Once you land in the world of litigation support, you will have the opportunity to attend industry conferences. The “big one” of the year is LegalTech New York. It is more prominent because it is the conference where all of the service providers announce their new features, or next version or a new application/service. Service…
Wow, we’re beginning another new year in the litigation support and electronic discovery industry. The good news is that the industry is still very strong and there are plenty of opportunities for newbies to join and thrive. I was lucky enough to take two weeks vacation at the end of the year. I am returning…
For those newbies entering litigation support from a position outside of the legal industry or from an IT position in a law firm, there can be a learning curve when it comes to “discovery” in litigation cases, also referred to as “the discovery phase” or “the discovery process”. “Discovery” is considered the pretrial phase of a…
One of the tools that have been around for years in the litigation support field is Directory Lister Pro. This software is inexpensive and it provides a fast and easy way to generate a file listing of a CD, DVD, hard drive, or a single subdirectory on a server. Although this type of file listing…
I am the first one to admit that I can be hard on service providers because my expectations are pretty high. However, I have been told by several service providers that while I can be a pain sometimes, I am also fair and reasonable. Some of them actually enjoy working with me. Ha! I realize…
When collecting documents in a litigation case, there can be electronic documents as well as hardcopy documents. Most of the time the hardcopy documents will be sent to a vendor to scan into a TIFF format that can easily be added to a document review database. The hardcopy documents will most likely include staples, paper…
Last week I was on the phone chatting with my friend, Shimmy (Shimmy is the guy in the video with me). We were talking about football and more specifically, I was talking about my Philadelphia Eagles. I was explaining to Shimmy that I am disappointed in my team this year because they are so inconsistent….
In the electronic discovery industry, we deal primarily with data in its electronic form. However, there are instances where we receive requests to print the electronic documents to paper. The term we use for this is “blowback”. This term originated from the microfilm and microfiche industry. Typically, the electronic documents will be reviewed from within…
This message is directed towards hiring managers in litigation support at law firms, corporations or service providers. If you are reading this and you know of a hiring manager that falls into this category, please forward this notice. I have been spending a good deal of time talking to people that are interested in a…
Name: Lana Schell Location: Philadelphia, PA What kind of work were you doing before litigation support found you? Law school trying to figure out what to do when I graduated that did not involve practicing. How did you get the opportunity to join the litigation support community? I worked at a firm in Philadelphia and was…
Whew! It’s been a busy and wildly fulfilling couple of months. I finished up teaching another semester at Georgetown University and I enjoyed getting to know the students in my class. I’ve also been spending time with the summer intensive students. These students jam a year long program into 10 weeks of full-time classes. About…
Today is my wedding anniversary. It is marriage number 2 for me. I married Kel (short for Kelbert) 4 years ago on August 8, 2008. The date was a suggestion by a dear friend of mine, Margaret Havinga. She thought it would be cool to have an anniversary date of 08/08/08 and apparently the Chinese…
I am sure you have heard of the expression, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Well, I believe that expression should apply to litigation support professionals. In many of the cases we work on, we are exchanging production data with opposing counsel or we are sharing production data with co-counsel….
Name: Audrey Hillyard Location: Washington, DC What kind of work were you doing before litigation support found you? It found me right out of school. How did you get the opportunity to join the litigation support community? I started working for a management consulting firm and was immediately placed on a litigation. When did you realize…
During the data collection process, the technicians may use EnCase software to collect a forensic image of a computer. That Encase image data may land on your desk. Most of the time the Encase data will be sent to a service provider for extraction and processing. However, there are instances where you may need to…
Name: Jane Gennarelli Location: San Antonio, Texas What kind of work were you doing before litigation support found you? I had a temporary position as a paralegal with the law department of a major US corporation. I traveled to the company’s various facilities reviewing documents to identify those to be produced. This was in the late…
If you do not have a professional presence on LinkedIn, you are making a huge mistake. LinkedIn is for entrepreneurs and professionals. Aside from the networking component of the site, which I will save for a future article, it is no longer okay to be indifferent about your LinkedIn profile. Even if you don’t understand the…
As a litigation support professional, one of our responsibilities is to make sure we understand the Do’s and Don’ts of dealing with electronic discovery. One of the issues we need to keep an eye on is Spoliation. Electronic documents collected, reviewed and produced in a litigation matter need to stay in the original condition throughout…
There are some tools that we use in litigation support that are similar, yet different. An example of this is the text editors we use. In a previous article, I referenced the TextPad text editor. Another text editor we use is called UltraEdit. Personally, I like some features in UltraEdit and others in TextPad. For…
Name: Tanya White Location: Sydney, Australia What kind of work were you doing before litigation support found you? I was an IT software trainer for a law firm. How did you get the opportunity to join the litigation support community? I was ‘internally seconded’ to provide dedicated IT/Software support to a team of about 70 all…
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