By David B. Cunningham

There is an irony to IT in law firms: Firms spend so much time on issues like IT infrastructure and upgrade projects that they spend too little time using technology to improve how lawyers work. Law firms cannot achieve real

value from their technology investments until they change this model. Moreover, changing the usual model can lower overall IT spending while increasing stability and lawyer satisfaction. With our law firm IT benchmarks reflecting that the high-est spending firms spend twice as much per lawyer on technology as the lowest spending firms, there is a lot to be gained by increasing technology efficiencies.

With good leadership, streamlining IT infrastructure and rebalancing attention to IT practice technologies, law firms can have real effects on productivity and client relations.

A Firm’s Best it investment: it LeAdershipBased on the assessments of hundreds of firms, it is clear that a leading factor

in the quality and value of a firm’s technology is the proficiency of the IT director. A good IT director will build a solid team, communicate effectively with lawyers, plan and architect with an eye to the future, emphasize testing, be a smart pur-chaser and better control the firm’s vendors. Every dollar poured into a good IT director or CIO pays back in terms of risk mitigation, hassle reduction and cost control — not necessarily lower costs, but better control of spending.

Even a good IT director can become ineffective when working with technol-ogy leadership in ill-defined roles. An IT leader needs four things from the firm outside the IT Department:

1. Representative feedback from a static group or a topic-specific group; 2. Authoritative decisions; 3. Qualified advice, recommendations and planning; and 4. Advocacy.

In This IssueControlling Costs While Getting the Most Out of Technology . . . . . . . . 1Lessons Learned from the Data Map Process . . . 1Gaining Competitive Edge with Redact-It . . 3Legal Hold Amendment At Family Dollar . . . . 7

By Ganesh Vednere

Creating the right data map with the right information takes time, patience, perseverance and pull. A data map that is hastily put together and is missing infor-mation will only provide cursory support to counsel, and instead may end up providing fodder to opposing counsel. Some have even said that is better to not have a data map, claim ignorance and hope for leniency than to state that you have a data map and produce an incomplete, half-baked and inadequate one and anger the judge.

Many organizations have hun-dreds of business applications, systems, utilities, network file shares and collaboration sites (such as SharePoint, Wikis etc.), not to mention the potential gold-mine of data stored in backup tapes, archival systems, PST files and offsite storage. Daunting as it may seem, creating a data map is actually twice as difficult as you thought. Really, simply e-mailing a “questionnaire” to the IT or operational folks asking for a list of applications, systems and platforms within the organiza-tion may not produce optimal re-sults. Instead, a holistic approach to the creation of the data map must be undertaken.

PRACTICE T IP

Volume 27, Number 6 • September 2009

Legal TechNewsletter®

LJN’s

IT is Dead; Long Live IT: Controlling Costs While Getting the Most Out of Technology

continued on page 2

X Marks the Spot: Lessons Learned From the Data Map Process

continued on page 4

2 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

Firms often assume a technology committee serves all four purposes. In practice, a technology committee is optional or at least in a back seat role compared to a qualified technol-ogy partner and COO.

streAmLine it; not Just A LittLe, But A Lot

It’s common for a firm to spend more than 80% of its attention and IT staff time on infrastructure and less than 20% on applying technol-ogy to the practice of law. The aim of streamlining IT systems and process-es should be to reverse this balance.

For IT infrastructure, the objective is straightforward: to provide a high-ly available foundation that requires less effort and cost to maintain. Consolidating IT systems via virtu-alization software (allowing multiple servers to run on each physical serv-er machine) has been a reality for a number of years, but the actual busi-ness results are often underwhelm-ing. IT staffs have gained initial success by reducing the firm’s total number of servers and, sometimes, software licenses. These efforts are generally focused on cleaning up ancillary and older servers. Think of this as Stage 1 in streamlining IT, of-ten with a moderate or net zero gain. Stage 1 helps IT staff gain experi-ence with virtualization, reduce the number of servers and reduce data center needs, although these gains can be offset by the costs, complex-ity and initial effort.

It is possible to streamline IT sys-tems much further and achieve a real, positive effect on reliability, re-covery capabilities, IT spending and staffing levels. We call this Stage 2. This requires a focus not just on technology, but on people, process

and technology within the IT de-partment. You should expect this level of streamlining to involve up-front investments, although the net result over three years should re-duce overall IT spending by at least 15% compared to traditional imple-mentations. This is important — if you can’t map your projects to these long-term business results, then you may simply be increasing costs and complexity under the guise of “im-provements.” It is easy to argue that while spending reductions are criti-cal, of more importance are better disaster recovery, reliability and lev-els of lawyer satisfaction.

Key aspects of streamlined IT in-clude:

• Application Packaging and Delivery. Standardization of the PC build is a fundamental attribute of well-run IT departments, and doing so actually supports user customi-zations rather than negates them. Commonly used tools such as WYSE, UIU, SysPrep, KBOX and Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manag-er support software packaging, com-mon PC image development and ap-plication deployment. These upfront efforts create significant payoff in support needs, reliability and ease of rolling out new changes.

• Consolidation and Virtualization of Core Systems. Reducing the loca-tions and quantity of servers related to Exchange, document management and other core systems simplifies management, reduces licensing and reduces the number of document libraries. Adding new servers be-comes a negligible effort and system recovery after failures can approach minutes rather than hours.

• Storage Optimization. Storage is often allowed to grow (each gi-gabyte is cheap), but then becomes a significant expense. Intelligent management, data de-duplication

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF . . . . . . . . . . Adam Schlagman, Esq .EDITORIAL DIRECTOR . . . . . . Wendy Kaplan AmpolskMANAGING EDITOR . . . . . . . . Steven Salkin, Esq .MARKETING MANAGER . . . . . . Jeannine KennedyGRAPHIC DESIGNER . . . . . . . . Louis F . Bartella

BOARD OF EDITORS

RICHARD C . BELTHOFF JR . Wachovia Corp . Charlotte, NC

BRETT BURNEY . . . . . . . . . . Burney Consultants Cleveland, OH

JEFFERY M . DUNCAN . . . . . Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione Chicago

RANDALL FARRAR . . . . . . . . . Esquire Innovations, Inc . Temecula, CA

TOM GELBMANN . . . . . . . . . Gelbmann & Associates St . Paul, MN

JOHN GREEN . . . . . . . . . . . . Baker, Donelson, Berman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC Memphis, TN

HOPE HASLAM . . . . . . . . . . UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc . Dallas

JUSTIN HECTUS . . . . . . . . . Keesal, Young & Logan Long Beach, CA

RICHARD K . HERRMANN . . Blank Rome LLP Wilmington, DE

ADAM E . JAFFE . . . . . . . . . . . Huron Consulting Group LLC New York

ARI KAPLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ari Kaplan Advisors Millburn, NJ

ROSS KODNER . . . . . . . . . . MicroLaw Inc . Milwaukee, WI

MARC LAURITSEN . . . . . . . . Capstone Practice Systems Harvard, MA

JOSEPH D . LEE . . . . . . . . . . Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP Los Angeles

ANN WALSH LONG . . . . . . . AALL PIC Oklahoma City, OK

DAVID L . NARKIEWICZ . . . . Montgomeryville, PA

ALAN PEARLMAN . . . . . . . . The Electronic Lawyer Northbrook, IL

DAVID C . REYMANN . . . . . . Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless Salt Lake City, UT

SETH A . RIERSON . . . . . . . . FTI Consulting, Inc . Chicago

G . CHRISTOPHER RITTER . The Focal Point LLC Oakland, CA

JOEL B . ROTHMAN . . . . . . . Seiden, Adler, Matthewman & Bloch, P .A . Boca Raton, FL

GEORGE J . SOCHA JR . . . . . SochaConsulting LLC St . Paul, MN JOHN J . SROKA . . . . . . . . . . Duane Morris LLP Philadelphia

BEN WEINBERGER . . . . . . . Lathrop & Gage, L .C . Kansas City, MO

LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter® (ISSN 0738-0186) is published by Law Journal Newsletters, a division of Incisive Media .

© 2009 . Incisive US Properties, LLC . All rights reserved . No reproduction of any portion of this issue is allowed without written

permission from the publisher . Telephone: (877) 256-2472; Editorial e-mail: steve .salkin@incisivemedia .com

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LJN’sIT Is Deadcontinued from page 1

David B. Cunningham is Managing Director of Baker Robbins & Compa-ny. He leads the Strategic Technology practice where he assists law firms with mergers, planning, risk manage-ment, technology assessments and IT optimization. He may be reached at dcunningham@brco.com.

continued on page 6

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September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 3

By Sean O’Keefe

My firm, based in Newport Beach, CA, specializes in bankruptcy and creditors’ rights. As part of its prac-tice, the firm regularly pursues and defends insolvency-related litigation in the federal courts. This kind of financial litigation is inherently doc-ument-intensive — often involving thousands of documents that must be reviewed, identified and scanned during the discovery process.

Twenty years ago, I would spend days wading through hundreds of boxes in hot, dusty warehouses and storage rooms, trying to piece to-gether the documentary evidence necessary to support or defeat the claims involved in the litigation contest. Once the documents were culled from this source, each docu-ment would then be logged and photocopied for trial.

Today, the discovery universe is very different. Large bodies of doc-uments are already in digital form when litigation is initiated and the balance can be quickly digitized through high-speed scanners. This allows litigants to create a commonly accessible database (although the arguments still rage over who pays for what) and once all of the data is digitized, the lawyers can efficiently search, identify, log, and where ap-propriate, redact privileged matter, all without leaving their desks.

This electronic convenience is also very timely. The current eco-nomic downturn has dramatically increased the number of corporate Chapter 11 filings. Business bank-ruptcies are typically document intensive, and the litigation that arises within these cases can gener-ate massive discovery burdens. For

example, in one bankruptcy-related litigation matter that I am working on, we have exchanged over 60,000 documents with opposing counsel during the last three months, and this is not a particularly large case. Document repositories with well over a million document pages are not uncommon in this environment.

resistAnce is FutiLeAlthough some lawyers have re-

sisted the digital revolution, this is no longer an option. e-Filing is now mandatory in the federal courts, and state courts will soon follow this trend. Unless a firm wants to out-source this function (e-filing), high-speed scanning technology is a must, since substantially every e-filed doc-ument must be in PDF format. Fortu-nately, the cost of this technology is now reasonable, and PPM scan rates have dramatically improved.

The move to electronic filing has come with its own set of rules. For example, the Dec. 1, 2007 amend-ments to the 2002 e-Government act (Appellate Rule 25, new Bankruptcy Rule 9037, Civil Rule 5.2, and Crimi-nal Rule 49.1) require filers to redact personal identification information from documents filed with the court. Personal information includes, but may not be limited to, Social Securi-ty and Taxpayer Identification num-bers, the names of minor children, financial account numbers, dates of birth, and, in criminal cases, home addresses. Although this information should have been removed during the “paper filing” days as a matter of prudent practice, it was frequently overlooked. Now, failing to redact this information could have severe consequences for the filer.redAction soFtwAre

Redaction has always been one of the more time-consuming burdens inherent in the discovery process. For example, a single tax return in a complicated case can have more than one hundred pages of data, and half of these pages can include a Social Security or Tax Identification number. Every one of these entries must be redacted. That’s 50 entries in a single document. In a case with 30 or 40 tax returns, thousands of redactions may be required just to eliminate these entries. When other

appropriate privilege based redac-tions are factored into the mix, the burden on lawyers and litigants can be overwhelming, particularly since each redaction must be identified and explained in a log for opposing counsel.

Years ago, my staff and I used the time-honored manual method of redaction. We printed copies of the documents to be redacted, used a black marker or redaction tape to cover the content to be protected, and then made enough photocop-ies of the page to ensure the text was completely blacked out. Then we would scan the document back into the system and along the way re-review the document to ensure all privileged and privacy data was blacked-out. In cases involving tens of thousands of documents, this was a time-consuming and mind-numb-ing burden that was prone to hu-man error. Although in recent years, we have used various software pro-grams to mitigate this burden, few of them provided the flexibility and convenience necessary to materially lessen the burden.

About a year ago, when I was again faced with a case that would require the redaction of thousands of entries, I decided to search the Internet for new redaction software that would ease this burden and re-duce the associated costs. My search led me to a product called Redact-It Desktop, which was made by In-formative Graphics out of Arizona. Redact-It is an electronic redaction software program that allows me to review documents electronically and search for privileged content. The program enables me to effi-ciently and automatically remove privacy information — including all information that requires redac-tion for filing into the federal sys-tem — add reason codes for each redaction, and then generate a log for opposing counsel.

In April 2008, I purchased a sin-gle license for $195. The installation was fast and easy — I basically ran an executable file to install Redact-It, opened the program and started using it that day. The intuitive tools

Gaining Competitive Edge and ROI with Redact-It’s Electronic Redaction Tool

continued on page 4

Sean O’Keefe is principal and found-er of O’Keefe & Associates Law Cor-poration P.C. in Newport Beach, CA. The firm specializes in bankruptcy and creditors’ rights law.

4 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

and visual presentation allowed me to integrate the program into my practice, without the time and cost of formal training. I found the soft-ware to be effective, flexible, and most importantly, user friendly. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Although Redact-It certainly saved me time, I also needed the program to be accurate and comprehensive. Even with the benefit of this new electronic tool, I typically will do sev-eral passes over the material. First, I use Redact-It’s built-in tool for find-ing privacy information, like Social Security numbers. Then I search for the actual Social Security number in question with the text search tool to be sure nothing was missed. Even using two search methods, it takes just seconds per document. Since I still am a firm believer that there is no substitute for the human eye, I still perform a visual review.

improvements And roiRedaction errors or omissions

can have serious consequences for the client and for the lawyer. So I was very glad to see that Informa-tive Graphics heard the pleas of

the legal community when they de-veloped the latest version of their software, version 1.1, which imple-mented tools that make the final re-view easier. I have just started using this version, but there is an option to show just a few lines of the doc-ument at a time for a focused view. I just click a “down arrow” to prog-ress the view window to the next document segment until the entire document has been read. When I complete this kind of review, the program creates a log entry, along with every other redaction function performed. The improvements also make it possible to record redac-tion steps on the first document, and to automatically apply these same steps to other documents as soon as they are opened. This fea-ture makes sure nothing is missed within the documents and it saves even more time.

Redact-It has been huge from a ROI standpoint, providing cost and efficiency benefits for both my prac-tice and my clients. On small cases, with a few hundred documents, I can save several hours, which at cur-rent hourly rates is a major plus for my clients. In the larger cases, the savings are even greater. This tech-nological enabler also allows me to

focus on other more important tasks, or better still, to take some time off. For a one-time charge of $195, I am saving my clients thousands of dol-lars and improving the quality of my practice.

Eventually, all lawyers will be do-ing redaction electronically; but for now, many attorneys insist on do-ing redaction the old-fashioned way, with markers or redaction tape, and it’s costing them and their clients’ time and money. So to those still re-sisting technology and change and clutching their markers and tape, I am here to tell you that to stay com-petitive, electronic tools are essen-tial. The cost and time savings are just too important to ignore.

Discovery is tedious and expen-sive, and whatever technological tool will get me through the process the most quickly, without sacrificing my objectives, is at the top of my list. For me, Redact-It fits the bill in the redaction arena. I am able to save both my sanity and my time while saving my clients’ money and in-creasing accuracy. This helps me to maintain competitive advantage. Few tools at that price can do that much for the bottom line.

Redact-Itcontinued from page 3

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it’s ALL ABout the (mAp) coordinAtes

At its core, a data map is an inven-tory of the sources of data within an organization, the names and types of applications or platforms that store this data, the processes that manipulate the data, how the data flows within various business pro-cesses and how this data is stored, retrieved and accessed.

Start with existing data infrastruc-ture, record and business process inventories. Typically, the IT infra-structure team will have the list(s) of system infrastructures, their locations, business/IT owners and platform names. The records management team will have an inventory of the various types of records generated through the course of business along with the requisite record metadata, such as record description, owner, lo-cation, formats and retention period. The operations team will have a list of the various business processes, pro-cess descriptions, process inputs and outputs, owners, process dependen-cies and the applications and systems that are used to execute the process.

Work with HR to obtain organiza-tional charts that show the various hierarchies, roles and responsibilities within the organization. In addition, the information security team can

provide a list of security and access groups by the various applications. Obtaining accurate and complete inventories is always a challenge. While it behooves organizations to spend upfront time and resources in ensuring that these lists are as accu-rate as possible, the data map team must make adequate contingency plans to account for the errors and omissions in the lists provided to them.

Once existing lists and invento-ries are obtained, the next step is to start mapping the data types to cor-responding applications, platforms, owners and business processes. The data map team also needs to con-duct walkthrough sessions with the various stakeholders to discuss how the data moves from one applica-tion/business process to another. A data map needs to incorporate

Data Map Processcontinued from page 1

continued on page 5

Ganesh Vednere is a manager with a global financial service consulting company based out of New York. He has expertise in implementing informa-tion and compliance programs includ-ing e-discovery, compliance research, records management, legal research and program implementation. He can be reached at gvedn@comcast.net.

September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 5

aspects of all data flows within an organization. There are several ways to perform the mapping — starting with the infrastructure/application list and then tying it to the business process, records, HR and access controls lists. Alternatively, one can start with the business process list and then map out the correspond-ing data outputs, records and so on. This is where the bulk of the data map complexity occurs. One option for reducing the complexity of the mapping exercise is to pri-oritize higher data risk areas with-in the organization and focus on these first and then complete the other areas. Are we there Yet?

The following are some key lessons learned from the data map process.

• Deploy the Right Resources. Creating a data map requires a col-laborative effort on the part of legal, IT, business, operations and compli-ance areas. It is not just a one-person show. Legal needs to determine if the end product is good enough for use during litigation; IT needs to provide relevant information about servers, data and metadata; business and operations teams need to provide information on business processes; while the compliance team provides details on what controls have been established on information flows.

• Apply a Methodical Process. The process of how a data map is created is in many instances as im-portant as the data map itself. The quality of the data map — and its reli-ability — is directly dependent upon how well the process of collecting, collating, analyzing and classifying the underlying data is implement-ed. It is best to follow a consistent framework throughout the process and ensure that all involved teams follow the process.

• Establish Reasonable Time-frames. Setting up a time frame is usually not an option when there is a litigation fire drill going on, but if the situation permits, an attempt should be made to evaluate and establish reasonable timeframes. For a typi-

cal mid-size organization, it is rea-sonable to expect a timeframe of at least a couple of months to produce a data map, assuming the informa-tion required is readily available and up-to-date.

• Avoid Reinventing the Wheel. Leverage any and all existing lists, in-ventories, projects and programs for harvesting information necessary to the data map project. In some cases these are not always well published or publicized, hence some digging around may be required to uncover what piec-es have already been created.

• Apply Project Management Techniques. By its very nature, the data map project requires a disparate team of representatives from various business lines, legal, compliance, IT, operations and so on. The only way to keep the team working together in a cohesive manner is to have one or more strong project managers with experience in large scale projects who have gone through the program implementation lifecycle.

• People Have Day Jobs Too. Most resources allocated to the data map project will continue to have their “day” jobs. It is rare that a project team will get dedicated representa-tives from the lines of businesses and IT. Typically, one can expect part-time resources to be provided to support the project. How part time it gets de-pends on how well management has been updated on the need and im-portance of the data map project. The key thing to keep in mind is not just to have a large number of individu-als on the project, but rather to have the right resources on board. Quality trumps quantity here.

• Use a Risk-Based Approach. Somewhere in the middle of the data map project, it is easy to get lost in the sheer volume of informa-tion that is being collated and ana-lyzed. In most large organizations, it is somewhat impossible to gather, identify and tag every single piece of information. While it is hard to predict what kind of information will be required to be produced once in court, one can at least make risk-based assumptions on the types of data sets required and focus best efforts on them.

• Use Facilitated Sessions. When time is short and specific pieces of information are required from the participants, facilitated sessions may be the way to go. It may be better to gather managers and support staff that work in a common business area, assemble them in a room and target specific questions to gather in-formation about their specific busi-ness process and data flows.

• Automated Tools. As the mar-ketplace ramps up for e-discovery, many players are entering the arena with their product and service offer-ings. Given the complexity of locat-ing data, determining structures and relationships it is no surprise that au-tomated tools will eventually replace most of the core data map process-es. Tools can also ease much of the manual work around collating, clas-sifying and storing the information.

• Updates and Maintenance. Once the data map is developed, a process for periodic updates and ongoing maintenance must be insti-tuted. A data map that is outdated does not really serve its purpose. As business processes and systems are updated or upgraded, the appro-priate information in the data map must also be updated. At the same time, when systems are retired or replaced, updates must be made to the data map to reflect where and how the data will be stored for re-trieval at a future date. This last part is important as there are instances where data may not be accessible via reasonable means and organizations will have to demonstrate that this is indeed the case. concLusion

Daunting as it may appear, creat-ing a data map is a key aspect of the e-discovery process. Organizations must start the process of creating one now rather than waiting until litigation requires them to do so. A well-developed and well-document-ed data map will prove useful in the long run, both from a litigation and operational perspective. It allows legal to support its case in court, business to understand the types of information it works with and IT to have a full and complete list of sys-tem assets.

Data Map Processcontinued from page 4

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6 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

and recovery capabilities are built into storage systems like those from NetApp (which can also manage other vendors). By combining smart systems with good firm retention and archival policies (notably in-clusive of litigation support), firms have literally reduced storage needs by over 60%.

IT Data Center. Often overlooked, a key benefit of consolidation is the potential to avoid or reduce costly power and cooling upgrades.

These changes will simplify IT operations and staffing levels to one IT staff managing infrastructure and PCs for approximately every 100-150 users. The upcoming re-lease of Windows 7 and, assumedly, better economic conditions are ex-pected to kick-start more firms into making these improvements over the next 12 months.

Get A reALitY check ABout outsourcinG

Evaluating outsourcing is uncom-fortable for law firms. However, rather than consider outsourcing to be an all or nothing proposition, rec-ognize that vendors provide a menu of services from which a law firm can choose (hence the term “man-aged services” is often used). There are a small number of legal-specif-ic managed service providers (e.g., Keno Kozie, MindShift, IntelliTeach) that can match your internal costs, provide lower risk of failure and se-curity breaches, and provide deeper bench strength of IT skills than most firms can afford.

Therefore, it is smart for a firm to undergo a “sourcing analysis” to compare its internal risks, service levels and costs to those of external vendors. At a minimum, the firm will understand its own areas of potential improvements. While only a minor-ity of firms will turn core operations over to a vendor (e.g., hosting and managing the e-mail system), all firms should list and scrutinize the services provided by IT. Four areas to look at IT for managed service opportunities can help focus the analysis:

1. Services that are notably man-intensive but not user facing?

2. Services that require specialist skills, but aren’t full time?

3. Services that require 24-hour at-tention?

4. Services that need high capital investments?

One firm, for example, had sever-al IT staff employed to run backups and provide 24-hour monitoring of the firm’s network. While one could applaud the generosity of their mon-itoring focus, they were able to turn to a vendor service for about 10% of the firm’s previous cost. And frankly, the vendor was able to afford bet-ter monitoring and troubleshooting tools. Other examples include help desk (notably after hours support), database maintenance, Wide Area Network monitoring, security con-trol and disaster recovery testing.

Get more From prActice technoLoGY

With IT infrastructure streamlined, resources can be redirected to ap-plying technology to the practice of law. Practice technology objec-tives include supporting the qual-ity and profitability of legal services to clients, while enabling lawyers to spend more time on high-value work and client-facing activities.

At the core of practice technology is document and e-mail manage-ment. Common issues are fragment-ed client matter files (electronic and paper files scattered across multiple locations and applications) and dif-ficulty finding and sharing matter materials (lawyers and staff perform redundant, inefficient searching and filing activities and redundant paper files consume unnecessary amounts of physical space). As a result, while good service is likely maintained, it is done with more effort than neces-sary while profits are undermined and client service could be compro-mised.

Such practice issues require a blend of people, process/policies and technology to address. In re-lation to electronic matter files, an e-records management policy and retention schedule should serve as guides for what is stored, where

and for how long. Software vendors have long recognized the conver-gence of e-mail, document manage-ment and records management, so companies such as Autonomy (now owners of iManage/Interwoven) and Recommind provide sets of tools to support a single, unified electronic matter file from open through close, and effective e-mail management.

As the economy has changed, one of the few areas in which firms have invested more resources is in nurturing client opportunities and relationships. Despite investments in marketing software, firms are un-satisfied with their own abilities to learn whom and what the firm knows about clients and potential clients. Passive technology, such as ContactNet, mines information about relationships from e-mail, voice sys-tems, billing systems, etc. Such soft-ware combines internal and external information sources and requires no additional effort to keep informa-tion current. Having this “six degrees of separation” network available at a lawyer’s fingertips can enhance business development and help to strengthen client relationships.

The precedent for firms using technology to enhance their ser-vice delivery is unfortunately low. The 2008 Association of Corporate Counsel Value Challenge findings reflect the frustration from corpo-rate counsel on law firms’ abilities to effectively budget, staff projects, track fees to budget, share knowl-edge and communicate status. Like other areas, technology can only play a supporting role in improving these business functions, but there are many simplified project man-agement and collaborative extranet technologies available for firms. In a time when investing in client re-lationships is a priority, providing clarity on matter status can be a firm’s strong differentiator.

One of the fastest changing aspects to client relationships is an arrange-ment in which a firm’s fees are based partially on the success or satisfac-tion of the work product. To make such an arrangement profitable,

IT Is Deadcontinued from page 2

continued on page 8

September 2009 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt 7

By Kevin Anderson

Family Dollar Stores is a neigh-borhood-based convenience and value retailer with more than 6,600 locations in 44 states, and more than 45,000 full-time employees.

As the director of litigation support, I work with a team of 26 attorneys and various information technology (IT) professionals. I am the primary driver for all e-discovery, information life cycle management, privacy and litigation management processes. At any one time, Family Dollar has doz-ens of professionals collaborating on multiple pending cases in a variety of fields.

communicAtion BreAkdown: cumBersome LeGAL hoLd process

We send out litigation holds al-most daily to up to 400 custodians at a time, including anyone from store managers to senior organization of-ficers. e-Mail is the most commonly targeted type of data in our holds, but we also often place holds on a wide variety of other data, including unstructured file network-situated data and structured data; and we de-cide what to hold based on the na-ture of each case.

In developing our litigation hold process, we had created a manual approach to the large number of litigation holds we managed. How-ever, we found the process to be very labor-intensive. When a trigger-ing event came to our attention, we

issued a hold notice via our corpo-rate e-mail accounts and hard copy. We tracked the details of each legal hold, including reminders and hold releases, using Excel spreadsheets.

We found this process to be lacking, and determined we needed a “one-stop” communication link with cus-todians, with automated audit trails. We also wanted to move away from the practice of regularly using outside counsel to handle the creation of cus-tom legal hold notices for our litiga-tion portfolio. We knew it was time to rethink our legal hold process.

FindinG the riGht soLutionWe decided that automating our

legal hold process was the best way we could give good service to the business people with whom we work while also mitigating risk for the or-ganization and reducing the time spent on the legal hold process.

We came up with several require-ments going into our search for an automated solution. First, we needed it to capture and create audit trails of all hold activity. Second, we needed a solution that would provide a cen-tralized way to manage legal hold responses and answer custodian and data stewards’ questions. Third, it needed to be intuitive and easy to use without specialized training. Fi-nally, it needed to be cost-effective.

I began my search by looking at automated legal hold solutions from several leading legal software providers. While many offered sev-eral features we needed, an in-depth analysis of Exterro’s Fusion Legal Hold revealed it to be the best fit for Family Dollar’s needs.

Exterro’s Fusion Legal Hold met all of our requirements, and offered several additional features that made our decision an easy one:

A secure, audited and direct link •between custodians and legal teams that would allow custo-dians to ask questions and our legal teams to answer them from a central repository;Superior integration capabilities, •including the ability to integrate with our HR system and existing matter management system; andCompetitive price point.•

impLementinG FusionThe implementation process went

extremely smoothly. We chose to keep Fusion Legal Hold behind Ex-terro’s firewall, allowing us to forego on-site installation; and implement-ing the ASP model was a simple, easy process. Exterro had a solid implementation plan before rollout, and we were quickly able to lever-age its integration capabilities to incorporate our pre-existing tech-nology with Fusion. Our transition was seamless and there was nei-ther significant interruption in our day-to-day activities nor any system compatibility issues. I worked with our IT department and Exterro’s cli-ent success and engineering teams to deploy Fusion Legal Hold and its features:

Fusion’s integration points en-•abled us to feed custodian data to Fusion from our HRIS system and Oracle e-Business Suite, and link Fusion’s functionality to our custodians via Microsoft Ex-change Server. This eliminated any need to manually enter cus-todian information into Fusion; with approximately 3,500 users — that’s a major time savings.Fusion Legal Hold’s notifica-•tion management increased ef-ficiency by automating and sim-plifying the process of creating legal holds, identifying custodi-ans and data, and issuing legal hold notifications. Additionally, automated notifications enable our IT team to know what data needs to be retained without the legal department having to initi-ate a separate workflow to com-municate with them.Fusion’s unique collaborative •tools enabled us to share the identities of custodians with our IT department in real-time. The collaborative tool we’ve found to be most useful is what we call the “ask questions” feature. Custodians in the field and IT managers can immediately send their hold-related questions to us via Fusion, without having to either log out of the system or

A Focus on Customer Service: Legal Hold Management at Family Dollar

continued on page 8

Kevin Anderson is the Director of Litigation Support for Family Dollar Stores, Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in North Carolina, where he focuses on e-discovery, technology and privacy issues. Anderson has more than 18 years of experience in the practice of law, including a decade in private practice and eight years of experience as in-house counsel in the retail industry.

8 LJN’s Legal Tech Newsletter ❖ www.ljnonline.com/alm?lt September 2009

a firm has to learn how to price such work, how to define success or satisfaction, and how to man-age progress against the budget. Few firms are yet good at all three areas. Technology can play a role not only in managing matter time and budget (as above), but also in providing access to existing firm resources (templates, precedents,

best practices, experts, etc.) quick-ly and easily. Matter and practice financial dashboards can provide current status and issue informa-tion. Any effort to create efficien-cies pay off handsomely, especially since a recent study within profes-sional service organizations reflects that people spend 30% of their time simply searching for content.

Never before have firms been as willing to shake up the traditional focus of IT. While the age is over

for IT departments to simply keep systems running, the role for IT in supporting lawyer productivity is the dawning of a new age for many firms.

On the Web at:

www.ljnonline.comTo order this newsletter, call:

1-877-256-2472

IT Is Deadcontinued from page 6

pick up the phone to call us. Our answers flow back to them im-mediately, and the whole conver-sation is tracked and tied to the hold itself for future reference.Fusion’s audit trails created efficient •defensibility and cut down on the time spent tracking holds by en-abling our users to see, at a glance and in real time, who has and who has not responded to each hold notice. We can view event history for a hold or matter, and export a timeline if necessary.Fusion’s hold templates reduced •the time spent on creating new legal holds by about half, prov-ing particularly indispensible for large litigation projects.Fusion’s release process allows •increased efficiency by enabling us to release legal holds with just a couple clicks of a mouse, freeing our IT department to re-turn affected data to its regular retention and destruction cycle and allowing for timely data dis-position.

Getting buy-in from our constitu-ents was fairly easy. I sat with each attorney and paralegal while they cre-ated their first legal hold, and overall it took about two weeks to get every-one comfortable with the new tech-nology and associated process. One of my most difficult-to-please parale-gals even walked into my office and

said, “I love this thing.” Overall, we had a very positive response from the legal team as well as the custodi-ans and IT team members.

end resuLtsWith Fusion in place, once a trig-

gering event comes to our attention, a member of the legal team can im-mediately create a legal hold by choosing the template appropriate to matter type and modifying it as nec-essary, or creating a new hold using Fusion’s simple three-step wizard. The hold is then approved and sent out rapidly via Fusion’s messaging system, with built-in escalations and reminder parameters. Fusion tracks and audits all activities related to that hold, alerts the legal team when ac-tion is needed, and allows our custo-dians to ask questions and our attor-neys to answer immediately. When the matter is resolved, the hold is re-leased with the click of a mouse.

The aspects of the software that we have been most satisfied with are:

• Streamlined process, compli-ance. Fusion has cut the inefficiency out of the legal hold process, greatly improving our customer service and accessibility. Additionally, by allow-ing end users to review legal holds as part of their normal, day-to-day busi-ness processes, Fusion has embedded compliance into everyday workflows.

• Reduced costs. By reducing our reliance on outside counsel and staff time to create, process and track le-gal holds, Fusion has helped to re-duce our legal-hold related costs.

• Gap time reduction. We’ve re-duced the lead-time between trigger-ing events and legal hold issuance. Fusion’s templated holds and inte-grations with our HR system allow us to quickly scope large litigation projects. Additionally, we can now quickly target the data to be retained with clear litigation hold notices that minimize inefficiencies and reduce duplication.

• Time savings and efficiency. We’ve reduced the time spent per week on tracking legal hold processes from about 10 hours to about 30 min-utes — a time savings of 95%. Since its implementation in January 2009, Fusion has saved us significant staff hours in tracking and administrative work alone, freeing our legal talent to focus on their core competencies.

• Defensibility. We now have an automated method of tracking and monitoring the legal hold process that requires little intervention on the part of the legal team, and shows exactly what happened with respect to each hold issued on a custodian-by-custodian basis.

concLusionSince its implementation, Fusion

has reduced our legal-hold related outside counsel expenditures substan-tially, cut our spoliation and human-error related risks, and given us the transparent and fully audited system we need for a fully defensible legal hold process.

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Family Dollarcontinued from page 7

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