When I asked a 20-year veteran GC about this format, she said “If we left it to our outside counsel, we’d never do anything.  He is always looking for “perfect” and we are trying to determine the best approach based on what we know and on existing resources.”  Things, it seems, are seldom black and white, but a matter of interpretation.

And that is much like information and discovery.  GCs are trying to make best use of scarce resources to move, as best they can, towards a comprehensive information management program, consistently implemented across their entire organization. Their efforts will demonstrate “good faith” that will be viewed most favorably by the courts when companies face a discovery request or litigation.

Many vendors exhibiting at the show were selling legal services or technology, including eDiscovery.

As the custodian for 97% of the Fortune 1000 records and information, we are most likely already doing business with you.   We help our customers manage their information over the entire lifecycle, so it is available when needed, in a format they can quickly access – physical or digital.  We also provide discovery services to cull, organize and convert paper to digital images, code, unitize, redact, Bates Stamp and load this information into a review platform to speed the review process. We can even restore your backup tapes. By dramatically reducing data sets early in the process, you realize substantial savings in imaging costs and attorney review time.  And we can do this in a way that fits easily with organizational resources and systems as they are now. And we are able to fit to requirements as they evolve.

Our theme at the ACC show –”Information Management as Art Form” – really resonated with attendees. Maybe that is because the best attorneys realize that nothing is black and white. Perfect does not really exist. It is always a matter of interpretation.

• The 411 on Document Management
• When the Auditor Calls, How Fast Can You Answer?
• It All Adds Up: The Positive Effects of Smart Information Management
• What are the Benefits of Proactive Information Management?
• Information Management is an Art Form-What Does Your Masterpiece Look Like

Since companies and their internal legal departments have the best understanding of their business, they are often in a much better position to identify key custodians and to know where the potentially relevant information resides.   As a result, many are now using their own staff to manage the identification, collection and processing for both physical and digital records.  Critical, but less germane to their core skill sets, these records often need to be imaged, unitized, coded, redacted, and delivered in a format that their internal review platform can process. To accomplish these tasks most companies are working with a service provider to achieve greater cost savings while freeing them up to focus on their core business. It makes particularly sound economic sense to identify an information management and storage provider who may already be storing their company information to gain additional cost efficiencies, reduce transportation and delivery costs and remove chain of custody risks.

In addition to realizing significant costs savings, the Office of General Counsel has made the decision to bring more of the discovery process in house to gain more control and accountability.   Often managing more cases with fewer in-house resources causes concerns about leveraging multiple partners and vendors. Karen Abbott, Associate General Counsel of IASIS Healthcare in Franklin, TN recently attended the Network of Trial Law Firms Conference in May this year said it best, “I don’t want a phone call from our CEO who is asking about something that went off the rails the rails and we couldn’t warn our executives ahead of time, or a small case that turned into a big case that wasn’t on our radar.” That’s why companies are often choosing to work with a single vendor with full accountability across the entire discovery lifecycle.

At the end of the day, inside council is being asked to do more with less staff, in a shorter amount of time and at a lower cost.   By working with a single Discovery Services provider to bring more of the discovery process “effectively” in-house, they can achieve these goals.