Can You Project Manage Electronic Discovery?

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Listen to Cleveland, Ohio based E-Discovery consultant Brett Burney from Burney Consultants and Pittsburgh, Pennsylania based Karl Schieneman from JurInnov discuss project managing electronic discovery and cover material from a chapter in a book I wrote for PBI on “Project Managing E-Discovery?” It will be nice to step out from behind the desk a little bit on a podcast and Brett and I will be co-hosting this show or having a 2 way discussion on this topic which we both believe is critical to doing projects better and more cost effectively. Recently in May 2009, The Sedona Conference WG1 drafted a publication called “Achieving Quality” which provides an overview of some strategies which appear to offer promise to improve the quality of electronic discovery review projects. The publication begins with the importance of having a strong team leader for project management purposes.

Brett Burney is a legal consultant and the owner of Burney Consultants. He is a featured speaker at numerous legal technology conferences including the American Bar Association TECHSHOW, American Lawyer Media LegalTech Shows, and the International Association (ILTA). He is a frequent author on electronic discovery topics. Prior to establishing Burney Consultants, Brett Burney spent five years at the law firm of Thompson Hine, LLP in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked extensively with litigation teams in building electronic document databases, counseling on electronic discovery issues, and managing the technical responsibilities of presenting electronic evidence at trial. Brett was responsible for several other projects at the law firm including document automation and the wireless e-mail system.

As co-host of this show, it is worthwhile giving my biography. I have been an e-discovery professional since approximately 2000 when I owned Legal Network, a legal staffing company and three time Inc. 500 winning company which managed teams of contract attorneys on review of ESI projects. We developed StaffRite software to model projects and templates for project managing people. After selling Legal Network to Special Counsel, I developed a number of E-Discovery education initiatives including developing a project management board game called Discovery Land, wrote numerous articles and hosted an E-Discovery audio CLE seres for BNA. I also continued to run a number of national projects. Last fall, I published a chapter in a PBI book e-Discovery called Can You Project Manage Electronic Discovery? This chapter will be discussed in this podcast. In addition to creating the ESIBytes podcast series, I am also Director of Analytics and Legal Review at JurInnov, an eDiscovery Technology company where I focus on innovative search and retrieval techniques.

Listen as Brett and I discuss:

What is project management?

How does project management apply to electronic discovery?

Aren’t lawyers traditionally project managers?

We talk about how important good communication and a communication platform is to project managing electronic discovery projects.

Are there Web 2.0 or cloud computing solutions for more effective project management?

What are some of the typical messess in an electronic discovery case?

Are there other fields lawyers can look to in an effort to learn more about project management?

Many more issues were discussed as well.

Recorded 06/22/2009