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One of the conversations I became engrossed in during Relativity Fest a few weeks back is the idea of corporations taking a more aggressive approach to moving their data — specifically, their electronic discovery data — to the cloud. It’s conversation I’ve been having for years and one that I’ve had several times since I left Chicago.
The question is what are corporations doing in this area?
And let’s set this up with some context. I’ve always been sort of old-school when it comes to the cloud. I think it stems from my many years working at law firms. Lawyers, we all know, are some of the more risk averse professionals in the world. I think some of that rubbed off on me.
But like any good, progressive-thinking person working in legal technology, I like to think that I’m able to evolve. And when I really think about it, law firms have been saying no to the cloud for many years, not because they enjoy investing millions of dollars every year in infrastructure, but because their clients were objecting.
Now, I think we are seeing a seismic shift and the corporations — and legal operations professionals in particular — are taking control. The cloud is not so scary anymore. With the rise of cloud-based Office 365 and a host of other applications, it seems to me that in five years most of our data will be in the cloud.
But is your organization ready to make the move?
I spoke recently with Chris O’Connor, William Belt, and Sue Tang at Complete Discovery Source, a New York-based company providing the full spectrum of eDiscovery services across the legal industry to corporations, law firms, and the government. Among the services CDS provides is assisting corporations to migrate their data to cloud and SaaS-based systems.
O’Connor, CDS’s Director of eDiscovery Strategy, agrees that corporations are retaking control of their data. “Corporations fear risk and cost,” he says. “Clients, even in the financial services space, are coming around and developing a go-to-cloud strategy.”
Security has always been a concern, of course, and CDS has made the strategic choice to take advantage of the Relativity’s new SaaS-based offering RelativityOne. For them it came down to not only having the geographic reach and ubiquity of a leading product, “but also the baked in maintenance and the security,” says Bill Belt, CDS’s Director of Consulting. “Do you want your data at 10 different law firms, or would you prefer that would-be hackers face the prospect of going up against Microsoft’s security?” asked Belt rhetorically.
O’Connor recommends that organizations exploring a move to the cloud, particularly to RelativityOne, “have a clear and thorough understanding of the organization’s current platforms, data sizes, technical and business requirements.” He says that among the first things any company needs to do is prepare a clear and detailed project scope, including a project overview, assumptions, timelines and deliverables. Roles should be defined, and milestones should be set “so everyone has a clear understanding of what to expect,” he says.
For those considering a move to RelativityOne, it’s important to walk through the platform to identify areas where your organization needs to make design decisions for workflow and template creation, including field mapping and other areas where users must make decisions. Another recommendation from O’Connor is to prepare user acceptance training scripts that mirror the workflow and design decisions for the various roles within an organization. Finally, it is necessary to properly track the migration process, report on current status, and conduct quality control checks.
“Detailed planning, documentation and management is key to a successful implementation,” says O’Connor.
Over the course of the past decade we have seen tremendous growth in cloud-based applications. Gartner predicted just a few years ago that half of all enterprises would adopt an all-in cloud strategy by 2021. My guess is that in the next five years, that number will only trend upward. If your organization does not have a roadmap for a move to the cloud, it may be time to start developing one.
Mike Quartararo
Mike Quartararo is the President of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), a professional member association providing training and certification in e-discovery. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery and a consultant providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@aceds.org. Follow him on Twitter @mikequartararo.
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