Legal Hold Management Within a Law Department - ILTA 08

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Liz Schimmel, Discovery Manager Woods Abbott,

Senior Manager, Legal Operations

Legal Hold Management Within a Law

Department - ILTA 08

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Introductions



Liz Schimmel, Discovery Manager, Halliburton



Prior to joining Halliburton in April 2006, Liz worked

at EDS Corporation in the Litigation Department for

over 20 years. While a senior litigation paralegal at

EDS, she worked on complex commercial litigations

involving the hearth care industry and government

contracts, managed the matter management system

for the Litigation Department and worked extensively

on audit and compliance issues relating to litigation.

She has been involved in e-discovery issues for more

than 10 years.

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Introductions



Woods Abbott, Senior Manager, Legal Operations,

Raytheon

 Woods is the Senior Manager of Legal Operations for Raytheon Company

(RTN: Fortune 100). He is primary responsibility for all the legal technologies utilized by the Raytheon Office of the General Counsel. This includes the

Legal department’s own array of SQL servers, web application servers and their document collection/review/production tool: iCONECTnXT. He also

oversees the Company’s discovery and legal hold operations. He is a member of the Raytheon’s Records Management oversight committee and is trained as a Six Sigma Expert, for which he serves as both the Six Sigma and Knowledge Management Champion for the OGC. He is a member of the Sedona

Conference working groups on eDiscovery and Litigation Holds, and a frequent speaker at MCLE seminars and conferences on various eDiscovery topics and their impact on corporate America. Prior to joining Raytheon in 1994, Woods was a Litigation Specialist with Wilmer Hale (DC office) and later became the Legal Administrator on a Bain Capital turn around team for Robertson-Ceco Corporation.

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Introductions



Deidre Paknad, CEO, PSS Systems



Deidre leads PSS Systems and is the innovator behind

the company’s visionary Atlas legal holds and

retention management software. She founded the

CGOC in early 2004, is a member of the Sedona legal

holds and legacy data teams, and is a recognized

subject matter expert on legal holds and enterprise

retention management. She is a seasoned software

entrepreneur and executive. Deidre previously founded

and was CEO of CoVia Technologies, where she was

twice inducted into the Smithsonian Institution for

innovation.

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What Experience Teaches Us – More Holds

Impact of More Holds

 Companies issue more holds to more people

 More reminders make it more difficult for

employees

 Longer lists of custodians

 More custodians on hold across the enterprise

Companies Need

 Employee self service is critical

 Expecting employees to mine their inbox is impractical and risky

 Custodian list management a key system requirement

 All-custodian reporting and visibility across matters

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What Experience Teaches Us – More Data on Hold

Impact of More Holds on IT

 More holds affect more active data on more systems

 Must figure out how to manage preservation or collect it proactively

 Expensive, imperfect option

 Random emails to IT staff doesn’t work and 1 IT person can’t cover the bases

 Blanket holds costly alternative

Companies Need

 Continuous linkage between legal and IT

 “Portal” for IT to understand, meet and manage holds and collections efficiently

 “System” identities and concept in their legal holds system

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What Experience Teaches Us – More Collections

Impact of More Collections

 Hit privacy walls and limitations/obligations from other jurisdictions

 Quickly amass legacy pool of data collected by

litigation dept itself

 Legal becomes a data source

 Expensive to capture chain of custody of all collected

Companies Need

 Ability to plan and execute appropriate plan by country

 Automated inventory of past collections and ability to

check as a data source

 Automated logging of all collected data

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What Experience Teaches Us – More Matters

Impact of More

 Bigger impact on the business

 Unanticipated cost

 Greater active burden on each business area

 More inquiries and expectations of

transparency from business units

 Expectation of reliable budgeting and ability to control costs

Companies Need

 Ability to forecast accurately based on current fact set

 Early warning when volumes indicate likely future budget miss

 Business unit based

reporting on volume, load, timelines

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What Experience Teaches Us – Transitions

Employee Transitions Risks

 Ostrich view of “not

necessary, not big deal” dangerous

 Rate of employee

transitions is shockingly high

 Ignorance is not bliss – it’s risk

 Impossible to manage manually

Companies Need

 Map of business units, people and systems is key enabler

 Automatic monitoring

 Systems that can model a changing entity require real design, forethought and

technology

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Organizing the Team & Process

How do you organize responsibilities

for legal holds in the legal

department?

Is there a single coordinator or is each

attorney and paralegal responsible for

their own?

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Changes in Practice and Procedure

What's changed in your practices and

procedures over the last 2-3 years?

What do you expect to change in the

coming 2 years?

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Communicating with IT

What education did the law

department provide to IT?

How do you manage the necessary

dialogue and consistency with IT so

nothing falls through the cracks?

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Unexpected Issues

What are some of the potholes

companies face?

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Reducing Cost and Burden

What can the law department do to

minimize the cost and burden of legal

holds on the rest of the company?

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For More Information

www.cgoc.com

Practitioners community and educational forum

www.pss-systems.com

Inventor of legal holds and retention policy software

Deidre Paknad, 650-810-8701 deidre.paknad@pss-systems.com