The LitWorks Certified Litigation Support Professional Training is a four-day course offering industry best practices learned through hands-on experience, networking with peers, and reviewing leading software tools. The course is designed for professionals with one to five years of litigation technology support experience or for litigation paralegals, document review attorneys and legal IT professionals.
This course is being offered:
• February 21-24, 2012 (Atlanta)
• May 8-11, 2012 (Washington, D.C.)

The LitWorks Certified Litigation Support Project Manager Training is a three-day course that focuses on sharpening litigation support project management skills and techniques. Attendees receive practical resources and tools, including checklists and templates that can be immediately applied to daily work as a litigation support project manager.
This course is being offered:
• January 17-19, 2012 (Atlanta)
• March 27-29, 2012 (Washington, D.C.)
• June 19-21, 2012 (Chicago)

LitWorks is among the industry’s premier providers of formal training courses specifically developed for litigation support professionals. 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 consulting and training services.

About DTI
Document Technologies, Inc. (DTI) is the nation’s largest independent provider of facilities management and discovery solutions, servicing clients in 27 markets across the U.S. DTI delivers end-to-end electronic discovery solutions, including pre-litigation readiness consulting, forensics, data acquisition, processing, and an array of hosting platforms to meet a variety of litigation support needs. DTI clients include both top law firms and Fortune 500 corporations nationwide. For more information, visit www.DTIglobal.com.

Contact
Thomas E. Bonk
Vice President of Professional Services
Document Technologies, Inc.
Ph: 312-739-9999
Email: tbonk@dtiglobal.com

The LitWorks™ Certified Litigation Support Professional Training is a four-day course offering industry best practices learned through hands-on experience, networking with peers, and reviewing leading software tools. The course is designed for professionals with one to five years of litigation technology support experience or for litigation paralegals, document review attorneys and legal IT professionals. This course is being offered: 

• January 17-20, 2011 (Atlanta)
• February 28 – March 3, 2011 (Atlanta)
• May 9-12, 2011 (Chicago)
• June 20-23, 2011 (Atlanta)
• Additional 2011 dates TBA 

The LitWorks™ Certified Litigation Support Project Manager Training is a three-day course that focuses on sharpening litigation support project management skills and techniques. Attendees receive practical resources and tools, including checklists and templates that can be immediately applied to their daily work as a litigation support project manager. This course is being offered: 

• March 21-23, 2011 (Atlanta)
• Additional 2011 dates TBA 

LitWorks is among the industry’s premier providers of formal training courses specifically developed for litigation support professionals. The company also offers a Certified Litigation Support Manager Training course that focuses on a mix of business skills, litigation support, e-discovery and technology, and is designed for litigation support supervisors, managers and directors looking to build or grow their departments to better compete in today’s litigation environment. 2011 dates for this course offering are to be determined. 

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 consulting and training services. 

About DTI

Document Technologies, Inc. (DTI) is the nation’s largest independent provider of facilities management services and comprehensive discovery solutions, servicing clients through offices in more than 20 markets across the U.S. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, DTI delivers end-to-end solutions for electronic discovery, including forensics, data acquisition, processing, and an array of hosting platforms to meet a variety of litigation support needs. In September 2010, DTI acquired e-discovery industry pioneer Daticon EED to further strengthen its position as a leading discovery services provider. DTI clients include both top law firms and Fortune 500 corporations nationwide. For more information, visit www.DTIGlobal.com. 

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.

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.

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.

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

Lineup includes a special one-day e-discovery workshop in Chicago

ATLANTA – February 24, 2010 – Document Technologies, Inc. (DTI), the nation’s largest independent provider of legal support services and document outsourcing, and its wholly-owned training company LitWorks™, today announced LitWorks’ 2010 spring course schedule along with a special training event being held next month in Chicago, IL. The E-discovery Management Workshop will take place on March 23, 2010 at DTI’s newest Regional Technology Center in the heart of downtown Chicago by LitWorks’ Training Director Erika Santiago.

The one-day Chicago seminar is designed for litigation support professionals and litigation paralegals and will focus on developing project management skills for electronic discovery. Participants will learn how to plan and manage e-discovery projects, cost containment and budgeting techniques, and develop a checklist for scoping and change management.

Additionally LitWorks, the first and most comprehensive training company dedicated to developing and sharing best practices in the litigation support industry, is offering the following two courses this spring:

• LitWorks Certified Litigation Support Manager Training is being offered March 9-11, 2010. The three-day course focuses on a mix of business skills, litigation support, e-discovery and technology and is offered to litigation support supervisors, managers, and directors seeking to build or grow their departments to better compete in today’s competitive litigation environment.

• LitWorks Certified Litigation Support Professional Training will be offered April 20-23, 2010. This is a four-day course offering industry best practices learned through hands-on experience, networking with peers, and reviewing leading software tools. The course is designed for professionals with one to five years of litigation technology support experience, or for litigation paralegals, document review attorneys and legal IT professionals.

To register for these or any upcoming LitWorks training courses, visit www.LitWorks.net.

LitWorks is among the industry’s premier providers of formal training courses specifically developed for litigation support professionals. The company also offers a three-day Certified Litigation Support Project Manager Training course, focusing specifically on project management skills. Last year LitWorks also announced the addition of custom Web-based training courses for law firms and corporate legal departments.

DTI delivers a full range of electronic data discovery solutions including data collection, processing, Web hosting and review, along with traditional paper-based litigation support services and comprehensive facilities management services at locations throughout the U.S.

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 consulting and training services.

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 collection, processing and an array of hosting platforms to meet a variety of litigation support needs. The company also provides facilities management and traditional paper-based litigation support services. DTI services both top law firms and Fortune 500 clients. For more information, visit www.DTIGlobal.com.

to develop your project management skills for electronic discovery

Who should attend? Litigation Support Professionals, Litigation Paralegals

Participants will learn:

• How to plan & manage e‐discovery projects
• Cost containment & budgeting techniques
• To develop a check list for scoping & change management

When? Tuesday, March 23, 2010 – 8:30am – 3:30pm

Where? Document Technologies, Inc. – Chicago

105 West Adams Street, Suite 1200
Chicago, IL 60603
312.739.9999 phone | 312.739.0899 fax | chicago@dtiglobal.com

Tuition? $350 per attendee

For more information or to register for this event, please send an email to esantiago@litworks.net or contact us here.

Workshop Schedule

• 8:30 am – 9:00 am – Networking Breakfast
• 9:00 am – 12:00 pm – Electronic Discovery Project Management Seminar
• 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Networking Lunch
• 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Electronic Discovery Project Management Exercises
• 3:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Review / Q & A