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28/05/2021·2 mins to read
Legal Innovation Briefing - May 2021 edition
Welcome to the latest Legal Innovation Briefing, a selection of insights and updates curated for in-house legal teams.
There has been a data explosion over the last decade. The International Data Corporation (IDC) calculated that in 2010 the world created two zettabytes (ZB) of digital information. IDC predicts it will reach 175ZB by 2025. We all know the feeling of busy inboxes so the fact that over 300 billion emails are sent every day may not surprise you!
With less than 0.5% of all data ever being analysed and used, there is no doubt there is huge potential for organisations to leverage this asset and legal teams are no different. Creating a data strategy is currently a key focus for many in-house teams.
The Big Idea: No one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to a legal data strategy
It can be overwhelming knowing where to start when it comes to creating a legal data strategy.
A good tip is to start by identifying the questions that the legal team would like to be able to answer (or that the organisation’s management expects the team to be able to answer).
Given work overload is a common problem for in-house teams, one question could be, how many matters is the team dealing with at any one time and what do they relate to? The next step is to consider whether any data (structured or unstructured) is being gathered on matters already. If yes, can it be quickly and easily accessed? If it is not being gathered, how could you do this?
You could then make a plan around what goals and objectives you have around the questions you want to answer. This could simply be a list of bullet points to action or a more comprehensive plan that includes milestones, targets and details of who will be in charge of monitoring parts of the plan.
There is no one-size-fits all approach when it comes to a legal data strategy. The important thing is to simply start with what you have time and resource for, learn from the insights you gather and tweak how your team works accordingly.
What we’re up to: Helping to manage large volumes of documents on litigation matters
One area that can highlight the magnitude of an organisation’s digital footprint is litigation - particularly the disclosure and discovery processes. If you’re a party involved in a dispute, chances are you’ll need to delve into historical data to find all documents relevant to the issues so they can be exchanged with the other parties.
This can be time consuming, overwhelming, and result in tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of documents being uncovered and provided to the legal team for review.
Our Litigation Projects team, headed by Litigation Projects Lawyer Julia Learner, is focussed on identifying and implementing efficiencies on litigation and dispute matters, and providing quality specialist litigation support to allow the legal team to concentrate on key legal issues.
Litigation Projects provides end-to-end support to manage documents on cases, starting with identifying how to collate documents from key custodians and repositories (hard copy and electronic), providing support during the collection process, and processing and maintaining the document database using market-leading software.
Our approach is to get involved as early as possible so that the process can be as streamlined as possible for you. For more information, contact Julia Learner.
What we’re listening to: Podcasts to check out
We’re fans of Clarissa Rayward’s Happy Lawyer Happy Life and Sam Burrett’s The Leading Lawyer podcasts. Some recent episodes we’ve enjoyed include:
- Embracing technology and new things with Fiona McLay; and
- NewLaw, innovation, design thinking and what it all means in practice with Melissa Lyon.
Have a listen!
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