How to Sound Like a Legal Technology Guru in 10 Minutes, a Press Release Deconstructed

Most people who follow my blog know that I almost never post press releases. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about giving free publicity to companies when I can, especially the ones that I find scrappy and innovative. I just think press releases have become antiquated in their use as a marketing tool. Any company, especially one in technology, should be more focused on social media. Sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter–even Second Life–are more likely to result in new clients than old-style press releases.
All press releases say pretty much the same thing. Take, for example, one that I found floating around the interwebs yesterday from a legal process outsourcing company. As outdated as this release may seem, you would be surprised how much you can learn about what’s happening in the legal technology industry, if you just read between the lines. After the jump, I will break down its jargon paragraph by paragraph. Since, it’s not my intention to promote or criticize this particular company , the names of the company and its product will be changed to protect the innocent, and the not so innocent.

[Puppenhaus,] a global provider of technology enabled legal and business solutions, today announced it’s release of the Company’s Discovery support initiative: [eGOtistic,] a predictable per-document, fixed-price solution that delivers advanced technology integrated with onshore, offshore or dual-shore document review.

“a global provider of technology enabled legal and business solutions”
This is how 99.9% of all press releases start: Put the name of the company, follow with a comma, and make some grand statement about what the company does. In this case, I am rather surprised they went with “provider.” I would have expected to see the word “leader” in its place instead.
“eGOtistic”
Legal technology companies always want to name their new products with something catchy, and by catchy, I mean they want everything they create to begin with a lower case “e.” That way, they can demonstrate to the marketplace that they really understand things like “e”-discovery.
“per document, fixed price”
This is the new trend in pricing large scale document reviews. Instead of billing by the hour, several companies are trying to name one fixed price for the whole project. That way, there are no surprises to the clients when the bill comes due. This contrasts with hourly billing where, more often than not, the final cost is much higher than what was originally estimated. Sometimes this new strategy backfires, because the price per document is so high, paying for a project by billable hour would have been cheaper. That having been said, I have met a few colleagues in the industry who have tried the fixed price approach and liked it.
“onshore, offshore or dual-shore”
This should be self-explanatory, but what this company is really saying is that they can handle your large scale review for cheap, really, really cheap, or somewhere in between.
Not to spoil the surprise, but the next paragraph in most press releases starts off in the same predictable way. This is where one of the company executives wants to connect with you with a precise, succinct, targeted quotation to show that the company really understands the industry.

“Discovery lifecycle management is a complex challenge in today’s legal environment,” said [Dirk Diggler,] President of Puppenhaus.

Wow! Now was that profound or what? I bet they spent weeks coming up with that line to capture your attention. Are you beginning to see why I think these types of press releases are going the way of the dinosaur? Let’s move along.

“Our pricing model and consultant-based case management offers a balance of defensible discovery processes, proprietary technology and an overall price reduction of up to 75% over traditional methods. eGOtistic represents the future of the litigation support industry.”

Sponsored

“consultant-based case management”
You can actually break this into two parts. “Consultant-based,”pretty much means your sales team; however, everyone knows that the five-lettered “sales” is really a four-letter word. During the ’90s, “account executive” was the nome du jour, but then that eventually ran its course. Today, sales people are “consultative,” implying that they can understand your problems and guide you toward ways of solving them. Shocking as it may seem, those “solutions” somehow always end up with you needing to pay their company for their help. Many legal technology companies are hiring attorneys to be their sales consultants under the belief that it will get them more credibility. After all, who better to sweet talk a high-level managing partner into garnering business than someone who possesses attorney creds as well? I completely understand why a company would do this, but, to be frank, I know plenty of non-attorneys who make great consultants as well. TJ Gill of Catalyst Repository Systems and Jon Moreland of eTera Consulting are two people who are not lawyers–in fact, I don’t even think have technical backgrounds–but they both have such a great knowledge of their products and services that I would take their “consultations” very seriously.
“defensible discovery processes”
This is one of the big buzz phrases in e-discovery today. Basically, this company is saying “let us take care of your problem, and we will do it in a way that will stand up in court.” Defensibility is often raised with legal-process outsourcing companies, like this one, who want their clients to trust them that their work overseas will not lead to any ethical trouble or sanctions down the road.
“proprietary technology”
This is simply stating that their technology is of their own creation. Many legal technology companies, when they can’t fill a particular need with a certain client, will license products or services from other companies in order to do so. Here this company is saying they don’t do that.

Puppenhaus’s eGOtistic offers law firms and corporate legal departments a proficient approach that combines the highest level of quality and defensibility. The all-in-one pricing includes Early Case Assessment, Data Collection and Forensics, Document Processing, Online Data Hosting, Attorney Document Review, Document Production and End-to-End 30(b)(6) Testimony.

This may be my favorite paragraph of the entire release. If you memorize that second sentence and repeat it five times you would almost sound like an e-discovery expert.
“all-in-one”
This is another huge e-discovery buzzword. Companies are struggling to become the “all-in-one” solution, meaning that they handle every aspect of the e-discovery process. Although, a few companies are claiming they offer this, I have never heard of or run into a single company, no matter how huge, that was an expert in everything.
Now, the next set of bolded words outlines this process .
“Early Case Assessment”
Early Case Assessment or “ECA” is the latest trend people are talking about in the industry. The goal of large-scale discovery is to whittle away as many junk documents as possible so that there is only a small universe of documents when the process reaches the most expensive part–attorney review. Many companies involved in ECA claim they can look into their client’s documents prior to collection and size up the types of documents a client possesses, eliminating many unnecessary docs ahead of time. If ECA can reduce a sizable amount of data before the collection stage even begins, the client could be saved a massive expense.
“Data Collection and Forensics, Document Processing, Online Data Hosting, Attorney Document Review, Document Production”
I am going to handle all of these words together because they are mostly self explanatory. Data that is on a client’s hard drive, on PDAs, in IMs, etc. are collected, and then sent to a processor who can manage the data and upload it onto an online hosting tool. At that point, it is ready for an attorney to review. After the review is complete, those documents that are relevant to the matter at hand are then produced to the opposing party.
“End-to-End 30(b)(6) Testimony”
I don’t want to get into much detail over this so here is a good post on FRCP 30(b)(6). Basically the company is agreeing to act as your agent to testify in court that the entire process was on the up and up.

As a result of our global scale, Puppenhaus can dramatically reduce discovery and document review expenses by utilizing our state of the art delivery centers” said Diggler. “eGOtistic completes the e-Discovery and review process in a faster and more economical way allowing our clients to maximize cost savings and reduce the risk of judicial sanctions. eGOtistic further strengthens our support of the Fortune Global 500 and the world’s leading law firms.”

In other words: “blah, blah, blah, look at how great we are.” We are global, state of the art, faster, and more economical.” I admit that I do get a chuckle that this company seems to have no problem at all in this release with hyperbole, claiming to be able to slash costs across the board, but at the same time only promising to “reduce” the risk of judicial sanctions.
Oh, and remember at the beginning of this press release when I expected “leader” would have been in the first line and not “provider,” now I see why it was not.

Sponsored

About Puppenhaus
Puppenhaus is a global leader in providing technology powered legal and business solutions. We deliver success in the fields of litigation, contract review and management, intellectual property, immigration and law firm support.

__________________________________________________________________
Gabe Acevedo is an attorney in Washington, D.C. and owner of the e-discovery blog, GabesGuide.com. He also writes on legal technology and discovery issues for Above The Law. He can be reached at gabe@abovethelaw.com.

CRM Banner