Extract from Tess Blair, Tara Lawler, and Charles Imohiosen’s article “How E-Data Lawyers Leverage Process Engineering, Technology to Optimize Client Service”
In the first installment of this four-part series, we traced the evolution of the “e-discovery” lawyer following the first landmark opinion on e-discovery, Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, 217 F.R.D. 309 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). We noted that the e-discovery lawyer is the proverbial Jill of all trades—tactician, technologist and litigator. We proposed that the insights, skills and experience the e-discovery lawyer has gained over the years have facilitated her transformation into the “e-data lawyer”—a practitioner uniquely positioned to drive innovation in the practice of law.
The second installment, published in June, explored tactics the e-data lawyer can use to shape the new legal economy driven by data. We likened the e-data lawyer to a general contractor who oversees the design and construction of a modern skyscraper. A versatile practitioner, the e-data lawyer could very likely become the nerve center of her law firm by showing how to unlock new value by using data intelligently, collaborating with subject matter experts across practices, developing repeatable processes, and introducing multidisciplinary teams to the law firm ecosystem.
