Services - Mark Lieb's Litigation Support Department

Litigation Support Services

Law firm technical staff can provide a myriad of services. Some of these may save the attorney their case. When litigation support services are performed well, the attorneys may use overwhelming productions that intimidate the other side. These services can and will help your attorneys win law suits. That is a fact.

The question is whether the firm should perform these services.

A lot of talk happens in our industry about what services should be performed in-house and which should go to the vendor. Every law firm has its own answer. The real issue is risk management and ongoing support. As a rule, once one leads others down a particular road, he is responsible for getting them to the other end.

The question of direction is not limited to performing technical work or not. The Operations Manual outlines other tasks, some recurring, that must be performed. Some of these tasks are clerical, such as inventory, but important nonetheless. The department must plan workload not just for the short but long-term, too. If litigation support performs technical work then it must be ready to support and perform any new technical work. This new work usually comes in the form of a call from a paralegal explaining about a special issue and a rapid turnaround time. This is that "road" thing again.

Litigation Support Services

Project Management
Vendor Liaison
Budgeting
Client Technical Liaison
Opposing Firm Technical Liaison
Media Creation
Hosting
Document Review Database Administration
Exhibit Creation & Support
Training Strategies
Example Service - Hosting

Choosing to charge for hosting is a decision every law firm must make. Some law firms believe that storage should be considered part of the cost of doing business and therefore not invoice material. Other firms recognize that storing and supporting eventually large amounts of information represents a real cost to the firm, beyond the standard cost of doing business.

Law firms are businesses. As a business, the owners will spend money when the business arguments support the decision. Nothing makes an argument like a report from the Accounting department.

Consistent Experience - Consistent Product

An Operations Manual means that every technician produces the same product and uses the same overall strategies. The manual also means that the customer (attorneys, clients, vendors and opposing firms) receive a consistent experience. That experience is professional and well organized. Litigation Support consistently provides all the necessary materials at the right times to the right people.

All services are provided the same way irrespective of the technician. This means that technicians can share work load to help in a crunch or to avoid a crunch.

If your technician fell ill suddenly, how would your firm get the work done? How would the firm know where to find important technical files? The Operations Manual is your answer.

Operations Manual

The Operations Manual contains strategies to help the department provide consistent and expert services. Part of the overall strategy outlined in the manual includes knowing what to out-source and which services to perform in-house. The project management role must be performed either way, so the question is really one of time, ability and risk management.

Every litigation case follows the same case lifecycle. This means the same types of discovery will require the same types of processing. Whether the technical work is performed by litigation support staff or a vendor the department can use the Operations Manual to provide a consistent management, strategic and technical approach.

The Operations Manual is complete solution that will save your client money while speeding up review and production. Slam the other side with a production that beats traditional expectations. There are Litigation Support services that can benefit every case. At the same time the structured Litigation Support department will provide profit to the firm.

Created on 08/27/2006 06:13 PM by admin99
Updated on 08/27/2006 06:30 PM by admin99