InsideCounsel - Third Annual Law Department Operations Survey, December 2010

Chart 6.

Do you have
a formalized
metrics/reporting
program?
If you have a metrics program,
do you feel your law department
makes effective use of the
information it provides?
Is metrics/reporting one of the
ways in which the success of
the law department is
measured?

e-DisCOvery anD Law Department OperatiOns – Interview with Rich Cohen, President, RenewData

For legal departments and their operations managers, e-discovery is still a work in progress. According to the Third Annual Law Department Operations Survey, most
of the respondents—64 percent—are planning an e-discovery
initiative within the next 12 months.

These results represent a trend by in-house counsel to take a
more proactive approach to e-discovery, according to Rich Cohen,
President of RenewData. “In the past, when e-discovery was a
shiny new object, everyone was willing to let outside counsel play
the primary role in the decision making,” he says. “Now that the
expense involved in e-discovery has become quantifiable and is
substantial, there is wisdom in bringing some personnel in-house
to manage the process.”
In-house counsel increasingly understand the importance of
getting e-discovery efforts and costs under control, even as the
amount of data that companies produce continues to grow and
new technologies are being introduced all the time. The days of
a potential “smoking gun” staying hidden in a dusty, desolate
archive room in a box of papers are long gone. Nowadays, that
smoking gun will almost certainly emerge when electronic
records are scoured during discovery. “When I was a general
counsel many years ago, the issue that kept me lying awake at
night was not knowing what I didn’t know,” he says. “Somebody
was responsible for records management, but it wasn’t the
highest priority in the organization.”
For today’s in-house counsel who find themselves lying awake at
night, the key to getting to sleep involves gaining a better grasp on
e-discovery and the company’s retention policies and procedures.
“It’s a real problem, with real costs and implications,” Cohen says.
Fortunately, there are good solutions available.

insiDeCOunseL • BLiCkstein GrOup 13

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