1. LJN’s
Legal Tech Newsletter ®
Volume 27, Number 6 • September 2009
P R AC T I C E T I P IT is Dead; Long Live IT: Controlling Costs
While Getting the Most Out of Technology
X Marks the Spot:
By David B. Cunningham
Lessons Learned
From the Data
Map Process
By Ganesh Vednere
T here is an irony to IT in law firms: Firms spend so much time on issues like
IT infrastructure and upgrade projects that they spend too little time using
technology to improve how lawyers work. Law firms cannot achieve real
value from their technology investments until they change this model. Moreover,
changing the usual model can lower overall IT spending while increasing stability
Creating the right data map and lawyer satisfaction. With our law firm IT benchmarks reflecting that the high-
with the right information takes est spending firms spend twice as much per lawyer on technology as the lowest
time, patience, perseverance and spending firms, there is a lot to be gained by increasing technology efficiencies.
pull. A data map that is hastily With good leadership, streamlining IT infrastructure and rebalancing attention
put together and is missing infor- to IT practice technologies, law firms can have real effects on productivity and
mation will only provide cursory client relations.
support to counsel, and instead A Firm’s Best it investment: it LeAdership
may end up providing fodder to Based on the assessments of hundreds of firms, it is clear that a leading factor
opposing counsel. Some have in the quality and value of a firm’s technology is the proficiency of the IT director.
even said that is better to not A good IT director will build a solid team, communicate effectively with lawyers,
have a data map, claim ignorance plan and architect with an eye to the future, emphasize testing, be a smart pur-
and hope for leniency than to chaser and better control the firm’s vendors. Every dollar poured into a good IT
state that you have a data map director or CIO pays back in terms of risk mitigation, hassle reduction and cost
and produce an incomplete, half- control — not necessarily lower costs, but better control of spending.
baked and inadequate one and Even a good IT director can become ineffective when working with technol-
anger the judge. ogy leadership in ill-defined roles. An IT leader needs four things from the firm
Many organizations have hun-
outside the IT Department:
dreds of business applications,
1. Representative feedback from a static group or a topic-specific group;
systems, utilities, network file
2. Authoritative decisions;
shares and collaboration sites
3. Qualified advice, recommendations and planning; and
(such as SharePoint, Wikis etc.),
4. Advocacy.
not to mention the potential gold-
continued on page 2
mine of data stored in backup
tapes, archival systems, PST files
and offsite storage. Daunting as
In This Issue
it may seem, creating a data map Controlling Costs While
is actually twice as difficult as Getting the Most Out of
you thought. Really, simply e- Technology . . . . . . . . 1
mailing a “questionnaire” to the Lessons Learned from the
IT or operational folks asking for Data Map Process . . . 1
a list of applications, systems and Gaining Competitive
platforms within the organiza- Edge with Redact-It . . 3
tion may not produce optimal re- Legal Hold Amendment
sults. Instead, a holistic approach At Family Dollar . . . . 7
to the creation of the data map
must be undertaken.
continued on page 4

2. IT Is Dead and technology within the IT de-
LJN’s
partment. You should expect this
continued from page 1 level of streamlining to involve up-
front investments, although the net
Legal Tech ®
Firms often assume a technology Newsletter
committee serves all four purposes. result over three years should re-
In practice, a technology committee duce overall IT spending by at least EDITOR-IN-CHIEF . . . . . . . . . . Adam Schlagman, Esq .
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR . . . . . . Wendy Kaplan Ampolsk
is optional or at least in a back seat 15% compared to traditional imple- MANAGING EDITOR . . . . . . . . Steven Salkin, Esq .
MARKETING MANAGER . . . . . . Jeannine Kennedy
role compared to a qualified technol- mentations. This is important — if GRAPHIC DESIGNER . . . . . . . . Louis F . Bartella
ogy partner and COO. you can’t map your projects to these BOARD OF EDITORS
long-term business results, then you
streAmLine it; not Just may simply be increasing costs and
RICHARD C . BELTHOFF JR . Wachovia Corp .
Charlotte, NC
A LittLe, But A Lot complexity under the guise of “im- BRETT BURNEY . . . . . . . . . . Burney Consultants
Cleveland, OH
It’s common for a firm to spend provements.” It is easy to argue that JEFFERY M . DUNCAN . . . . . Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione
more than 80% of its attention and while spending reductions are criti-
Chicago
IT staff time on infrastructure and cal, of more importance are better
RANDALL FARRAR . . . . . . . . . Esquire Innovations, Inc .
Temecula, CA
less than 20% on applying technol- disaster recovery, reliability and lev- TOM GELBMANN . . . . . . . . . Gelbmann & Associates
St . Paul, MN
ogy to the practice of law. The aim of els of lawyer satisfaction. JOHN GREEN . . . . . . . . . . . . Baker, Donelson, Berman,
streamlining IT systems and process- Key aspects of streamlined IT in- Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC
Memphis, TN
es should be to reverse this balance. clude: HOPE HASLAM . . . . . . . . . . UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc .
For IT infrastructure, the objective • Application Packaging and Dallas
is straightforward: to provide a high- Delivery. Standardization of the PC
JUSTIN HECTUS . . . . . . . . . Keesal, Young & Logan
Long Beach, CA
ly available foundation that requires build is a fundamental attribute of RICHARD K . HERRMANN . . Blank Rome LLP
less effort and cost to maintain. well-run IT departments, and doing
Wilmington, DE
ADAM E . JAFFE . . . . . . . . . . . Huron Consulting Group LLC
Consolidating IT systems via virtu- so actually supports user customi- New York
alization software (allowing multiple zations rather than negates them. ARI KAPLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ari Kaplan Advisors
Millburn, NJ
servers to run on each physical serv- Commonly used tools such as WYSE, ROSS KODNER . . . . . . . . . . MicroLaw Inc .
er machine) has been a reality for a UIU, SysPrep, KBOX and Microsoft’s Milwaukee, WI
number of years, but the actual busi- System Center Configuration Manag- MARC LAURITSEN . . . . . . . . Capstone Practice Systems
Harvard, MA
ness results are often underwhelm- er support software packaging, com- JOSEPH D . LEE . . . . . . . . . . Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP
ing. IT staffs have gained initial mon PC image development and ap-
Los Angeles
success by reducing the firm’s total plication deployment. These upfront
ANN WALSH LONG . . . . . . . AALL PIC
Oklahoma City, OK
number of servers and, sometimes, efforts create significant payoff in DAVID L . NARKIEWICZ . . . . Montgomeryville, PA
software licenses. These efforts are support needs, reliability and ease ALAN PEARLMAN . . . . . . . . The Electronic Lawyer
generally focused on cleaning up of rolling out new changes. Northbrook, IL
ancillary and older servers. Think of • Consolidation and Virtualization DAVID C . REYMANN . . . . . . Parr Waddoups Brown
Gee & Loveless
this as Stage 1 in streamlining IT, of- of Core Systems. Reducing the loca- Salt Lake City, UT
ten with a moderate or net zero gain. tions and quantity of servers related SETH A . RIERSON . . . . . . . . FTI Consulting, Inc .
Chicago
Stage 1 helps IT staff gain experi- to Exchange, document management G . CHRISTOPHER RITTER . The Focal Point LLC
ence with virtualization, reduce the and other core systems simplifies Oakland, CA
number of servers and reduce data management, reduces licensing and
JOEL B . ROTHMAN . . . . . . . Seiden, Adler, Matthewman &
Bloch, P .A .
center needs, although these gains reduces the number of document
Boca Raton, FL
can be offset by the costs, complex- libraries. Adding new servers be-
GEORGE J . SOCHA JR . . . . . SochaConsulting LLC
St . Paul, MN
ity and initial effort. comes a negligible effort and system JOHN J . SROKA . . . . . . . . . . Duane Morris LLP
Philadelphia
It is possible to streamline IT sys- recovery after failures can approach BEN WEINBERGER . . . . . . . Lathrop & Gage, L .C .
tems much further and achieve a minutes rather than hours. Kansas City, MO
real, positive effect on reliability, re- • Storage Optimization. Storage LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter® (ISSN 0738-0186) is published by
covery capabilities, IT spending and is often allowed to grow (each gi- Law Journal Newsletters, a division of Incisive Media .
© 2009 . Incisive US Properties, LLC . All rights reserved . No
staffing levels. We call this Stage 2. gabyte is cheap), but then becomes reproduction of any portion of this issue is allowed without written
permission from the publisher . Telephone: (877) 256-2472;
This requires a focus not just on a significant expense. Intelligent Editorial e-mail: steve .salkin@incisivemedia .com
technology, but on people, process management, data de-duplication
Circulation e-mail: customercare@incisivemedia .com
Reprints e-mail: reprintscustomerservice@incisivemedia .com
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
David B. Cunningham is Managing continued on page 6 Incisive Media
Director of Baker Robbins & Compa- 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
ny. He leads the Strategic Technology LAW JOURNAL NEWSLETTERS Published Monthly by:
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2 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

3. Gaining Competitive example, in one bankruptcy-related appropriate privilege based redac-
litigation matter that I am working tions are factored into the mix, the
Edge and ROI with on, we have exchanged over 60,000 burden on lawyers and litigants can
documents with opposing counsel be overwhelming, particularly since
Redact-It’s Electronic during the last three months, and each redaction must be identified
Redaction Tool this is not a particularly large case. and explained in a log for opposing
Document repositories with well counsel.
By Sean O’Keefe over a million document pages are Years ago, my staff and I used the
not uncommon in this environment. time-honored manual method of
My firm, based in Newport Beach, resistAnce is FutiLe redaction. We printed copies of the
CA, specializes in bankruptcy and Although some lawyers have re- documents to be redacted, used a
creditors’ rights. As part of its prac- sisted the digital revolution, this is black marker or redaction tape to
tice, the firm regularly pursues and no longer an option. e-Filing is now cover the content to be protected,
defends insolvency-related litigation mandatory in the federal courts, and and then made enough photocop-
in the federal courts. This kind of state courts will soon follow this ies of the page to ensure the text
financial litigation is inherently doc- trend. Unless a firm wants to out- was completely blacked out. Then
ument-intensive — often involving source this function (e-filing), high- we would scan the document back
thousands of documents that must speed scanning technology is a must, into the system and along the way
be reviewed, identified and scanned since substantially every e-filed doc- re-review the document to ensure
during the discovery process. ument must be in PDF format. Fortu- all privileged and privacy data was
Twenty years ago, I would spend nately, the cost of this technology is blacked-out. In cases involving tens
days wading through hundreds of now reasonable, and PPM scan rates of thousands of documents, this was
boxes in hot, dusty warehouses and have dramatically improved. a time-consuming and mind-numb-
storage rooms, trying to piece to- The move to electronic filing has ing burden that was prone to hu-
gether the documentary evidence come with its own set of rules. For man error. Although in recent years,
necessary to support or defeat the example, the Dec. 1, 2007 amend- we have used various software pro-
claims involved in the litigation ments to the 2002 e-Government act grams to mitigate this burden, few
contest. Once the documents were (Appellate Rule 25, new Bankruptcy of them provided the flexibility and
culled from this source, each docu- Rule 9037, Civil Rule 5.2, and Crimi- convenience necessary to materially
ment would then be logged and nal Rule 49.1) require filers to redact lessen the burden.
photocopied for trial. personal identification information About a year ago, when I was
Today, the discovery universe is from documents filed with the court. again faced with a case that would
very different. Large bodies of doc- Personal information includes, but require the redaction of thousands
uments are already in digital form may not be limited to, Social Securi-
of entries, I decided to search the
when litigation is initiated and the ty and Taxpayer Identification num-
Internet for new redaction software
balance can be quickly digitized bers, the names of minor children,
that would ease this burden and re-
through high-speed scanners. This financial account numbers, dates of
duce the associated costs. My search
allows litigants to create a commonly birth, and, in criminal cases, home
led me to a product called Redact-
accessible database (although the addresses. Although this information
It Desktop, which was made by In-
arguments still rage over who pays should have been removed during
formative Graphics out of Arizona.
for what) and once all of the data is the “paper filing” days as a matter of
Redact-It is an electronic redaction
digitized, the lawyers can efficiently prudent practice, it was frequently
overlooked. Now, failing to redact software program that allows me
search, identify, log, and where ap- to review documents electronically
propriate, redact privileged matter, this information could have severe
consequences for the filer. and search for privileged content.
all without leaving their desks. The program enables me to effi-
This electronic convenience is redAction soFtwAre ciently and automatically remove
also very timely. The current eco- Redaction has always been one of
privacy information — including
nomic downturn has dramatically the more time-consuming burdens
all information that requires redac-
increased the number of corporate inherent in the discovery process.
tion for filing into the federal sys-
Chapter 11 filings. Business bank- For example, a single tax return in
tem — add reason codes for each
ruptcies are typically document a complicated case can have more
than one hundred pages of data, and redaction, and then generate a log
intensive, and the litigation that for opposing counsel.
arises within these cases can gener- half of these pages can include a
Social Security or Tax Identification In April 2008, I purchased a sin-
ate massive discovery burdens. For gle license for $195. The installation
number. Every one of these entries
Sean O’Keefe is principal and found- must be redacted. That’s 50 entries was fast and easy — I basically ran
er of O’Keefe & Associates Law Cor- in a single document. In a case with an executable file to install Redact-
poration P.C. in Newport Beach, CA. 30 or 40 tax returns, thousands of It, opened the program and started
The firm specializes in bankruptcy redactions may be required just to using it that day. The intuitive tools
and creditors’ rights law. eliminate these entries. When other continued on page 4
September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 3

4. Redact-It the legal community when they de- focus on other more important tasks,
veloped the latest version of their or better still, to take some time off.
continued from page 3 For a one-time charge of $195, I am
software, version 1.1, which imple-
and visual presentation allowed me mented tools that make the final re- saving my clients thousands of dol-
to integrate the program into my view easier. I have just started using lars and improving the quality of my
practice, without the time and cost this version, but there is an option practice.
of formal training. I found the soft- to show just a few lines of the doc- Eventually, all lawyers will be do-
ware to be effective, flexible, and ument at a time for a focused view. ing redaction electronically; but for
most importantly, user friendly. You I just click a “down arrow” to prog- now, many attorneys insist on do-
don’t have to be a rocket scientist to ress the view window to the next ing redaction the old-fashioned way,
figure it out. document segment until the entire with markers or redaction tape, and
Although Redact-It certainly saved document has been read. When I it’s costing them and their clients’
me time, I also needed the program complete this kind of review, the time and money. So to those still re-
to be accurate and comprehensive. program creates a log entry, along sisting technology and change and
Even with the benefit of this new with every other redaction function clutching their markers and tape, I
electronic tool, I typically will do sev- performed. The improvements also am here to tell you that to stay com-
eral passes over the material. First, I make it possible to record redac- petitive, electronic tools are essen-
use Redact-It’s built-in tool for find- tion steps on the first document, tial. The cost and time savings are
ing privacy information, like Social and to automatically apply these just too important to ignore.
Security numbers. Then I search for same steps to other documents as Discovery is tedious and expen-
the actual Social Security number in soon as they are opened. This fea- sive, and whatever technological tool
question with the text search tool to ture makes sure nothing is missed will get me through the process the
be sure nothing was missed. Even within the documents and it saves most quickly, without sacrificing my
using two search methods, it takes even more time. objectives, is at the top of my list.
just seconds per document. Since I Redact-It has been huge from a For me, Redact-It fits the bill in the
still am a firm believer that there is ROI standpoint, providing cost and redaction arena. I am able to save
no substitute for the human eye, I efficiency benefits for both my prac- both my sanity and my time while
still perform a visual review. tice and my clients. On small cases, saving my clients’ money and in-
improvements And roi with a few hundred documents, I creasing accuracy. This helps me
Redaction errors or omissions can save several hours, which at cur- to maintain competitive advantage.
can have serious consequences for rent hourly rates is a major plus for Few tools at that price can do that
the client and for the lawyer. So I my clients. In the larger cases, the much for the bottom line.
was very glad to see that Informa- savings are even greater. This tech-
—❖—
tive Graphics heard the pleas of nological enabler also allows me to
Data Map Process Start with existing data infrastruc- provide a list of security and access
ture, record and business process groups by the various applications.
continued from page 1 inventories. Typically, the IT infra- Obtaining accurate and complete
structure team will have the list(s) of inventories is always a challenge.
it’s ALL ABout the While it behooves organizations to
system infrastructures, their locations,
(mAp) coordinAtes business/IT owners and platform spend upfront time and resources in
At its core, a data map is an inven- ensuring that these lists are as accu-
names. The records management
tory of the sources of data within an rate as possible, the data map team
team will have an inventory of the
organization, the names and types must make adequate contingency
various types of records generated
of applications or platforms that plans to account for the errors and
through the course of business along
store this data, the processes that omissions in the lists provided to
manipulate the data, how the data with the requisite record metadata,
such as record description, owner, lo- them.
flows within various business pro- Once existing lists and invento-
cesses and how this data is stored, cation, formats and retention period.
ries are obtained, the next step is to
retrieved and accessed. The operations team will have a list of
start mapping the data types to cor-
the various business processes, pro-
responding applications, platforms,
Ganesh Vednere is a manager with cess descriptions, process inputs and
owners and business processes. The
a global financial service consulting outputs, owners, process dependen-
data map team also needs to con-
company based out of New York. He cies and the applications and systems
duct walkthrough sessions with the
has expertise in implementing informa- that are used to execute the process. various stakeholders to discuss how
tion and compliance programs includ- Work with HR to obtain organiza- the data moves from one applica-
ing e-discovery, compliance research, tional charts that show the various tion/business process to another.
records management, legal research hierarchies, roles and responsibilities A data map needs to incorporate
and program implementation. He can within the organization. In addition,
continued on page 5
be reached at gvedn@comcast.net. the information security team can
4 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

5. Data Map Process cal mid-size organization, it is rea- • Use Facilitated Sessions. When
sonable to expect a timeframe of at time is short and specific pieces of
continued from page 4 least a couple of months to produce information are required from the
aspects of all data flows within an a data map, assuming the informa- participants, facilitated sessions may
organization. There are several ways tion required is readily available and be the way to go. It may be better
to perform the mapping — starting up-to-date. to gather managers and support staff
with the infrastructure/application • Avoid Reinventing the Wheel. that work in a common business
list and then tying it to the business Leverage any and all existing lists, in- area, assemble them in a room and
process, records, HR and access ventories, projects and programs for target specific questions to gather in-
controls lists. Alternatively, one can harvesting information necessary to formation about their specific busi-
start with the business process list the data map project. In some cases ness process and data flows.
and then map out the correspond- these are not always well published or • Automated Tools. As the mar-
ing data outputs, records and so publicized, hence some digging around ketplace ramps up for e-discovery,
on. This is where the bulk of the may be required to uncover what piec- many players are entering the arena
data map complexity occurs. One es have already been created. with their product and service offer-
option for reducing the complexity • Apply Project Management ings. Given the complexity of locat-
Techniques. By its very nature, the ing data, determining structures and
of the mapping exercise is to pri-
data map project requires a disparate relationships it is no surprise that au-
oritize higher data risk areas with-
tomated tools will eventually replace
in the organization and focus on team of representatives from various
most of the core data map process-
these first and then complete the business lines, legal, compliance, IT,
es. Tools can also ease much of the
other areas. operations and so on. The only way
manual work around collating, clas-
Are we there Yet? to keep the team working together in
sifying and storing the information.
The following are some key lessons a cohesive manner is to have one or
• Updates and Maintenance.
learned from the data map process. more strong project managers with
Once the data map is developed,
• Deploy the Right Resources. experience in large scale projects a process for periodic updates and
Creating a data map requires a col- who have gone through the program ongoing maintenance must be insti-
laborative effort on the part of legal, implementation lifecycle. tuted. A data map that is outdated
IT, business, operations and compli- • People Have Day Jobs Too. Most does not really serve its purpose. As
ance areas. It is not just a one-person resources allocated to the data map business processes and systems are
show. Legal needs to determine if the project will continue to have their updated or upgraded, the appro-
end product is good enough for use “day” jobs. It is rare that a project priate information in the data map
during litigation; IT needs to provide team will get dedicated representa- must also be updated. At the same
relevant information about servers, tives from the lines of businesses and time, when systems are retired or
data and metadata; business and IT. Typically, one can expect part-time replaced, updates must be made to
operations teams need to provide resources to be provided to support the data map to reflect where and
information on business processes; the project. How part time it gets de- how the data will be stored for re-
while the compliance team provides pends on how well management has trieval at a future date. This last part
details on what controls have been been updated on the need and im- is important as there are instances
established on information flows. portance of the data map project. The where data may not be accessible via
• Apply a Methodical Process. key thing to keep in mind is not just reasonable means and organizations
The process of how a data map is to have a large number of individu- will have to demonstrate that this is
created is in many instances as im- als on the project, but rather to have indeed the case.
portant as the data map itself. The the right resources on board. Quality concLusion
quality of the data map — and its reli- trumps quantity here. Daunting as it may appear, creat-
ability — is directly dependent upon • Use a Risk-Based Approach. ing a data map is a key aspect of the
how well the process of collecting, Somewhere in the middle of the e-discovery process. Organizations
collating, analyzing and classifying data map project, it is easy to get must start the process of creating
the underlying data is implement- lost in the sheer volume of informa- one now rather than waiting until
ed. It is best to follow a consistent tion that is being collated and ana- litigation requires them to do so. A
framework throughout the process lyzed. In most large organizations, well-developed and well-document-
and ensure that all involved teams it is somewhat impossible to gather, ed data map will prove useful in the
follow the process. identify and tag every single piece long run, both from a litigation and
• Establish Reasonable Time- of information. While it is hard to operational perspective. It allows
frames. Setting up a time frame is predict what kind of information legal to support its case in court,
usually not an option when there is a will be required to be produced business to understand the types of
litigation fire drill going on, but if the once in court, one can at least make information it works with and IT to
situation permits, an attempt should risk-based assumptions on the types have a full and complete list of sys-
be made to evaluate and establish of data sets required and focus best tem assets.
reasonable timeframes. For a typi- efforts on them. —❖—
September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 5

6. IT Is Dead 1. Services that are notably man- and for how long. Software vendors
intensive but not user facing? have long recognized the conver-
continued from page 2 2. Services that require specialist gence of e-mail, document manage-
and recovery capabilities are built skills, but aren’t full time? ment and records management, so
into storage systems like those from 3. Services that require 24-hour at- companies such as Autonomy (now
NetApp (which can also manage tention? owners of iManage/Interwoven) and
other vendors). By combining smart 4. Services that need high capital Recommind provide sets of tools to
systems with good firm retention investments? support a single, unified electronic
and archival policies (notably in- One firm, for example, had sever- matter file from open through close,
clusive of litigation support), firms al IT staff employed to run backups and effective e-mail management.
have literally reduced storage needs and provide 24-hour monitoring of As the economy has changed,
by over 60%. the firm’s network. While one could one of the few areas in which firms
IT Data Center. Often overlooked, applaud the generosity of their mon- have invested more resources is in
a key benefit of consolidation is the itoring focus, they were able to turn nurturing client opportunities and
potential to avoid or reduce costly to a vendor service for about 10% of relationships. Despite investments
power and cooling upgrades. the firm’s previous cost. And frankly, in marketing software, firms are un-
These changes will simplify IT the vendor was able to afford bet- satisfied with their own abilities
operations and staffing levels to ter monitoring and troubleshooting to learn whom and what the firm
one IT staff managing infrastructure tools. Other examples include help knows about clients and potential
and PCs for approximately every desk (notably after hours support), clients. Passive technology, such as
100-150 users. The upcoming re- database maintenance, Wide Area ContactNet, mines information about
lease of Windows 7 and, assumedly, Network monitoring, security con- relationships from e-mail, voice sys-
better economic conditions are ex- trol and disaster recovery testing. tems, billing systems, etc. Such soft-
pected to kick-start more firms into Get more From ware combines internal and external
making these improvements over prActice technoLoGY information sources and requires no
the next 12 months. With IT infrastructure streamlined, additional effort to keep informa-
Get A reALitY check resources can be redirected to ap- tion current. Having this “six degrees
ABout outsourcinG plying technology to the practice of separation” network available at
Evaluating outsourcing is uncom- of law. Practice technology objec- a lawyer’s fingertips can enhance
fortable for law firms. However, tives include supporting the qual- business development and help to
rather than consider outsourcing to ity and profitability of legal services strengthen client relationships.
be an all or nothing proposition, rec- to clients, while enabling lawyers The precedent for firms using
ognize that vendors provide a menu to spend more time on high-value technology to enhance their ser-
of services from which a law firm work and client-facing activities. vice delivery is unfortunately low.
can choose (hence the term “man- At the core of practice technology The 2008 Association of Corporate
aged services” is often used). There is document and e-mail manage- Counsel Value Challenge findings
are a small number of legal-specif- ment. Common issues are fragment- reflect the frustration from corpo-
ic managed service providers (e.g., ed client matter files (electronic and rate counsel on law firms’ abilities
Keno Kozie, MindShift, IntelliTeach) paper files scattered across multiple to effectively budget, staff projects,
that can match your internal costs, locations and applications) and dif- track fees to budget, share knowl-
provide lower risk of failure and se- ficulty finding and sharing matter edge and communicate status. Like
curity breaches, and provide deeper materials (lawyers and staff perform other areas, technology can only
bench strength of IT skills than most redundant, inefficient searching and play a supporting role in improving
firms can afford. filing activities and redundant paper these business functions, but there
Therefore, it is smart for a firm files consume unnecessary amounts are many simplified project man-
to undergo a “sourcing analysis” to of physical space). As a result, while agement and collaborative extranet
compare its internal risks, service good service is likely maintained, it technologies available for firms. In
levels and costs to those of external is done with more effort than neces- a time when investing in client re-
vendors. At a minimum, the firm will sary while profits are undermined lationships is a priority, providing
understand its own areas of potential and client service could be compro- clarity on matter status can be a
improvements. While only a minor- mised. firm’s strong differentiator.
ity of firms will turn core operations Such practice issues require a One of the fastest changing aspects
over to a vendor (e.g., hosting and blend of people, process/policies to client relationships is an arrange-
managing the e-mail system), all firms and technology to address. In re- ment in which a firm’s fees are based
should list and scrutinize the services lation to electronic matter files, an partially on the success or satisfac-
provided by IT. Four areas to look at e-records management policy and tion of the work product. To make
IT for managed service opportunities retention schedule should serve as such an arrangement profitable,
can help focus the analysis: guides for what is stored, where continued on page 8
6 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

7. A Focus on Customer issued a hold notice via our corpo- impLementinG Fusion
rate e-mail accounts and hard copy. The implementation process went
Service: Legal Hold We tracked the details of each legal extremely smoothly. We chose to
Management at hold, including reminders and hold
releases, using Excel spreadsheets.
keep Fusion Legal Hold behind Ex-
terro’s firewall, allowing us to forego
Family Dollar We found this process to be lacking, on-site installation; and implement-
and determined we needed a “one- ing the ASP model was a simple,
By Kevin Anderson stop” communication link with cus- easy process. Exterro had a solid
todians, with automated audit trails. implementation plan before rollout,
Family Dollar Stores is a neigh-
We also wanted to move away from and we were quickly able to lever-
borhood-based convenience and
the practice of regularly using outside age its integration capabilities to
value retailer with more than 6,600
counsel to handle the creation of cus- incorporate our pre-existing tech-
locations in 44 states, and more than
tom legal hold notices for our litiga- nology with Fusion. Our transition
45,000 full-time employees.
tion portfolio. We knew it was time to was seamless and there was nei-
As the director of litigation support,
rethink our legal hold process. ther significant interruption in our
I work with a team of 26 attorneys
and various information technology FindinG the riGht soLution day-to-day activities nor any system
We decided that automating our compatibility issues. I worked with
(IT) professionals. I am the primary
legal hold process was the best way our IT department and Exterro’s cli-
driver for all e-discovery, information
life cycle management, privacy and we could give good service to the ent success and engineering teams
litigation management processes. At business people with whom we work to deploy Fusion Legal Hold and its
any one time, Family Dollar has doz- while also mitigating risk for the or- features:
ens of professionals collaborating on ganization and reducing the time • Fusion’s integration points en-
multiple pending cases in a variety spent on the legal hold process. abled us to feed custodian data
of fields. We came up with several require- to Fusion from our HRIS system
ments going into our search for an and Oracle e-Business Suite, and
communicAtion BreAkdown: link Fusion’s functionality to
automated solution. First, we needed
cumBersome LeGAL it to capture and create audit trails of our custodians via Microsoft Ex-
hoLd process all hold activity. Second, we needed change Server. This eliminated
We send out litigation holds al- a solution that would provide a cen- any need to manually enter cus-
most daily to up to 400 custodians at tralized way to manage legal hold todian information into Fusion;
a time, including anyone from store responses and answer custodian and with approximately 3,500 users
managers to senior organization of- data stewards’ questions. Third, it — that’s a major time savings.
ficers. e-Mail is the most commonly needed to be intuitive and easy to • Fusion Legal Hold’s notifica-
targeted type of data in our holds, use without specialized training. Fi- tion management increased ef-
but we also often place holds on a nally, it needed to be cost-effective. ficiency by automating and sim-
wide variety of other data, including I began my search by looking plifying the process of creating
unstructured file network-situated at automated legal hold solutions legal holds, identifying custodi-
data and structured data; and we de- from several leading legal software ans and data, and issuing legal
cide what to hold based on the na- providers. While many offered sev- hold notifications. Additionally,
ture of each case. eral features we needed, an in-depth automated notifications enable
In developing our litigation hold analysis of Exterro’s Fusion Legal our IT team to know what data
process, we had created a manual Hold revealed it to be the best fit for needs to be retained without the
approach to the large number of Family Dollar’s needs. legal department having to initi-
litigation holds we managed. How- Exterro’s Fusion Legal Hold met ate a separate workflow to com-
ever, we found the process to be all of our requirements, and offered municate with them.
very labor-intensive. When a trigger- several additional features that made • Fusion’s unique collaborative
ing event came to our attention, we our decision an easy one: tools enabled us to share the
Kevin Anderson is the Director of • A secure, audited and direct link identities of custodians with our
Litigation Support for Family Dollar between custodians and legal IT department in real-time. The
Stores, Inc., a Fortune 500 company teams that would allow custo- collaborative tool we’ve found
based in North Carolina, where he dians to ask questions and our to be most useful is what we
focuses on e-discovery, technology legal teams to answer them from call the “ask questions” feature.
and privacy issues. Anderson has a central repository; Custodians in the field and IT
more than 18 years of experience • Superior integration capabilities, managers can immediately send
in the practice of law, including a including the ability to integrate their hold-related questions to
decade in private practice and eight with our HR system and existing us via Fusion, without having to
years of experience as in-house matter management system; and either log out of the system or
counsel in the retail industry. • Competitive price point. continued on page 8
September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 7

8. Family Dollar said, “I love this thing.” Overall, we • Gap time reduction. We’ve re-
had a very positive response from duced the lead-time between trigger-
continued from page 7 ing events and legal hold issuance.
the legal team as well as the custodi-
pick up the phone to call us. Our ans and IT team members. Fusion’s templated holds and inte-
answers flow back to them im- end resuLts grations with our HR system allow
mediately, and the whole conver- With Fusion in place, once a trig- us to quickly scope large litigation
sation is tracked and tied to the gering event comes to our attention, projects. Additionally, we can now
hold itself for future reference. a member of the legal team can im- quickly target the data to be retained
• Fusion’s audit trails created efficient mediately create a legal hold by with clear litigation hold notices that
defensibility and cut down on the choosing the template appropriate to minimize inefficiencies and reduce
time spent tracking holds by en- matter type and modifying it as nec- duplication.
abling our users to see, at a glance essary, or creating a new hold using • Time savings and efficiency.
and in real time, who has and who Fusion’s simple three-step wizard. We’ve reduced the time spent per
has not responded to each hold The hold is then approved and sent week on tracking legal hold processes
notice. We can view event history out rapidly via Fusion’s messaging from about 10 hours to about 30 min-
for a hold or matter, and export a system, with built-in escalations and utes — a time savings of 95%. Since
timeline if necessary. reminder parameters. Fusion tracks its implementation in January 2009,
• Fusion’s hold templates reduced and audits all activities related to that Fusion has saved us significant staff
the time spent on creating new hold, alerts the legal team when ac- hours in tracking and administrative
legal holds by about half, prov- tion is needed, and allows our custo- work alone, freeing our legal talent to
ing particularly indispensible for dians to ask questions and our attor- focus on their core competencies.
large litigation projects. neys to answer immediately. When • Defensibility. We now have an
• Fusion’s release process allows the matter is resolved, the hold is re- automated method of tracking and
increased efficiency by enabling leased with the click of a mouse. monitoring the legal hold process
us to release legal holds with The aspects of the software that we that requires little intervention on
just a couple clicks of a mouse, have been most satisfied with are: the part of the legal team, and shows
freeing our IT department to re- • Streamlined process, compli- exactly what happened with respect
turn affected data to its regular ance. Fusion has cut the inefficiency to each hold issued on a custodian-
retention and destruction cycle out of the legal hold process, greatly by-custodian basis.
and allowing for timely data dis- improving our customer service and concLusion
position. accessibility. Additionally, by allow- Since its implementation, Fusion
Getting buy-in from our constitu- ing end users to review legal holds as has reduced our legal-hold related
ents was fairly easy. I sat with each part of their normal, day-to-day busi- outside counsel expenditures substan-
attorney and paralegal while they cre- ness processes, Fusion has embedded tially, cut our spoliation and human-
ated their first legal hold, and overall compliance into everyday workflows. error related risks, and given us the
it took about two weeks to get every- • Reduced costs. By reducing our transparent and fully audited system
one comfortable with the new tech- reliance on outside counsel and staff we need for a fully defensible legal
nology and associated process. One time to create, process and track le- hold process.
of my most difficult-to-please parale- gal holds, Fusion has helped to re-
gals even walked into my office and duce our legal-hold related costs. —❖—
IT Is Dead best practices, experts, etc.) quick- for IT departments to simply keep
ly and easily. Matter and practice systems running, the role for IT in
continued from page 6 supporting lawyer productivity is
financial dashboards can provide
a firm has to learn how to price current status and issue informa- the dawning of a new age for many
such work, how to define success tion. Any effort to create efficien- firms.
or satisfaction, and how to man- cies pay off handsomely, especially —❖—
age progress against the budget. since a recent study within profes-
Few firms are yet good at all three sional service organizations reflects The publisher of this newsletter is not engaged in rendering
areas. Technology can play a role that people spend 30% of their time legal, accounting, financial, investment advisory or other
professional services, and this publication is not meant to
not only in managing matter time simply searching for content. constitute legal, accounting, financial, investment advisory
and budget (as above), but also in Never before have firms been as or other professional advice. If legal, financial, investment
advisory or other professional assistance is required, the ser-
providing access to existing firm willing to shake up the traditional vices of a competent professional person should be sought.
resources (templates, precedents, focus of IT. While the age is over
To order this newsletter, call: On the Web at:
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8 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009