Discovery is a daily activity at your law firm, involving considerable time by your team to collect and review electronically stored information (ESI) for lawsuits and investigations. As the amount of digital information continues to grow, discovery takes longer, which can be a major financial investment for your firm. To speed up case preparation, reduce risks and costs, and improve accuracy, training attorneys and support staff is essential. Find training below to improve discovery efficiency, from early planning to software and quality control.
1. Make Discovery a Priority From the Start
From the start of the case, teach lawyers to think about discovery. That involves considering where to collect data, how to preserve important data, and potential challenges.
Some firms find it helpful to provide attorneys with discovery checklists to use at the beginning of every case. That makes the approach to discovery consistent across the team and prevents overlooking details or missing data sources, such as chat apps or external drives. When introducing the checklist during training, be sure to explain how it fits into the workflow and have trainers check the employee’s first few completed checklists for accuracy.
2. Software to Reduce Manual Work
Manually reviewing and tracking spreadsheets is tedious. In addition to being slow, it is also likely to have errors. It takes up considerable time that could be better spent by your skilled lawyers. Thankfully, integrating the right software and training your legal team on it can automate repetitive work. Cloud-based eDiscovery for law firms is an intuitive platform that makes discovery easier and faster. Because its intuitive design requires little staff training, importing case-relevant files into the system is simple and organized.
Your team can then filter, search, review, tag, and handle general discovery and records requests promptly, without needing vendors or IT. Without a steep learning curve, training on the software is straightforward, making onboarding new associates and paralegals quicker. Your team will spend less time on repetitive tasks once the software is part of the daily workflow.
3. Quality Control
Training your law firm team in quality control and continuous improvement during discovery is important. Only then can you catch mistakes early, before they become problematic later in the process. It also teaches employees what to look for and the value of maintaining high standards.
This type of training also holds your team accountable and shows them firsthand the benefits of being thorough. To begin, give your trainees real or simulated documents to review. After they complete their review, have a senior lawyer or experienced paralegal re-check a random sample. Discuss discrepancies with them, missed tags, and other points to note.
Conclusion
Training is not a once-and-done thing, at least not if you want your legal team to be the best in its field. Schedule quarterly or twice-yearly sessions to cover updates to your eDiscovery platform, new case types, and checklists. You might also do refreshers on best practices and hands-on exercises. Making discovery more reliable and less stressful through structured training makes your law firm even stronger.
