Certification gives veteran litigator a reliable standard to vet talent

Fed up with hiring candidates and others whose skills don't match promise, Alvin Lindsay, international e-discovery expert and senior Hogan Lovells partner, took the CEDS certification exam and embraces the CEDS credential as the first reliable measure of e-discovery skill and knowledge.

Alvin Lindsay has had enough. Enough of the big boasts, the promising prospects-turned-disappointments, the tiresome and time-consuming costly talent searches and vetting. In short, Lindsay has had it with e-discovery false prophets.

"They come in to interview and they have these bold claims," he said. "But in the end it turns out they read a book or one or two cases and they think that qualifies them as experts."

As a senior partner in the Miami office of the 2,300-lawyer international firm Hogan Lovells and a sought-after speaker on thorny e-discovery issues in large international cases, the veteran litigator has seen countless hours swirl down the drain in the quest to snag the next bright up-and-comer. More often than not, however, it is a chore to find a candidate who is simply e-discovery literate. This is the value proposition that attracted Lindsay to the Certified E-Discovery Specialist credential that ACEDS awards to persons who pass a proctored examination.

"When I see a person who is certified – and not just by vendor-approved software – I have a better idea of what I'm getting," he said. Just like the deep knowledge of technology that he has, Lindsay says that being certified and hiring other professionals who are certified can give him a leg-up in his practice. "That's why I'm pleased to take the ACEDS test and become certified, because it will give us another competitive advantage."

Lindsay specializes in multinational complex product liability and catastrophic defect cases and is a frequent lecturer on e-discovery cross-border issues. He is a featured speaker at the ACEDS Annual E-Discovery Conference at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, Florida, on March 23-25, 2011.

The need for a ‘strong standard of competence’

This month, Lindsay took the Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) examination and left the testing facility that day with something more valuable than four new letters he can put after his name. For the first time, he had found what he feels is a reliable, unitary method to see through the puffery in e-discovery.

"The exam was rigorous and thorough. You don't just pay your money and pass the test. You need to know the legal and technical aspects of e-discovery. I don't know what took so long for a certification like this to come along, but there needed to be a strong standard of competence," he said. "I'm confident now with the CEDS credential that we have a way to define that standard."

To Lindsay, who began delving into computers in the 1980s and worked in television production in Los Angeles, the concept of an e-discovery certification was clearly indicated. As a young lawyer fresh out of the University of Miami Law School, he anticipated the difficulty lawyers and courts world would have with electronically stored information from as far back as the time of the floppy disk.

'Staying ahead of the curve'

"I realized immediately the importance of ESI and realized that most lawyers and businesses had no clue where all these new e-mails and PowerPoints and websites were being stored," he said. "So I made a point of staying ahead of the curve."

For Lindsay that meant positioning himself as one of the top authorities in the uneven, chaotic and burgeoning world of cross-border e-discovery. In the past three years, he has handled cases, authored papers and conducted studies from China to Chicago and places in between. His July 2010 paper International E-Discovery is one of the most comprehensive efforts to survey foreign jurisdictions and measure their impact on the US e-discovery process.

His website, www.TechnologyinLitigation.com, is regarded by many as one of the top legal research portals on the internet. His book and DVD, Technology in Litigation for Lawyers, published by The National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), is a must-read for aspiring e-discovery specialists and is available on his site.

Now, more time for litigating

Thanks to the CEDS credential, he says he will have more time to devote to actually litigating.

"Of course, it's going to save me countless hours. When I see a candidate is certified it saves time in the process of vetting them, testing them across all those different platforms. Now I have a uniform standard – one that speaks for [the candidate]."

The process that often ended in failed promise, from Lindsay's point of view, has a new and simple solution.

"I'll look for the 'CEDS' next to their name."