The Value of a Litigation Support Strategic Plan

The successful implementation of process improvement requires:

1. The right business environment;
2. Technology that improves productivity; and
3. People motivated to add value and strategically influence future decisions.

There is little doubt that electronic discovery has created the right environment for project management and process improvement. Attorneys are being asked to provide an unprecedented level of service. This kind of value-added service requires special attention to the management and communication of case details. The complexities associated with electronic discovery are largely to blame or as I like to say credit for this opportunity. And while many technologies exist to help achieve better collaboration and task management, the most critical component, “people” receives the least attention.

As the need to capture and communicate project details has become a high priority, so has the need for a litigation support strategic plan. In legal departments where I have seen process improvement embraced, litigation support continually seeks to show or quantify value to the firm or company. Communicating a vision that seeks to show business value above and beyond simply monitoring tasks is critically important to realizing the benefits of process improvement.

A strategic plan helps enlist employees to seek out a strategic role in the process. Attorneys are good at many things but capturing and deciphering technical and complex details are not generally chief among them. Defining a strategic vision for a legal support department to fill this void goes a long way to establishing a positive foundation for process improvement.

But by itself, a strategic plan is not enough. Management must strategically benefit from the effort. It is critical that management communicate to the department that the new processes have provided important information that advance the goals and objectives of the department. While we all appreciate that proper documentation of case details is desirable, the regular practice of appropriately documenting legal matters is strongly influenced by the strategic use of the information and analysis. Employees, like sharks can sense the blood in the water if management is not committed to the strategic role of the department. I have found that employees will strive to advance the standing of the department as well as their own if they are part of a strategic vision that is reinforced through management’s actions.