Arbitration & Mediation

Is Law Becoming a Clerical Function? Email and its Discontents

By Victoria Pynchon

Over at the Mimosa Systems Blog, we get some good advice about in-house eDiscovery management.  What does this have to do with conflict resolution?  Some of our smartest, most well-educated, highly compensated, creative and dynamic conflict resolution specialists -- litigators -- are in imminent danger of becoming clerical workers.  Listen folks, it's e-Bleak House out there!.

Someone must be capable of providing a turn-key solution for attorneys who spend far too great a portion of their days filing e-mail into the right group folders.  I get these complaints both from my 35-year litigator husband and first-year litigator step-son, both of whose hourly rates would blow the top of your head off.  Think about it.  Clients are paying them to spend no small amount of time filing.

Though the below post does not address that particular issue, it does recommend ways to manage and control the new business-scourge of email management in-house.  Check it out.

More Lawsuits = Need for In-house eDiscovery Infrastructure

A recent New York Times article discusses how today’s financial crisis sets up a probable boom in lawsuits. Investors feel wronged by banks and financial advisors.

The creators of some of these risky investment vehicles spoke publicly of how financially sound the vehicles were while (stupidly) emailing each other about how concerned they actually were. (It still amazes me what people will put in an email - completely oblivious to just how discoverable what they write is).

What’s a company to do? First, realize that keeping the data around is not the risk. What do I mean? I spent the last week listening to lawyers talk about wanting to get rid of data as quickly as possible, when what they should want to do is better manage that information so they can find what they need as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).