovery project management team feel confident in their skills and abilities their enthusiasm for the work increases.  Their morale improves. Their productivity improves.

One of the most discussed topics in e-discovery articles today is that most organizations do not have enough knowledgeable people prepared to manage an e-discovery project effectively. It’s been my experience as a trainer that most organizations do not have a solid succession plan in place for litigation support career paths at their firm and so when one person leaves, they must start over. This is the essence of today’s blog post as we discuss the 5 stages of workplace learning. Learning about litigation support and electronic discovery is an ongoing process that should include more than just your current litigation support department team.

Working is learning. A best practice in firms that have successful litigation support teams is to identify paralegals, project clerks, IT and other staff who have an affinity or interest in litigation technology well before they need them on the team and begin training them in advanced concepts and techniques necessary to engage in litigation support. Litigation Support Training involves both technical software instruction and project or case management workflow instruction.

Many firms do not have a dedicated training resource for litigation support / e-discovery training. Most of what litigation support professionals learn is on their own via self directed training or social networking (linked in groups or twitter) which lead to blog posts and articles that provide some insight and clarity as to best practices. Software & technology training is a little different. More often than not, it will involve formal training from the software vendor or an approved “certified” trainer. Or software administrators learn collaboratively on the job from peers & colleagues, trial & error or asking questions on listservs and Linked In groups.

There are five stages according to a recent blog post by Jane Hart. They are outlined in her chart here:

“… some of the key mindset changes that will move organisations into Stage 5 are:

• recognising that working=learning; learning=working
• understanding that informal learning needs to be enabled, supported and encouraged – but not designed or managed
• “letting go”, so that there is a move from learner control to learner autonomy
• realising that autonomous, independent and inter-dependent, self-directed learners are essential  in an agile organization”

Jane describes in her blog post that learning is not an event but a process continues beyond the first stage classroom training. LitWorks provides formal classroom training for case & project management in e-discovery & litigation support.  LitWorks can be your “stage 1” resource but it shouldn’t stop here. How can you enable your litigation support team, attorneys, paralegals and IT staff to learn more about e-discovery and litigation support best practices? One way is by sending a couple of people to a formal training training class with the expectation that they will work with the rest of the team upon their return to build your organization’s best practices. Achieve a greater return on your training investment through encouraging your staff to attend industry networking events and conferences. This too will foster learner autonomy.

Another blogger expounds upon Jane’s original post with this updated version of her chart here:

The new chart adds an additional layer of focus in extending the importance and reality of informal learning while pointing out that leadership can control only about one-half of the learning evolution. I think this is true for litigation support and e-discovery learning. When I talk to our attorneys, paralegals and litigation support professionals, I hear the same complaint: the information available about e-discovery and technology is overwhelming! Where do I even start???

The five stage approach calls for classroom training first then eventually works its way to the work and learn stage. However, in our industry, what we typically do is start with stage 5 and work backwards. So our learning path usually ends in a classroom or instructor-led course for the software / technology information but the collaborative OJT happens as we get our feet wet. Often the “all-hands-on-deck” world of litigation support necessitates learning litigation technology and e-discovery best practices informally.

Today’s marketplace calls for us to modify our traditional approach to learning and be more proactive and flexible in how we achieve our learning objectives. In reviewing the five stages of workplace learning, I’ve outlined some practical ideas for implementing this learning model at your organization (feel free to start at stage 5 or at stage 1):

Classroom Learning

• LitWorks – project management & workflow

• Software & Technology – by developer approved certified trainer

E-learning

• Webinars – some are edu-marketing, some are simply educational
• Create e-discovery content for your learning management systems

Blended Learning

• Actively facilitate an on-demand webinar with your team where you stop and start the webinar to address questions & key points
• This can be a formal combination of e-learning and classroom learning activities

Social Learning

• LitSupport Yahoo Group
• Twitter
• LinkedIn Groups
• Blogs (participate by leaving comments)

Collaborative Learning / Working

• Supervisor or Peer directed learning
• This is not an event but rather a process
• Apprenticeship-like environment

Each of the five stages outlined above is essential to a well rounded workplace learning system. Actively developing the skills of everyone who bears responsibility for litigation technology and e-discovery best practices in your organization includes making sure they participate weekly in one of these five stages. LitWorks can be a part of your succession plan and a stage one resource for your organization.

This seminar is for legal professionals of all levels who want to learn about electronic discovery.  This seminar will present:

• an overview of discovery in the federal and state courts;
• an introduction to electronic discovery;
• how to apply project and case management methodologies to electronic discovery; and
• careers in electronic discovery.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

LitWorks – A DTI Company

Two Ravinia Drive, Suite 850

Atlanta, GA  30346

$125 per person

(includes lunch & parking)

R.S.V.P.  by May 26, 2010

SPACE IS LIMITED!

Contact : Cicely Barber, Esq.  |  770.309.4484  | cbarber@litigationtraining.com

For more information about LitWorks & Litigation Training Solutions LLC please visit:

www.litigationtraining.com | www.LitWorks.net

As a leader, have you created an environment that encourages your team to enhance their leadership skills? Do you regularly create opportunities to allow members of your team to take on leadership roles on projects?

Your success as a leader is closely tied to your ability to encourage and coach the people you lead to success. Over the years, I have observed that the most successful, empowered and productive litigation support managers are those who are able to delegate effectively and are not afraid of sharing information or building the skills of the team around them.

This video from Tech Republic highlights 5 ways you can lead your litigation support team to success.

1. Don’t provide all the answers

2. Align people with the stuff they are passionate about

3. Avoid throwing people under the bus

4. Build consensus by letting your team know WHY

5. Trust your people, and let them know it

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

- Jack Welch

• E-Lessons Learned
• K&L Gates – Electronic Discovery Law
• Arkfeld’s E-Law Exchange
• e-Discovery Team
• Quarles & Brady’s E-Discovery Bytes
• Post Process Blog  EDD Bibliography

There are many other sites that provide case law summaries, these are just a few.

Training Class:

• Before the Class
  • Review the course outline with your team and write down any major questions you would like to have answered by the instructor
  • Network with the other students in the class during breaks to learn more about how other organizations manage their cases and which tools they use and why
• After the Class
  • Review your training materials and the questions you had the instructor answer to create at least one 10- minute presentation for your team per day of class (so if the class was 3 days, that’s 3 presentations)
  • Be sure you stay in touch with your classmates and instructor as they will prove an excellent resource when questions arise in your work and you need answers from a trusted source
  • If you are attending one of our LitWorks classes, you’ll get a “Resource CD” full of great information you can copy to a shared drive and index like you would e-discovery so that it’s search-able.

Trade Show or Conference:

• Before the Conference
  • Identify the workshops and seminars that would be most beneficial to your team and plan your schedule around them
  • Identify the service providers and software vendors whose technology or service you are already using so that you can stop by and introduce yourself/ say “hello”
  • Identify the service providers and software vendors who have a product or service you would like to learn more about and schedule an appointment to meet with them when you’re not at a workshop or seminar
  • Prepare a list of questions for all of your vendor meetings that you would like to get answered
  • Take good notes during the workshops & seminars that you attend
  • Talk to / Network with other attendees after each seminar to get additional feedback on the topic
  • Introduce yourself to the speaker(s) and ask if it would be okay to send them an email with any follow up questions on today’s topic
  • Set up a Google Alert for the conference so that you will find any and all blog posts & press releases about the conference
• After the Conference
  • Download the conference materials, slide show and handout PDFs from the official conference site
  • Review the official conference blog & tweets to augment your notes
  • Review the sites & blogs collected / sent to you by Google about the conference
  • Summarize the topics that were important to your team and prepare at least 3  10-minute presentations w/n 45 days of the event
    • What new trends are out there?/ What’s the industry buzz?
    • What new features are available for the tools your organization uses? / What new tools/ technology is available?
    • Specific to your key research topics, summarize what you learned in the seminars & workshops

In today’s economy, everyone on your team may not be able to attend every conference or training session but hopefully, these tips will help you to maximize your investment and encourage the sharing of information.

- Ashley Moring