The Fortune 500 Go Shopping:
Chapter 1
When large corporations go shopping for litigation support, they are likely to be both informed consumers and tough customers. And due to ever increasing costs in lit support and EDD, large corporations are shopping the market like a President's Day clearance sale.
David Levy, of Fulbright & Jaworski, writes that among Fortune 500 companies surveyed last year, cost-effectiveness trumped all other criteria for measuring the efficacy of legal resources, whether in-house or outsourced. Seems the budget-minded corporate client, like any cagey consumer, wants bang for the buck -- up-to-date technology and services, effectively matched to purpose, at fair market rates.
And why not? With the current incursion of technology into courts, corporate litigation and law firms, corporate clients are discovering a leverage that once belonged only to the arcane inner sanctum of outside counsel -- a shift that could potentially change the lawyer-client relationship forever. Electronic data management is fast leveling the field, replacing both the hand-delivered redwell and the beleaguered associate. But in complex class actions, multi-district or patent litigation matters, electronic archives can become overwhelming -- huge, and fraught with legal, ethical, and financial pitfalls for the lit support greenhorn. Because without experienced, methodical analysis of requirements and resources, all hell can break loose.
In the EDD marketplace, where IT whiz-kids once squared off against legal top-guns, it turns out that real expertise now requires a cooperative new hybrid of tech savvy and law firm experience. In fact, for the moment, law firms and their Fortune 500 clients are shopping the same market, and are facing the same dilemma: how to find the lit support experts -- whether in-house or outsourced -- who really know the secrets of EDD. In-house lit support directors, vendors, outside counsel, law firm non-legals -- they're all in this market. And when traditional law firms lack the required EDD technology and/or experience, their clients will not hesitate to go shopping.
Next week, Chapter 2. "The Fortune 500 Go Shopping: Why this is good news for you, if you are in Lit Support"
When large corporations go shopping for litigation support, they are likely to be both informed consumers and tough customers. And due to ever increasing costs in lit support and EDD, large corporations are shopping the market like a President's Day clearance sale.
David Levy, of Fulbright & Jaworski, writes that among Fortune 500 companies surveyed last year, cost-effectiveness trumped all other criteria for measuring the efficacy of legal resources, whether in-house or outsourced. Seems the budget-minded corporate client, like any cagey consumer, wants bang for the buck -- up-to-date technology and services, effectively matched to purpose, at fair market rates.
And why not? With the current incursion of technology into courts, corporate litigation and law firms, corporate clients are discovering a leverage that once belonged only to the arcane inner sanctum of outside counsel -- a shift that could potentially change the lawyer-client relationship forever. Electronic data management is fast leveling the field, replacing both the hand-delivered redwell and the beleaguered associate. But in complex class actions, multi-district or patent litigation matters, electronic archives can become overwhelming -- huge, and fraught with legal, ethical, and financial pitfalls for the lit support greenhorn. Because without experienced, methodical analysis of requirements and resources, all hell can break loose.
In the EDD marketplace, where IT whiz-kids once squared off against legal top-guns, it turns out that real expertise now requires a cooperative new hybrid of tech savvy and law firm experience. In fact, for the moment, law firms and their Fortune 500 clients are shopping the same market, and are facing the same dilemma: how to find the lit support experts -- whether in-house or outsourced -- who really know the secrets of EDD. In-house lit support directors, vendors, outside counsel, law firm non-legals -- they're all in this market. And when traditional law firms lack the required EDD technology and/or experience, their clients will not hesitate to go shopping.
Next week, Chapter 2. "The Fortune 500 Go Shopping: Why this is good news for you, if you are in Lit Support"
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home