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.

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.

Here’s a more detailed overview of our LitWorks Certified Litigation Support Professional training class… let us know if you have questions. The next class is scheduled for April 20 – 23, 2010. Register here.

Attendees will learn:

• Litigation Management Concepts
• Discovery Project Management Methodology
• How to Assist Case Teams with Responding to Electronic Discovery Requests

Workshops Include:

• The Corporate Perspective – Litigation Readiness Planning & Execution: Every corporations’ business model is different so asking questions about how your firm’s clients manage ESI is increasingly important. We will discuss what information LSPs should know in order to make the best recommendations for how data will be managed in litigation later in the discovery process
• Cool Tools & Technology Overview: Our training program is vendor & technology agnostic, however we will discuss and provide attendees with information regarding the role technology plays in litigation, the types of litigation technology available and discuss what is bleeding edge vs. tried & true technology.
• Introduction To Electronic Discovery Best Practices & Concepts: Our advanced attendees will appreciate the “train the trainer” delivery of this topic while our less experienced attendees will gain a strong foundation of what makes e-discovery so special… in the end, it’s all just discovery.
• Managing & Responding To Discovery Requests: LSPs often participate on case teams in a consultative role, this workshop teaches how to address technology questions at every stage of the discovery workflow
• Litigation (EDD) Case & Project Management: Attendees will learn how to apply project management methodologies and traditional litigation support case management techniques
• Managing Internal & External Resources: Attendees will learn how to assess their internal organization resources and identify, manage and build relationships with both internal & external resources.
• Defining The Role & Responsibilities Of Litigation Support Professionals: This discussion addresses the varied structures of litigation support departments and the role LSPs play in law firms, government agencies and corporate legal departments
• Overview of Traditional Litigation Support Techniques & Strategies: Paper still exists in discovery and it would be almost negligent not to train today’s litigation support professionals on what to do with it in managing discovery. We address how many of the best practices developed over the last 25 years in paper discovery can still be applied to litigation projects today.
• Database Design Methodology: LitWorks is software agnostic and we believe that the tools are not as important as the process. In this workshop, we define the process and goals of the database to learn how to make the best technology application decisions for our case teams
• Strategies For Managing Transcripts: Attendees will learn about the various ways transcripts are used in litigation and trial, how to manage them and make them available to case teams for searching and reporting
• The Lifecycle Of A Matter: Many of our attendees come from an IT background so we make sure we start class on the first day with an overview of what happens in litigation, the objectives of the case teams and how technology can be applied to every phase in the litigation lifecycle.
• Effective Billing, Cost Containment & Cost Recovery Best Practices: Discussed in greater detail in our manager & director level class, we provide an overview of goals, objectives and best practices that are working in the industry today

Click here to view the embedded video.

How did you get started in litigation support? We’d love to hear your story.

Here is the video and a few notes on my key points:

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Define your learning objectives
  • What do you already know
  • What experience do you already have
  • What do you expect to get as a ROI for training
• Define your learning style:   Self directed or classroom
  • Self directed
    • Requires discipline, passion to learn
    • Blogs / podcasts
    • Google alert
    • Free vendor sponsored webinars (live or on-demand)
    • Vendor whitepapers
    • Requires ability to discern marketing from reality/ grain of salt
    • Networking events – targeted conversations
    • Magazines like Litigation Support Today and Law Technology News
    • Specific questions for your mentor – don’t waste their time & yours waiting for them to tell you what you think you need to know
  • Classroom
    • Still requires discipline but you can get all of the information at once or in a small period of time
    • Teacher / trainer
    • SME
    • Small group v large group
    • Conference v seminar v true classroom
• Training Others – If you are the trainer
  • Do you go to a class or seminar with the “train the trainer” mentality? Be intentional
  • Networking with others
  • Assess the learning style of your team
  • Define the learning goals for your team – what do they need to learn this year?
  • E-Learning – does your firm have formal training dept and resources that you can develop for or work with training team as an SME for them to develop courses
  • Intranet
  • Blogs, wikis
  • Knowledge management
  • A collection of resources based on your research

• The Gartner Report continues to point to an expanding e-discovery market that is simultaneously contracting. That’s because the part of the market that is contracting is that which relies on the “legacy” technology while the expanding areas include geography, technology and value expectations management.
• Clearwell offers a “Top 10” list of predictions that includes addressing the skills gap for project management. Clearwell’s predictions are also available here as a slide show – suggested use: schedule a lunch & learn for your paralegals/ attorneys where you discuss industry trends. Start with this slideshow but create your own slides with key points from a few of these blogs & articles listed here.
• Trends for contract attorneys that may also prove to be trends for litigation support professionals as well from The Posse List. We’re paying special attention to the project management trend. What are our options for achieving quality in e-discovery?.
• Many bloggers see early case assessment, searching technology and project management in their crystal balls. We like Charles Skamser’s use of the word “legacy” to describe how we used to do things versus how things are going to be done in the immediate future. That is a huge point as we transition to a new decade that we should be aware of… there will still be firms who have invested heavily in what is now “legacy” technology who will have to determine whether or not the newer technology and methodologies for case management are “must haves.”
• Chris Dale from the UK offers his perspective on what’s coming in 2010 here. It’s interesting that he sees a narrowing of the idea of what is “relevant” in litigation towards attorneys cooperating on what “is really necessary for the facts to be found and justice to be done.”
• Pivotal Discovery posted their predictions via guest blogger, Doug Kaminski from Clearwell Systems. Again, project management, searching and cooperation are viewed with increasing importance in 2010. He additionally highlights the pricing model changes that are forthcoming to our industry. This is the value / ROI question that many corporate legal departments have when it comes to paying for e-discovery.  He also mentions “insourcing” which is something that we took note of here at LitWorks in 2009. Many of our students are doing a considerable volume of ESI processing themselves within the law firm environment with calculated thresholds to determine when to involve an outside vendor. This is a topic that is definitely open for lots of discussion. Feel free to leave your thoughts on this or any of the other predictions for 2010 below as a comment.
• Ari Kaplan’s summary of the last major e-discovery conference of 2009 not only reviews the highlights of this past year but gives us previews of what’s coming next. As others have suggested and as we teach here at LitWorks, it’s not about the technology… it’s about the process. Case teams will have to take control of their workflow and understand how the technology can be used to achieve their litigation strategy.
• Your firm’s IT director may be thinking along these lines.
• Some companies may be upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange. If so, then this article will help you with managing expectations for collection.
• Another list of 2010 predictions of interest to your IT director or even your firm’s clients can be found here.
• If reading all of the blogs collected here is not for you, then check out this podcast.

As more bloggers post their predictions for 2010, we’ll add them to the list. If you come across any, please post to our comments area below or join the discussion… what do you think the bloggers have missed? What do you see as the Top 5 topics that will important to your firm, corporation or government agency?