Alternative Career Feature: E-Discovery Project Manager

Just Below The Law welcomes its fourth alternative career feature, Michael Boland.   Michael is Senior Project Manager in Winston & Strawn’s E-discovery Services Group since January 2010.  He received his J.D. and MBA from Golden Gate University in 2004/2005 and is licensed in Illinois.

Michael started his career as an E-Discovery Sales Consultant with Capitol Digital Document Solutions.  He used his position to learn as much as possible about the e-discovery industry (vendors, platforms, software, etc).  After almost a year with Capitol Digital Document Solutions in California, Michael made the move to Illinois and began doing contract work.

Armed with two degrees Michael was unsure about whether to pursue a traditional legal career or take another route.  Unlike most attorneys, Michael was introduced to e-discovery while in law school by one of his professors.  Michael, already having experience with e-discovery, took advantage of his knowledge and approached document review with a positive attitude.  He also viewed it as an opportunity to learn several e-discovery software.  With this experience, Michael stood out among other contract attorneys and was able to parlay his document review experience into a full-time E-Discovery Consultant.  Over the years Michael has worked for Prism Litigation Consulting and FTI Consulting.  He is currently working for Winston & Strawn.

Michael is a great example of someone with little to no technology background that made it into e-discovery.  In college he majored in English and Education (no tech experience there) and neither law school nor business school exposed him to the world of technology.  It wasn’t until his first job out of business school that he was exposed to technology and e-discovery and even then it was on the sales side.  Nevertheless, that didn’t hinder Michael from taking full advantage of each situation and learning the tech side of e-discovery.

Advice from Michael

Don’t be afraid of technology

As document review attorneys we have the unique opportunity of working with several different e-discovery software and platforms; so take advantage of it.  Click on icons and find out how to do this that and the other.  Rarely will document review attorneys ever have access to the one button that will crash the entire software. And, even if you do mess something up, there is someone on the other side that can fix it.

Did you know?

E-discovery isn’t going anywhere; in fact, it’s only going to get bigger. Michael attributes the fast-growing pace of e-discovery to the slumped economy.  Big corporations didn’t pay attention to their law firm’s discovery/e-discovery budgets before the recession, but now they are.  And, they’re putting pressure on law firms to become more and more efficient which ultimately means using more technology and fewer reviewers.

In response to the increased demand for better efficiency with e-discovery methods law firms are creating e-discovery staff attorney positions.  For example, McDermott has an Electronic Data Management, Privacy & Discovery Practice/Industry Group; Winston and Strawn recently created their own Litigation Review Center; and Seyfarth Shaw has a dedication national e-discovery team!

Take the Initiative

Research the vendors involved in your project.  What platform are you using?  Is it Concordance, Relativity, Ringtail, etc?  You can research whichever software you’re using and the company behind it.  Did you know that LexisNexis owns Concordance and that it offers two versions of the software (Concordance Evolution for large-scale litigation cases and Concordance discovery review management software for small to mid-sized litigation cases)?  Well, you could have easily found this information by a simple Google search.

The point is this:  if you want to take document review to the next level you need to do your research so that you can list something on your resume and get your foot in the door.  Moreover, once you’re in the door, continue to do more research so you have something to talk about in your interview.

Practical Tips

• Create a list of all the e-discovery software you’ve worked with and at least do a simple Google search to get your research started.

• Create a LinkedIn page and join e-discovery groups to get the pulse on the e-discovery industry.

• Email someone in the business and take them out for coffee (you’d be surprised how much a stranger is willing to help you).

• Check out www.edrm.net to better understand the flow of e-discovery (what you see as a document reviewer is actually one of the last steps in the e-discovery process).

• Be creative in your resume and the way you describe your experiences with e-discovery software.

• Once you feel you’ve acquired enough knowledge about e-discovery software, reach out to legal recruiters and send them your updated resume and make it a point to tell them about your newfound knowledge.

A special thanks to Michael for providing such valuable information.   If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact Michael  at michaeljboland33@yahoo.com.

Alternative Career Feature attorney, contract attorney, document review, Electronic discovery, FTI Consulting, Golden Gate University, law, Lawyer, Seyfarth Shaw