Why India and Not Indiana? A Case for Taking e-Discovery ‘In House,’ Literally

In keeping with the highly optimistic “dey terk er jerbs” story lines of the last couple of weeks, such as Elie’s on how outsourcing could be great for associates, I thought I would address how attorneys working remotely on e-discovery projects could actually be a good thing for the future of Biglaw.

A couple of years ago, I was a legal recruiter for a small staffing agency placing contract attorneys on e-discovery projects in the Washington, DC area. The attorneys constantly asked me the same questions: “Is it true this is all going away?” Or, “Is all doc review really heading to India?”

I would respond by telling them not to worry about India, because the real threat would be coming from Indiana…

Why Indiana? Or Ohio, North Carolina, or (plug in your state here)? Because I thought, in time, the Biglaw intelligentsia would see that advances in technology favor the ability of firms to hire contract attorneys anywhere in the country to review their discovery documents.

From my perspective, that was the simplest and most logical answer, for a variety of reasons.

It turns out that I was dead right about the technology, but dead wrong about the brainpower over at Biglaw.

Sponsored

Don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that there are already projects where contract attorneys are hired to work remotely, but this trend has not picked up the speed the way outsourcing legal work abroad has. For the life of me, I cannot understand why.

Anyone who has worked in Biglaw for a minute and a half knows two  poorly kept secrets: 1) This “e-discovery” thing is really just discovery, and 2) “legal technology” is just technology. Advances in both these areas now mean that firms can hire attorneys to do this work remotely.

But wait, Biglaw can’t do that, right? Aren’t there a million security issues involved? That is usually the first argument I hear from Biglaw detractors. Frankly, for any firm that would have no issue sending millions of sensitive documents overseas to be reviewed by a bunch of non-licensed doc reviewers with a few U.S. barred attorneys “supervising” them, the security argument is inane at best. Most e-discovery reviews are already on secure servers, so even if someone wanted to, it’s impossible to copy a document from the screen to a hard drive. Plus, a firm is actually enhancing security issues for its client by entrusting their documents to licensed attorneys. In other words, a firm can go after a contract attorney if any funny business were to occur.

What if the attorneys have questions about the the documents they are reviewing? Help is just an email or phone call away. If the firm hires local attorneys, they can hold a meeting at the firm once or twice a week. If the attorneys are spread around the country, the firm can hold regular conference calls or web-based meetings to make certain everyone is on the same page.

In addition, once you have attorneys working remotely, you cut out a ton of overhead. There are no office space issues, computers, or internet connections to worry about. Also, I would venture to guess that most attorneys, given the option to work at home/remotely, would take a somewhat lower rate in order to avoid paying for transportation, food, and all the other costs that go along with an office job.

Sponsored

There is a lot of talk in this crappy new economy about “innovation.” Innovation is not sending jobs for U.S. licensed-attorneys to non-lawyers abroad to squeeze out every dollar you can in the name of your clients. However, developing a cadre of lower-cost licensed attorneys to look over docs in discovery would not only benefit all sides, but might also be a template for other firms to follow in the future.

Gabe Acevedo is an attorney in Washington, D.C. and the 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