This week I trained my 100th lawyer on using the CaseLogistix review platform. During the dozen or so training sessions I have conducted over the past couple of months both face to face and via the web a number of people have commented that it is unusual to see the Managing Director running training sessions. This got me thinking about the nature of the industry and the approach we adopt at Millnet.
Over the past six years I have witnessed countless sales pitches and demonstrations of litigation support software. Reflecting on these, they have been more often poor than good and have at times been truly dire. Dissecting the reasons for this it seems there are a number of common deficiencies on the part of the demonstrator – Namely, lack of:
- detailed knowledge of the software AND / OR
- familiarity with other competing software platforms (of which there are many) AND / OR
- understanding of how lawyers work and therefore how the software assists them to be more productive AND / OR
- the ability to articulate what the service will cost and thus convince the end client that it will be a good investment.
No wonder then that lawyers often comment that they feel confused and frustrated by the technology and by the competing claims of the community of service providers.
Back in 2004 it struck me that the only way to acquire a detailed understanding of e-discovery technology and how to fashion this into a coherent set of services that meet the requirements of lawyers was to ‘get my hands dirty’. Initially this involved becoming familiar with the intricate details of how Millnet was going about providing e-discovery services on the EDS v BSkyB matter (Millnet was providing the data processing and iConect hosting via GlobalConect to DLA, representing EDS). This baptism of fire illustrated both the need for a detailed understanding of the technological issues and the potential for disconnect between sales rhetoric and what it actually takes to make a project run smoothly.
Fast forward to 2009 and Millnet commenced hosting of CaseLogistix, having previously either worked alongside various other organisations to provide hosted review services or more recently hosting Concordance and Nuix ourselves. Even with a detailed understanding of how to use other litigation review software platforms (in particular we’ve had a lot of previous experience with iConect and at one stage put ten members of our team, myself included, through the full iConect ASP training course), it still takes dozens of hours of actual use of a new piece of software to become proficient.
I liken hosted review platforms to learning to use Excel. If all you need to do is add up a column of numbers then it will take less than 5 minutes to learn. If you want to build powerful and necessarily complex dynamic spreadsheet models then you will require not only a detailed knowledge of all the features and functions of Excel but also a good understanding of the business you are attempting to model, financial concepts generally and a degree of logic and creativity to design an approach that is optimal.
I believe the best (only?) way to learn the detailed functionality and application of a new technology is by immersing yourself in the technology and getting involved in the nitty gritty of demonstrations, developing marketing and training collateral and actually undertaking training sessions yourself. This is the philosophy we adopt at Millnet and we have been steadily building a team of people who have considerable firsthand experience of using the software that underlies the services we provide. This extends beyond just the review software but also all the processing and production steps before and after associated with both electronic and hard copy documents.
If being ‘hands on’ is the best way to learn, then I guess the next question is why the Managing Director? Management theory would suggest that there should be a hierarchy with well defined roles performed by experts with highly specialised skills. To some extent this is true of Millnet. However in an emerging and rapidly evolving service niche, my view is that our leadership must remain close to clients, the projects we assist them with and be hands-on with the underlying technologies we employ in providing e-discovery services. In this way we can be proactive in anticipating client requirements and tactical as to how we navigate the rapidly changing commercial and technological landscape.
Therefore, for the foreseeable future I and numerous Millnet people will continue to be close to the coalface. We look forward to training many more lawyers and their clients to make the most of CaseLogistix, Nuix and various other new technologies in the months to come.