Litigation Support Staffing : The Cowen Group : Ediscovery Recruiters, Candidate Search, Practice Support, Position Placement

AMLAW Top 100 firm seeks a senior practice group/litigation support technical position. The candidate must possess a thorough knowledge of current hardware and software capabilities to implement, operate, and utilize computer systems for the support of all practice areas, as well as a high-level understanding of the litigation and e-discovery process. Strong leadership, teamwork, communication, organizational, business development, and project management skills required. Position also requires high-level knowledge of litigation support software (e.g. Concordance, LiveNote, CaseSoft products), and image management software.

 

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The Marketing Technology Manager will be responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining the Marketing technology systems; implementation of the firm's CRM (Client Relationship Management) system that manages the firm's client and prospect data, managing the technology requirements of the firm website and ad hoc marketing technology issues as they arise. This person will also be responsible for managing the content and organization of the firm’s client marketing and relationship database. The position requires strong interpersonal, analytical, and process management skills. Candidate should have desire to develop creative and innovative solutions to better manage and organize contact and relationship information.

Job Requirements:

Ideal candidate will have working knowledge of contact and relationship management systems. Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate well across all levels of management and especially with MIS, marketing and strategic decision-making partners. This person will be responsible for directing the client data generation, quality control and analysis process for the firm’s legal service offerings in order to create a comprehensive view of client preferences, choices, and behaviors. In order to ensure a highly effective and comprehensive database, this person must have a strong attention to detail and ability to monitor data for accuracy and integrity. Experience in legal industry and marketing/business development operations is desirable.

Data management activities include, but are not limited to:

• Security and ownership of relationship data
• Duplicate contact merge and cleanup
• Definition and management of contact-to-contact relationships
• Data segmentation and content enhancement
• Overall content quality assurance

Operational and marketing management activities will include:

• Development and management of media/publication events.
• Mailing list and marketing event management.
• Support, design and implementation of client profiling strategy.
• Report generation to facilitate overall marketing efforts.

Technical Skills:

• Experience with enterprise CRM database systems.
• Experience in supporting marketing efforts within professional service organizations.
• General understanding and familiarity of database functionality.
• MS Word Processing and mail merge functionality.

For immediate consideration, please send your resume to Jared Coseglia at jared@cowengroup.com For more information on how to grow your career in Litigation Support/eDiscovery visit www.cowengroup.com

 

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Major Law firm seeks a Practice Technology Analyst for its San Francisco Office. This position is responsible for many aspects of litigation support from the start of a case through trial proceedings.

Responsibilities

• Database creation and management using Concordance, image management and document productions using IPRO, transcript management using LiveNote and trial preparations using Sanction.
• Additional duties include: One-on-one end user training for Concordance, IPRO and LiveNote, video editing, document scanning using IPRO Scan-It.
• Creating and copying CD ROMs and DVDs; providing back up support to other offices when necessary; and providing first level technical support for litigation support applications.

Experience

• The qualified applicant should have a Bachelor's degree with at least one year of previous experience administering Concordance databases, IPRO imaging system and LiveNote. Recent experience with Sanction is desired.
• Willingness to work in a team environment and adhere to firm standards is a must. Excellent problem solving ability, verbal and written communication skills, able to work under strict deadlines and the ability to interact with all levels of staff and attorneys are also necessary.
• Ability to work independently in a production environment, flexibility for overtime and availability for occasional travel are essential.

For immediate consideration, please send your resume to Jared Coseglia at jared@cowengroup.com For more information on how to grow your career in Litigation Support/eDiscovery visit www.cowengroup.com 

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More and more corporate legal departments are taking control of their own e-discovery process, reflecting new concerns about spiraling costs and information control. And numerous other factors combine to make in-house data management and discovery a good alternative. Many of our corporate legal clients already have a wealth of technology talent in-house – plenty to handle most of the technical tasks required to become – and stay – defense-ready.

But the knowledge of how best to organize that talent belongs to a different job description. Litigation support leadership should not only have thorough understanding of current technology but also be able to coordinate in-house tech pros with a range of outside vendors. Effective litigation support leadership must also stay abreast of constantly evolving industry regulations, and be able to keep a clear channel of meaningful communication open between the in-house legal team and outside counsel. Effective lit support directors must have law firm experience.

Recent ediscovery debacles have heightened awareness of this pivotal position. But locating the right lit support professional for your particular environment can be a daunting undertaking. Many corporations remain exposed and vulnerable to unforeseen costs and liabilities, even with all systems "go" for in-house defense-readiness.

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Ok, so now you've got your fast car, and you're in the driver's seat, and you're way out in front where you belong -- but who's riding with you?

You gotta have the right guys riding shotgun when your competition is chasing you. Nowadays that means litigation support. And not just the technology, but the talent that goes with it -- i.e., the people who know how to make legal technology work for you in complex litigation matters, when your competition is gaining on you. Because it's NOT about the technology. It's about your PEOPLE. The people who keep you covered.

Smaller and smaller corporations and law firms are becoming more and more competitive as technology becomes more and more ubiquitous. Which means your competition will soon be chasing your clients, if they aren't already. These days a fully staffed, fully outfitted litigation support department is just the cost of keeping business.

What's more, firms are focusing more and more on driving revenue -- not counting paper clips -- because you can only cut so much cost, in the new-new cyber-tech workplace. But new clients just want litigation support that can get the job done, whether in-house or bundled with outside counsel. So you better have the tools AND the people -- or those guys gaining on you now will soon be stealing your market share too.

But here's the thing: When you build the right litigation technology capability, AND hire the right litigation support professionals to implement that technology, you'll be ensuring customer return, AND bringing in new business -- because you'll be the firm getting the job done for your clients.

That's litigation support -- riding shotgun, so you can stay out in front, where you belong.

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But try driving a Porsche! There was a time when the only way you could buy a Porsche was four-on-the-floor. Not because they couldn't make an automatic. Of course not; the standard-only Porsche has been the unequivocally intentional marketing ploy that preserved the rarefied Porsche Driving Experience for the Driving Elite -- i.e., that proud demographic that can drive a fast standard transmission.

But times change, and with the times, the demands of the marketplace. By the end of the 80's, with a growing constituency of would-be Porsche drivers -- but for the stick shift -- Porsche found valuable new market share in producing the fully automatic 911 Carrera 2. Porsche found plenty of other ways to satisfy its traditional constituency's elitism. Meanwhile, there's now a Porsche on the market that anybody can drive.

The present moment in litigation support is a lot like the Porsche automatic. The legal technology that used to be the special province of IT is now out there, sharing your marketplace, for any old legal department to access freely. Most vendors even hawk their products with bundled how-to packages, which have potential to sideline old-fashioned info-techies.

But like the 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 2, which allows anybody with a license to get behind the wheel, IT only gets nowhere fast, if the driver doesn't know where he's going. Because it's all about the driver -- the IT guy who knows the machine inside and out. It's all about the navigator -- the lawyer who knows where he needs to go, and how to get there. It's all about your people, working together, to get somewhere fast, in the powerful vehicle of new technology.

The IT staffing objective has, in fact, changed. Judges, lawyers and clients have all changed -- because technology has advanced, and with changing technology, the marketplace has changed. But what the litigation support market phenomenon allows us to see, better than ever before, is what we've always known: it's NOT about the technology. It's about the talent. It's about the people.

It's ALWAYS about the people.

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In 2006, firms with lit support commitments are beginning to address "process". Not because process is the new-new thing -- but precisely because it's not.

Fancy new legal tech products and services have been grabbing headlines recently, partly in answer to the EDD tsunami that has swamped some unsuspecting firms. And the effect has been temporarily daunting to the traditional practice of law. But in lawyer-client relationships, the process is the product. And the process has not changed.

We're already starting to see the novelty of cyber-tech bells and whistles give way to the appropriate function of technology -- i.e., in support of lawyers practicing law. Legal tech product is still only as good as the data input, the talent to execute, and the rich process of the lawyer-client relationship. Still, on a busy day, the urgency for new-new legal tech solutions can seem like a tsunami at the door, pinning partners to their favorite paper filing systems for dear life.

Listen up counsel. This wave is your friend. EDD is here to help -- but it has to be tamed. You need legal technology, and the talent to tame the legal tech product that lets you get on with the process.

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Amazingly enough, and against all odds, lawyers are learning to embrace new technology! The evidence was on plain display last week in New York, at LegalTech 2006, where senior partners turned out in greater numbers than ever before.

There was a time, not so long ago, when it made sense to busy partners to pick a tech vendor and an IT manager and be done with it. But EDD is now high-stakes best practise in complex litigation, instead of new-fangled IT convenience. At the same time, clients large and small are demanding reliable integrated technology to match both budget and systems. So technology competencies are fast becoming a key factor in a law firm's own marketing -- not only to attract new clients, but to attract and retain top tier new hires. Now law firms are not only putting up with new tech but getting good at it.

Litigation support managers in top law firms and Fortune 500 legal departments are not shy about shopping around for the most effective systems. Technology providers, meanwhile, understand that they supply an increasingly knowledgeable technology consumer. So competition among vendors is also heating up, and we're seeing a swell of skills development opportunities sponsored by vendors themselves, who realize that an informed consumer is their best customer.

The trend is already strong in newer, nimbler boutique firms, staffed by tech-savvy recent law school graduates. And bar associations, law firms and CLE providers are beginning to serve practicing lawyers with training in the key elements of meta-data and EDD.

New tricks? No problem! Litigation support has never been more competitive than it is right now. Nor has it ever had more respect.

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Steven C. Bennett of Jones Day in New York is speaking truth to power in his recent National Law Journal article posted at Law.com about "Teaching Tech Skills to Lawyers". Lawyers can no longer avoid committing both resources and attention to the specific purpose of becoming "tech savvy". For even among a new generation of lawyers who have been technology end-users all their lives, the range of typical technological understanding is pretty much exhausted by email, cell phones, ipods, and online shopping.

 And why not? "Essentially," writes Bennett, "what law students learn about technology during law school they learn on their own." And veteran lawyers have precious little to choose from in the way of technology skills training sponsored by bar associations, law firms and CLE providers.

There's a reason why interviews with policy makers are staged before a bank of West and Shepards systems, and why law students in 2006 pass DVD's of 1974's Oscar-winnning The Paper Chase from hand to hand. In traditional law firms, and in most law schools, the paper document is still stubbornly regarded as coin of the realm. But its time is already passed.

Relentlessly ongoing technological developments have the potential to increase lawyer productivity significantly. LexisNexis, for example, has just launched its new Toolbar for Attorneys. IT folks and lowly non-legals welcome this customization of a common browser peripheral. And it's just one of hundreds of litigation support technologies that will automate and facilitate the 21st century practise of law. But many senior partners will be flummoxed. That must change, says Bennett, or once venerable firms will find themselves at unrecoverable competitive disadvantage.

Both the corporate community and the courts are out ahead of the legal profession at large on this issue. Law firms are finding -- sometimes the hard way -- that courts and regulatory agencies already expect law firms to be able to file and retrieve information electronically. And electronic communication inside and outside of the firm runs smack into crucial privacy implications of modern data management. So clients increasingly demand diverse technological services and compatibilities from their law firms to maintain compliance.

Lawyers must finally accept the essential value of networking and sharing, even embracing soft-sided principles of knowledge management, in order to remain viable in the current market. Electronic data rooms and shared editing of deal documents must be coordinated to online discovery document repositories. Massive volumes of case information must be captured and sorted, and many a tech-savvy legal assistant or litigation support manager has watched a case crash and burn, only because a senior lawyer mismanaged meta-data and/or discovery documents.

Make no mistake: technology will still be handled by IT and litigation support, but it is no longer acceptable for partners not to understand -- and endorse -- what they are up to -- however much retooling that may require.

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Harry Potter fans know that when Dumbledore was the Secret Keeper for the Order of the Phoenix, he wielded the immensely complex Fidelius Charm to magically hide the headquarters of the Order. That's just the kind of insight that will come in handy as law firms scramble to fill crucial litigation support roles. Bear with me here.

Technology's stealth-entry into every-day law firm routine has suddenly exploded in a rash of electronic discovery debacles that have finally grabbed the attention of the legal profession. EDD is fast replacing both the hand-delivered document and the beleaguered associate.

"If you intend to practice today, this needs to be something you know how to deal with," says Michele Lange, staff attorney, legal technologies for vendor Kroll Ontrack. "Sometimes the very best evidence, or the only evidence, is obtained electronically." And it has to be done right.

Unsympathetic judges are quick to punish bungled EDD, to the tune of billions in sanctions for the losing party. Experts agree the urgency for experienced litigation support professionals will increase exponentially throughout 2006. But EDD is already a growth industry, and pretty much anybody who ever scanned a white paper to PDF is hanging out a shingle.

So the big question law firm partners are finally facing: How do we find the lit support people who really know the secrets of EDD? "The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find--unless of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it..." Maybe it's time to get your own Map to Talent. Watch this space.

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