1. January 18, 2013 09:14 AM

Thank you. As a law firm litigation support professional, I see first hand every day how we help our teams manage the expense of discovery for our clients in an efficient and cost effective way, either directly or indirectly. It was nice to see a counterpoint to a proposal that outsourcing all of the components of a very complicated process with many different factors and situations as the best solution for firms and clients.

— Brian

2. January 18, 2013 09:28 AM

Good article. One of the most aspects of managing the hosting, processing and document productions is, IMO, project management. Maybe Law Firm project management can be addressed in a future article.

— Eric

3. January 18, 2013 02:31 PM

This article fails to answer some of the basic arguments put forth by Mr. Losey. The authors claim lower costs (without any data) but I can't imagine that a law firm can reach the scale and the resulting cost efficiencies of the major LSPs who are working with many firms and corporations. In addition, ediscovery will always be a secondary service unit in law firms and these same firms will never be able to attract the best management teams (they are at the LSPs with bigger salaries and stock options) to run these units. Most of the benefits pointed out in this article could likely be gained by deep partnerships with the service providers (as Mr Losey describes). Understandably, many big law firms want to keep these revenues but in the long term these dollars will move to the LSPs as confusion in this space dissipates and corporations take increased control of these relationships.

— Matt

4. January 18, 2013 05:08 PM

Matt,

You are simply incorrect. Most firms do not charge (or are significantly below market) for storage space giving them a built in advantage over vendors (smart firms can use this as a competitive advantage in attracting clients). Moreover, it doesn't matter if it is a secondary service unit - we still do it better because we are accountable on a level that a vendor never will be. Last, your insulting message that firms don't attact the best management is simply incorrect and does not recognize that the career ladder goes from vendor to firm and that working for a firm is a more stable, higher paying career than working for a vendor - any day - all day.

— Lex

5. January 21, 2013 05:41 PM

I am sorry, but the article sounds more like a desperate attempt of trying to save jobs than actually convincing me that insourcing makes sense. If you are going to convince me that insourcing eDiscovery is the way a firm should go, than I would have expected one to discredit Mr. Losey’s arguments to outsource. Yes, I am a believer that law firms should be in the business of practicing law as stated by Mr. Losey and any expense that is not in line with that service, such as Forensic Collections and the Processing of ESI, should be performed by organizations that provide this level of service on a daily basis. I have had to opportunity to work with numerous law firms who provide eDiscovery services. I have also had the opportunity to fix their mess that started between the firm and the client during the eDiscovery phase of collection and preservation as well as processing.

Now I am not saying that all law firms are this way, but I have seen way to many failures to know where the competency lies. All the points made in this article, Trust, Accountability, Expertise, Cost Savings, Institutional Knowledge and Vendor Management exist for the external managed service team and I am not sure why would one would think different. In my experience I believe that Mr. Losey left out a sixth and important point. The ability of a vendor to be unbiased in regards to its moral and ethical obligation. Managed Service organizations have the duty to perform work in the best interest of the client which is not the law firm. I actually prefer the firms that introduce me to the client for typically I find many instances in which I can continue to save the client money for their internal processes can be improved. I never see a law firm offer its services to fix a client’s eDiscovery problems.

I will make the closing argument that if a law firm is providing eDiscovery and IT related services that these costs need to be transparent to the client and not hidden in the numerous hourly fees typically experienced by the client.

— Dr. Watson