Category: Legal Technology

How a Lawyer can Start a Successful LinkedIn Group (Part 1 of 3)

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Enter LinkedIn Groups.

I recently worked with an attorney who had identified a missing opportunity in his market. He was a member of real estate-related LinkedIn Groups, and he actively participated in these groups, but the groups weren’t focused on his local market. Knowing that his hometown had a thriving real estate community and its own specific issues (it’s a well-known tourist destination), he started planning his own group for local real estate professionals. With careful planning and maintenance, he saw his group grow to over 150 professionals in just 30 days, and he even picked up a new matter from a group member during this time. Cha-ching – SUCCESS!

So what did this attorney do to lay the foundation for a thriving group?

1. Research

This attorney researched the current LinkedIn groups for real estate as well as professionals of all industries within his local market. He made sure that his group would fill a void in the market, and he also reviewed the membership of other groups to confirm that his target audience was participating in these other LinkedIn groups – hoping to eventually lure them to his by providing a valuable network.

2. Planning

He understood that he would need to invite his own contacts to get the group up and running. Months before launching the group, he began building and categorizing his LinkedIn contacts by region and industry. He set aside time to do this every day for several months so he would have the quantity of contacts needed to start the group as well as having earmarked the appropriate contacts to invite. Put simply, he identified his target audience.

3. Participation

You know the saying, you need to walk before you can run? It’s true for starting a LinkedIn Group, too. Our attorney set aside an hour each Friday to post articles to groups he had already joined, as well as to his entire network. He also participated in discussions within these groups. This helped him to get used to the ongoing commitment required of managing a LinkedIn group, and it also educated him as to what works best in terms of providing quality content that spurs group conversations.

4. Enthusiasm

As I worked with the attorney on these initial steps, he reminded me of something that we all need to remember. Active, ongoing participation in anything – whether for business or pleasure – requires that you enjoy it. If you dread logging in to LinkedIn, then starting a group isn’t for you. But if you think this may start to “get a little bit fun,” as he did, then you know you are on the right path.

Article by:

Aileen M. Hinsch

Of:

Knapp Marketing

Only one week until the first session! Register today for Women in the Law Rainmaker Forum

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Women in the Law Rainmaker Forum hosted by KLA Marketing Associates.

1.24.14

When

For your convenience, 3 dates and times:

February 17 – Late Afternoon

Feburary 19 – Morning

Februrary 27 – Late afternoon

Where

Philadelphia / New Jersey / Virtual

Join us – a safe, intimate forum where Women in the Law “lean in” and access much-needed resources to develop a prosperous and rewarding practice. Make 2014 the year to take control of your career. 
Join for our popular Forum to:
  • Learn critical rainmaking techniques
  • Brainstorm opportunities
  • Dig deep into your business challenges
  • Tap skills/experience of others  

Four 2-hour sessions to change the

way you do business – and win business!

Special Pricing: $499* for all 4 sessions – – and more. Register now to claim your seat that will change the way you do business!

About the Trainer/Coach
Kimberly Alford Rice, Principal and Chief Strategist of KLA Marketing Associates, has successfully trained hundreds of lawyers to build and grow a prosperous book of business over the course of her 20+ year legal services advisory practice. She deeply understands how to engage the organizational and human factors that drive successful implementation and change through her work. To learn more, check out KLA Marketing Associates website.

Google Sticks a Fork in Guest Blogging for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

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Last month, Google’s Matt Cutts, who heads up the search engine giant’s webspam team, wrote this on the Google Webmaster blog:

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a link building strategy.

So should you halt your guest blogging efforts?  Well, in a word, no.  Because SEO is not the only reason you guest blog – either on other blogs, or hosting guests on your own blog.  Which is why Cutts later updated his original post to say this:

Google SEO Search Engine Optimization

It seems like most people are getting the spirit of what I was trying to say, but I’ll add a bit more context. I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future.

Guest blogging used to be ONE way to develop quality links back to your own website or blog. Unfortunately, those trying to game the system with low quality content have made it – as Cutts says – a spammy practice.  Those that use guest blogging as their sole source of link building will now be out of luck and may even be penalized.

But I would still recommend guest blogging as a way for attorneys to spread their authority to other audiences that may not have otherwise been engaged by your own blog or website.  It can also still be a great way for you to improve the visibility of your firm and, when shared on social media, can help your SEO efforts from that standpoint.

As this blog post and other recent developments at Google demonstrate, you can’t go wrong when it comes to SEO if you pay attention to these 3 things:

1.  Designing a website that provides users with a superb experience – from the way they navigate the site to the information they find there.

2.  Developing high quality, relevant content for your area of practice that people want to read to help them solve the problems they would hire you for, populated with relevant keywords.

3.  Being an active participant on social media networks that your prospects and clients frequent, sharing all that great content you’ve developed for your website and your blog and engaging online with your target market.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

To Win at Legal Marketing, Know Who Is On The Other Side of the Ball

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Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday!  You know, I believe that legal marketing is as competitive as any sport.  A well-prepared coach will know the facts about his opponent.  A well-prepared trial attorney will not only study their case, but also their opponent.

Marketing your law firm consists of quite a bit of information gathering; learning about top competitors is one of the first steps.

Below is a list of ideas you can use to become acquainted with your competitors to gain an important edge in your legal marketing efforts:

  • Review and analyze their website and social media profiles. You will be surprised what a law firm will reveal on their website and social networks.  Be sure to look up their individual attorneys on LinkedIn and other social networks.
  • Enlist a friend’s help to interview their associates as a potential client. Be prepared with a list of questions before they place the actual call. Choose questions that will reveal important data about the competition. A simple telephone call can produce a wealth of information about the competition’s law firm marketing techniques.
  • Ask them to mail you some information about their law firm. The type of legal marketing material they send out will speak volumes about who they are and how they conduct business.
  • Sign-up for their e-newsletter (using your personal email address, of course). 
  • Use Google to further bolster your law marketing strategic planning. Type in the keywords and phrases someone would use to find your practice area. For example, “LA personal injury lawyer” or “Real Estate Attorney Chicago” or “Estate Planning Lawyer in Manhattan”.  Study the top 10 websites that come up. These are your most aggressive online competitors because they didn’t get there by mistake.
  • Search to see how ‘visible’ they are.  Create a Google Alert for each of your competitors so you can receive news feeds about them as they happen.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to investigate as much as possible. Your successful competitors are no doubt learning about you too if they are using the best legal marketing techniques.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

Legal Intake Software to Track Return on Investment

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Your online marketing campaign is live: the website is up and running, you are ranking well in Google and Social Media is generating buzz around your law firm. You invested well, your phone is ringing, and clients are being signed. But are you tracking which sources are bringing the most revenue and which sources are biting off disproportionate chunks of your budget?

An efficient solution that can take the burden off of you and offer more precision is the use of Intake, or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), software.

Intake software comes in a variety of forms, shapes and sizes – for solo practitioners and for national full service firms – some of which are highly customizable and others that are template-based. Some are made solely to keep track of user information in a database. Some can help set your workflow by assigning leads and scheduling follow ups. And some allow you to assess your marketing strategies by providing Return on Investment (ROI) reports.

Return on Investment is a metric that allows you to compare investments, to see which bring in the biggest returns and which see the biggest losses. For law firms, the best ROI indicators are cost-per-lead or better yet, cost-per-case. Your firm will need to set your own goals and determine which metric is most important to you.

To track ROI you will need to know where each lead originates, how much your firm is spending on that source and whether the lead ultimately converts. The best Intake Software to track ROI should:

  • integrate seamlessly with your intake channels, like quick contact forms and phone calls from multiple sources. (This charting is especially possible when you set up dynamic call tracking.)
  • show the breakdown of leads by specific practice area so you can accurately evaluate your efforts.
  • provide frequent reports to track changes over time or evaluate specific campaigns.
  • be flexible without being cumbersome. Some solutions can be too cookie-cutter and may not fit the individual needs of your firm. Similarly, some intake software can be so difficult to customize and so powerful that it may not be the most cost – and time – effective solution for your firm.

The bottom line is to know what is making you money and what is costing you money. Don’t let your intake process damage your bottom line.

Bearing these criteria in mind, we have reviewed several leading intake software solutions for your firm to consider.

Avvo Ignite

Avvo Ignite
Ideal for any firm size.
Ideal for firms practicing any area of law.
Starts at $199 a month.

Features:

  • Avvo Ignite allows users to set up all tracking numbers and creates a dynamic call-tracking system by providing a code that can be integrated into your website, in online ads and in other marketing avenues. (The only source that might need manual entering is referrals.) This tracking enables attorneys to automatically know where every lead comes from, eliminating the repeated question to potential clients, “How did you hear about us?”
  • The initial setup of Avvo Ignite is quick and easy. The number of marketing sources you want to track, the number of practice areas and the number of attorneys in your firm will determine how much customization is needed beyond initial implementation. An Avvo Ignite product specialist will provide support throughout the entire process.
  • As soon as a lead comes into your firm, it will appear on the Ignite lead management dashboard. From there, leads can be automatically assigned to specific attorneys in the firm. The dashboard is shared by everyone in the firm, ensuring the team can track and manage the progress of all new business prospects from first contact to close.

Avvo Ignite

  • Notifications of new leads can also be delivered directly to your mobile device to ensure that you don’t miss a lead even when you are out of the office.
  • Avvo Ignite has a page built specifically for the ROI Reports. There is a screen to set monthly marketing expenses by source and a report that will compare expenditures over time with the number of leads converted to display cost-per-case for each source.

Avvo Ignite Source ROI

  • Avvo Ignite also features drip email campaign capabilities, and users are able to set the timeline of automatic actions. For example, upon receiving a new inquiry, you can schedule an email to be sent that says “Thank you for reaching out to us.” If the status of a lead is changed to “pending” on day 3 and the person was injured in an MVA accident, you can send an email saying that you are still working on the MVA case and provide additional information. If, say, by day 10 the lead’s status still hasn’t been changed to “client”, you can send an email saying that you are still interested in working with the case.
  • Track how “hot” a prospective client is by assigning 1, 2 or 3 stars based on how interested, willing to pay, urgent, or timely the lead is.
  • Additionally, Avvo Ignite provides custom intake forms that can be built for specific firms and practice areas. They also supply budget requests and online document signatures through secure partner sites that report whether the payment requests or documents were sent, viewed and paid or signed.

Captora Case Intake Software

Captorra
Ideal for any firm size.
Ideal for personal injury and mass tort firms.
Starts at $200 per month.

Features:

  • Tracks which phone numbers are assigned to which leads through a dynamic tracking system, or the origin of the source on the Web if a contact form was used.  For contact forms, Captorra uploads the analytics data that is available from the Web: which search engine the prospective client came from, which keywords they used, and so on. (Note: Keyword data is not available in Google, except via AdWords.)
  • Captorra has several screens for reporting. The Dashboard features a snapshot of the most important information in one place. The Marketing Dashboards provide ROI information for each marketing source.  Management dashboards provide the tracking of individual intake specialist performance in converting leads into signed cases.

Captora Dashboard

  • A dynamic and clickable marketing report allows users to funnel down to the specific lead source and practice area.
  • Through a workflow component, Captorra allows you to schedule your day through features such as scheduling follow-ups and automated email follow-ups that will automatically pull information from the intake database.
  • Captorra supplies pre-made and custom intake forms. Smaller firms may want to use pre-made forms for the most used practice areas to skip customization. More specific intake processes will require that the additional questions be added. Already, Captorra has compiled 300 pre-made questions after one-and-a-half years on the market.
  • The software drives the process of questioning by bringing up relevant questions based on previous answers. For example, if your staff is performing intake for a slip-and-fall case and when asked “Was there a sign?” the client answers “No”, the software may bring up questions about the shoes the client was wearing and other relevant questions.

Captorra Intake

  • Captorra also provides an investigator management and referral (inbound and outbound) tracking system.
  • Captorra will integrate with your firm’s current Case Management System.
  • On a personal note, we found Captorra’s customer service exceptional and very prompt!

Captorra and Avvo Ignite were both designed specifically to address the question of what happens after a wave of prospective clients is delivered to the lawyer – both in terms of the automatic intake process and tracking vital analytical information for your marketing reports.

Microsoft Dynamics xRM4Legal

xRM4Legal
Ideal for a larger firm.
Ideal for firms practicing any area of law, especially firms representing businesses.
Cloud-hosted service is $678 per month for 10 users.
Firm-wide service is a one-time cost of $43,900 for up to 100 users.

Features:

  • Backed by Microsoft Corporation, this CRM was created exclusively with law firms in mind.
  • This software comes with the ability to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Outlook. CRM for Outlook enables access to your CRM data through Microsoft Outlook. There is also an Apple app available to use the CRM on your Mac products.
  • All customer information is stored on one screen; this CRM does not require users to flip between screens, but rather to tap various fields on one entry screen for complete details.

Microsoft Dynamics, CRM

  • Use organization records to keep track of commercial clients.
  • The records are especially detailed, allowing you to chart details down to office visits.
  • A click- or tap-to-connect feature easily allows you to email, make an appointment, or set a tactic (action item) with your clients.
  • Methodically chart a contact’s progress as your relationship with them grows through the business development pipeline. The pipeline indicates which opportunities the firm has in various stages: qualify, develop, propose, and close.

Microsoft dynamic CRM

  • Navigate the system “by role”, which separates the CRM into various divisions – sales, service, marketing, and so on – allowing each member of your firm to access information relevant to their needs.
  • Easily return to the project you were last working on from the top navigation board.
  • This CRM charts which user entered the last information, providing record-keeping checks.
  • List view of current cases, displaying the work performed by each attorney in your practice. This cases list is helpfully broken down in various ways: cases by origin, case by partner, law type and client, and resolved case satisfaction.
  • xRM4Legal also provides a thorough software demonstration that we found to be very helpful. The demo allows users to explore all of the software’s functionality.

What's Ahead for Legal Marketing in 2014?

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WebDAM, a web-based digital asset management company, took the time to gather data from industry experts and leading sources on digital marketing to create the infographic below, which illustrates the trends and statistics they believe will drive marketing in 2014.

Of primary interest to attorneys looking to strengthen their marketing program next year:

  • 78% of marketing executives think custom content is the future of marketing(Google agrees!)
  • B2B companies say blogs generate 67% more leads than those that don’t blog
  • Marketers are finding actual, money-paying clients on LinkedIn and Facebook
  • Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing (89%)
  • Inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads than traditional outbound marketing

Captivating marketing strategies

 

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

How Lawyers Can Leverage LinkedIn to Build Their Practice, Part 2 of 2

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Continuing from our previous post, here are 5 more tips for leveraging LinkedIn to build your client and referral base:

5. Include All Your Web Links. You can add up to three links to your firm’s websites. There are default settings, but these are also customizable. So instead of www.TheRainmakerInstitute.com, I customized it to say “law firm marketing experts”, but it still links to my website. This is another place where you should use your keywords like: “Scottsdale bankruptcy attorney” or “Chicago divorce lawyer” and link it to your website, blog or even your Facebook fan page.

6. Make Your Profile Public. Remember, it’s called “social media” for a reason—you need to be social. Be sure to make your LinkedIn profile “public”, which means all the information you put in it is available to search engines to make it easier for people to find and connect with you.

7. Don’t Use The Same Copy For Your Summary As Your Bio. The summary is not a place to talk about all the things you have done in your life. This is the place to position yourself as the go-to attorney in your particular practice area and geographical region.

8. Use LinkedIn Groups. LinkedIn Groups can be a very effective way to increase your visibility among niche audiences, like your target market. It takes a little while to get used to how this works. I recommend you start by ‘listening’ before diving in. There are some places you should start with, such as alumni groups and groups in the industry segments you follow. We run several LinkedIn groups you can join for free including: Phoenix Arizona Attorneys, Personal Injury Attorney Network and the Rainmaker Law Firm Marketing Group. Simply log into your LinkedIn account and search under groups. Once you understand how groups work, start your own focusing on your target market or potential referral sources (like CPAs, financial advisors or business brokers).

9. Add LinkedIn To Your Email Signature. Most attorneys put their contact information in their email signature; add a link to your LinkedIn account. Here’s mine: http://Rainmaker.MyLinkInvitation.com. I would welcome the opportunity to connect with you on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Logo

As soon as you start networking with LinkedIn, you increase your chances of reaching new clients and referral partners. However, be prepared, and be willing to work at it. This is not something you can “set and forget”.

If you’re not into social media or can’t make the commitment to put in the time and effort to network in several sites at the same time, this is the ONE social media site you should focus on. You may not see it at first, but with the combined use of the strategies and tips I have shared here, you will start to see your online network mature over time, leading to more prospects and referral partner relationships.

To read Part One – Click Here

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

How Lawyers Can Leverage LinkedIn to Build Their Practice, Part 1 of 2

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I think we can all agree that building long-term, meaningful and influential relationships is foundational to a successful legal practice. People don’t hire law firms; they hire an attorney. The more people you connect with, the more opportunities you have to build meaningful relationships, and the more potential clients you can generate.

With over 225 million members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn has quickly become THE ‘go to’ business-to-business directory and the most popular social networking platform dedicated to professional business development.

Here are some of the top tips from attorneys who have used LinkedIn to their advantage and know they have gained new clients from its smart use:

1. Complete Your Profile! You must commit to do this. You can’t ever hope to get the benefits without this. Put in as much information about yourself as you can. Use the same keywords and phrases prospects would use to search for an attorney in your practice area on Google.

Sometimes just where you went to college or law school can drive business or referrals to your firm. I know plenty of attorneys who have generated referrals because they went to the same school as someone else on LinkedIn, or grew up in the same hometown. Creating a shared reality with a prospect can be a powerful step toward acquiring their business. Also, certain applications with LinkedIn require that your profile be at least 50 – 75% complete in order to benefit from them.

2. Upload A Photo. Don’t be shy here. Don’t think about whether it’s right or wrong, just do it. A profile with no picture is a bad thing. LinkedIn is a social network for business professionals so your photo should convey that. Stay away from the photo of you on the golf course or holding a glass of wine. If you don’t have a professional headshot, they are available from any photography business for a nominal fee.

3. Use The Headline Below Your Profile To Make People Want to Know More.

linkedin profile

When you set up your profile, LinkedIn uses your name, title or position as your headline, but you can edit this to make it more powerful. Try to think of your headline as your professional tagline. You have the opportunity to describe the type of attorney you are and the type of work you are currently doing. Do not make the mistake of listing more than two areas of law here, as you want to appear as a specialist. Specialists generate more referrals than generalists. Remember the phrase, “jack of all trades, master of none!”

4. Use The “Sharebox” Often. If you want to see the social power of LinkedIn, this is where you will find it. This area of LinkedIn allows you to add a brief update of what you are doing, any new professional certifications you have received, interesting cases or any other information you feel comfortable sharing. This is not a ‘chat’ site; it is for information that is professionally relevant.

In tomorrow’s post, I will share 5 more tips for leveraging LinkedIn to build your client and referral base.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

Who’s Afraid of Website Data Migration?

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Does the phrase “data migration” send chills up your spine? Would the fear of moving content from your old website to a new one hold you back from pulling the trigger on a website project?

If you nodded “yes” to either of those questions, you’re not alone.

The topic of data migration can be scary for marketers. Simply put, trained communicators are not database jockeys, and the prospect of ones and zeros flying back and forth can cause discomfort. But comfort level aside, should the fear of data migration warrant the keeping of a crummy website?

What can go wrong?

Everything, right?! There’s a chance that data could get lost, or content could end up in the wrong places, causing countless hours of aggravation for the marketing department…

Or not.

Professionals who do this all the time are well practiced in the art of handling the various challenges associated with data migration. But how can marketers be assured that their migration won’t go awry

How to do data migration

Data migration is not rocket science – or magic. At its simplest, it can be summed up as matching database fields from the old website, with the new. The actual act of migrating data (also called “data mapping”) can vary in its level of difficulty, depending on the condition, structure and size of the firm’s current website database. But irrespective of how old your website is or how it was built, the basic steps involved are the same.

Here’s a simplified version of the process that we use at Great Jakes:

  1. Analysis: The first step involves requesting a “data dump” of all the text content of the website and of the headers for each data table. We analyze the data to determine how much of the migration can be automated.

    We also investigate whether it would be more practical and/or cost efficient to not automate the migration and instead configure a “data-entry” website to have the data manually moved from the old website into the new. It’s not as hard as it sounds, and it’s not unusual that we end up recommending a combination of automated data-migration and “data-entry” website methods. It all depends on how the old website’s data are formatted.

  2. Transfer setup: The next step involves planning the “field-mapping” – writing the appropriate scripts necessary to move the data into the proper fields of the new website.
  3. Migration: A month prior to delivering a finished website, we migrate the data from the old website to the new, using data from a second data dump that contains all of the most current content (text, photos, PDFs, videos, presentations, audio files, etc.).
  4. Testing: Finally, we rigorously review the data migration results to ensure that everything moved as planned.

Better the devil you know – right?

While the steps outlined are straightforward, data migration is a time-consuming but doable process. Consequently, larger websites with more data will require more time to analyze, set up, migrate and then test.

So, the best way to ensure that everything goes smoothly is to take a peek under the hood. Have a pro examine your existing website. They might find some issues, like embedded tables or miscellaneous image files tucked in strange places. You’ll probably need to make some decisions about how to migrate these items. But most likely, they’ll probably find that the hurdles to moving the content are a lot lower than you might think.

Don’t let those two little words “data migration” keep you from advancing your firm’s business goals! There’s too much to be gained from having a properly conceived website.

Article By:

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Information Governance in Legal – The Real Payoff is Litigation, E-Discovery, and Audit Readiness

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Information governance (IG) in the modern day legal landscape addresses multiple functions from cyber threats, to compliance, to interdepartmental communication to document retention to e-discovery. Affecting businesses across the legal, compliance and IT realms, the ideal IG framework will insert processes and procedures into place that will allow law firms and businesses to consistently manage and asses the flow of information. Browning Marean, co-chair of the Electronic Discovery Readiness and Response Group at DLA Piper and speaker at the ARMA International 2013 Conference and Expo, offers his expertise on law firm IG and why data can and should be controlled in the legal field.

Q: What is the impact an IG framework can have on a law firm and business?

A: The impact of IG on a business in momentous. Legislation like the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 requires that businesses have controls in place.  Law firms must keep up with the ever-increasing number of compliance regulations for their clients. In addition, the average Fortune 500 companies have 125 lawsuits at any given point. If law firms and compliance departments have control of the information, they will know where to look and be able to preserve the information during discovery. IG can therefore also serve as an organizational tool during litigation.

Q: How would you describe the relationship among technology, the law & IG?

A: There is a complicated relationship among the three entities. I believe that the computer revolution yields two classes of people, both the foot soldiers and the victims. It is the same with the practice of law– technology can cause disruption but if attorneys take advantage of technology and use it to guide their IG, they will flourish.

Q: Can you cover the top risk associated with governance gaps in litigation and e-discovery?

A:In a lawsuit, parties must produce documents during discovery. When litigation is reasonably anticipated parties will have to put a legal hold on discovery documents in electronic form, also known as e-data. If parties are unable to do so or unable to preserve the documents, they will suffer the consequences, including losing the case outright and monetary sanctions and adverse interference instructions from the courts. In that way, IG can mitigate the problems associated with the identification, preservation, collection and production of e-data.

Q: What would be some of the solutions you would recommend for this risk?

A: The amount of data that is available will be multiplied by 50 by the year 2020. The only way to accommodate all of that information is to have proper practices and policies in place. I believe law firms and business should prepare an “IT readiness program.” Organizations must look at themselves from the top-down to see what resources are available to help at each level. There is a great checklist from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that covers may aspects of how law firms and businesses can ensure that there their discovery material will remain intact, from document management systems to disaster recovery backup. In addition, I recommend that law firms and businesses maintain a record retention policy.

Q: E-discovery is one of the hot topics in the legal world. Why do you think it has become so widely covered and debated?

A: About 95% of all data is viewed in electronic form.  This means that in order to prove your side in a lawsuit, we will have to see where the evidence is based, which is usually in some kind of electronic format. We are going from an analogue world to a digital world so we must create and preserve electronically stored information (ESI) to evaluate the evidence. The pervasiveness of e-discovery has resulted in several additions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as well as state laws.

Q: Can you provide a background on the evolution of e-discovery?

A: In the modern era, a series of cases in the early 2000s from federal courts established the beginning of modern e-discovery litigation.  In particular, Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York paved the way. Judge Shira Scheindlin presided over the case and made several ruling effectively establishing the duty of businesses and their counsel to preserve documents and refrain from practices that may result in the destruction of documents.. Through an effective IG framework, law firms and compliance departments will be able to keep up with ESI in litigation and e-discovery.