Extract from Tim Rollins’ article “6 Tips to Bridge the Gap between IT and Legal: An Interview with an E-Discovery Professional”
Successful e-discovery projects depend on collaboration between two departments: Legal and IT. Sometimes the two departments collaborate seamlessly, but often there are difficulties. These trouble spots may arise from organizational structures, lines of reporting, and competing priorities, but more likely, they come from the differences in professional backgrounds, mindsets, and communication styles between legal and IT professionals.
Gene McKelvey, eDiscovery Compliance Manager at Michelin, has some tips to facilitate effective communication between legal and IT departments. Prior to joining Michelin as an IT project manager, he explains, “I’d never heard the term e-discovery. My first project was assisting our legal department in assessing and deploying work processes related to discovery, but I quickly became interested because it combined my lifelong interest in the law with my IT skills and work experience.”
In the world of e-discovery, we tend to hear stories about miscommunication from the legal perspective, since most e-discovery specialists come from legal backgrounds, either as paralegals or attorneys. But in talking with Gene, I recognized that his IT background gave him a different perspective—one that it’s very important for legal professionals to hear. Here are the six key tips that he thought were most important to share.
