Creating a Legal Event Response Team
A Legal Event Response Team is a group of key individuals, both inside and outside of an organization, that is tasked with preparing for, evaluating and managing an organization’s response to legal events, including litigations, regulatory investigations and other similar actions. The Team is generally headed by the organization’s General Counsel or other senior management person and usually includes members from I.T., H.R., outside counsel and outside consultants or service providers. Each of those members play a pivotal role in ensuring the Team has every aspect of the process covered.
The most effective Teams create a Legal Event Response Playbook (or eDiscovery Playbook) that provides clear and comprehensive guidelines and checklists that should be followed any time a legal event takes place. From how to identify custodians and issue legal hold notices to taking steps to suspend automated data destruction policies and preserving, collecting and culling ESI, the Playbook should cover the entire process from beginning to end.
While creating a Team and Playbook may seem like a large commitment, the reality is quite the opposite – and indeed is much less time and cost than required to handle each legal event ad hoc. While it may take time for the Team to create their eDiscovery Playbook, the ROI on that effort can be surprising as costs generally plummet when the process is standardized across all legal events.
Moreover, once created, it takes very little ongoing commitment to maintain. We recommend that the Team meet quarterly or semi-annually to review, and if necessary revise, the Playbook to account for any modifications to internal systems and processes or changes in applicable laws or regulations. When done right, the Team and the Playbook will help an organization drastically reduce its costs – and the frustrations – that too often define eDiscovery today.
Want to learn more about Legal Event Response Teams? Our November 18th Knowledge Leadership Series webinar will feature Adam Feinberg, CCFS, CEDS and Barry Schwartz, Esq., CEDS who are talking about the how to form these teams and optimize them for the most efficient and collaborative workflows. You can register here for this complimentary program. Have any suggestions for our 2015 series of programs? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected].