Loading ...Job description: “Senior eDiscovery professional, JD preferred.” To a non-attorney, this is an unsettling trend. During my career, I’ve spent many years working with litigation attorneys who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into using, not just automated discovery tools, but basic project management procedures. Based on that experience, this new trend seems to indicate, that the attorney community is doing a complete 180 degree turn and that the hiring community is modifying their standards to favor education over experience.
I asked several colleagues: “When it comes to positions where the employee is not practicing law in a firm or law department, is a JD strongly preferred when compiling a short list of candidates?”
The three senior industry recruiters interviewed agreed that organizations were including a JD as an important job description component. I heard more than once, “They wanted a JD even if they didn’t know why they wanted a JD”. Michael Potters, CEO and Owner of The Glenmont Group said, “In sales, they believe an attorney will make more sales to attorney sales targets.” Vendors often think an attorney will have a “credibility card” and automatic “gravitas”. However, Michael believes that it may be easier to bring a gifted sales person up to speed on eDiscovery practices than to teach an eDiscovery professional, JD or otherwise, to sell. Josh Sacks, a Director at PeterSan Legal Staffing, agrees that more and more employers are requesting JDs. “Some companies prize education over experience”, he noted.
All three of the recruiters commented, “They changed their minds when they started to see the kinds of people they were getting. They started looking at non-attorneys.” The feeling was that the JD requirement narrowed the employer’s choices, significantly.
The Masters Conference Women in eDiscovery Panel: Carving Out Traditional and Non-Traditional Career Paths in e-Discovery by Leveraging Skill Sets, agreed with the majority, “It is unequivocally a trend.” And that a law degree is a “definite asset” in the industry, today.
David Rohde, Esq., Senior Director, Consulting Services at Epiq Systems, observed, “Corporations are increasingly interested in the law firm model because they want to reduce outside spend and they want expertise that goes beyond accomplishing a task in isolation. Also, the corporation may prefer an attorney as a potential 30(b)(6) witness.” Within a law firm, David reflected, “Hiring at the JD level is not intended to replace technology skills or product knowledge of the intrinsic litigation support function. It is intended to bring a strategic approach. The value of the JD in the eDiscovery management role is that the lawyer has the credibility to convey an approach to the partners and the firm’s clients.”
He also noted, “Before 2008, corporations were looking for experienced subject matter experts and didn’t necessarily need a JD. Then came the decimation of lawyers’ jobs and corporations see all these unemployed lawyers with these skills as a ‘better buy’ than if they get a non-lawyer, even if the hire isn’t performing a legal role.”
Virgilio Crespo, Esq., Director, Legal & Compliance at Odin Legal, agreed with the trend. “Yes, they do want that JD, which is surprising because most of the experience in this industry, the ‘grey hairs’ in litigation support, are on the paralegal level because the attorneys never wanted the experience. It’s a strange catch-22 because what you find is that most people in the market place with real experience are not JDs.”
As one of the industry “grey hairs”, I’m always happy to welcome new members of the eDiscovery community, but I am not inspired by arbitrary barriers to career development for anyone. If hiring managers want JDs in eDiscovery positions, the community should demand that law schools add courses in practical approaches to eDiscovery and project management to their curricula. And that may be a subject for a later blog post. In the meantime, I would hope that when a job calls for a JD it is because the responsibilities truly require that distinct form of education and attorney experience. If not, I hope that employers will acknowledge the enormous amount of experience that resides in the eDiscovery community regardless of degree level.
eDiscoveryJournal Contributor and eDJ Group Consultant – Babs Deacon
Babs, this is something I’ve struggled with personally a very long time. I remember about 8 years ago when I was on the CLE circuit, I debated going for my JD. But after chatting with several other folks they advised me that it was unnecessary for me to get a JD. The question they asked me was, “why do you want to be a lawyer and do you want to start again being an associate?”. My answer to that was no, not really..not at this stage of my career. But then I look at people like John Bace who went to law school to get a better understanding of the legal aspects to coincide with his strong technical background. It has been a conundrum for me, but I don’t regret my decision. Great article btw…
October 19, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Jason Velasco
Member Type: Other | Role: Consultant | Size: Small (less than 50) | Years of Experience: 15 | Certifications/Licenses: N/A
The funny thing to me is that if you ask a potential client (lawyer) at a firm or in house what they think of the “JD/Consultant/Salesperson”, the popular response is “not much”. Over the last few years a couple have told me that the first thing that comes into their mind (rightly or wrongly) when they meet a “JD/Consultant/Salesperson” is – “Couldn’t make it as a lawyer, huh”.
On the other side of the coin, I know of at least one vendor who went through the “gotta-havea JD” phase that now won’t hire them. Not because of effectiveness, but because they are very painful to fire or lay-off (because they ARE a JD).
My $0.02,
John
October 19, 2012 at 1:47 pm
John Martin
Member Type: Other | Role: Other | Size: Small (less than 50) | Years of Experience: 25 | Certifications/Licenses: Court Certified Expert
John, great feedback…it was my old colleague Dan Junk who referred to himself as a “recovering attorney”. There are some very effective sales people that have JD’s, but a JD doesn’t guarantee sales. Just about every service provider has gone through the “only hire JD’s” phase..it would be interested to dig into that a bit…maybe Babs and I can do some research on that in the coming months. We are working on our research agenda for next year related to our coverage of the service providers…all recommendations for topics will be considered.
October 19, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Jason Velasco
Member Type: Other | Role: Consultant | Size: Small (less than 50) | Years of Experience: 15 | Certifications/Licenses: N/A
This post provides an interesting perspective but doesn’t go into the ‘deep dive.’ In most jurisdictions, most legal work must be performed ‘under the supervision of an attorney.’ In fact, in some jursidictions, this single requirement separates paralegals and legal assistants from ‘Exempt’ status with respect to overtime. Moroever this is an admitted attorney (i.e. ESQ) not just a JD. This situation is no different in Real Estate (‘agents’ must be supervised by licensed ‘brokers’) and other professional disciplines where the state seeks to protect the consumer by creating a professional license scheme.
Putting aside whether or not electronic discovery work is legal work or technical work, at the end of the day we are handling putative evidence which puts a certain overhead on the process. That overhead requires the supervision of an attorney. That consideration should be the only basis for the requirement – speculation by headhunters notwithstanding. Anything else is a waste of time, as is any analysis of the ‘trend’ that doesn’t consider that factor.
October 19, 2012 at 1:59 pm
wtkjd
Member Type: Firm | Role: Attorney | Size: Solo | Years of Experience: 26 | Certifications/Licenses: JD; CA Bar
“Supervision by an attorney” is an important point, and my work in litigation support/ediscovery for the last 25 years has always been under the management umbrella of an admitted attorney. However, my point is that if it hadn’t been for non-attorney paralegals, case managers and database folks, in the early days of legal automation, there would have been no litigation support. The non-attorney team I started with was, literally, automating cases before attorneys had PCs on their desks. We had to beg, plead, cajole, nag; whatever it took, to get most litigators to even consider putting their evidentiary files into a database. Don’t even ask me how hard it was to get them to start imaging. I think I had to paint some body’s house. By the same token, the IT folks were just as behind the litigation support curve as most associates and partners at their firms. I’m not complaining. I’m proud of the work that I’ve done and I’m gratified at being able to work on such stimulating projects with such smart, dedicated people. But I believe there has been a shift that only recently attorneys have wanted to get down in the trenches with the litigation support/ediscovery folks and that with all of the attorneys on the market, employers are seeing a new opportunity to get a “two for one”, JD and SME. I’m planning a follow up post on this topic related to the recent Kadden v. Visualex decision.
October 19, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Babs
Member Type: Other | Role: Consultant | Size: Small (less than 50) | Years of Experience: 25
Two thoughts come to mind:
“A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”.
Bar associations and courts aggressively seek to prevent the “unauthorized practice of law” (UPL).
Both are valid ideas, for good reasons. Practicing law is a very demanding profession with longstanding, mature skills development processes characterized by apprenticeship, the rigors of law school and (of course) the infamous bar exam. Observing and leveraging such lessons from centuries of the profession’s collective experience benefits everyone involved with the legal system.
But when legitimate barriers to legal practice are employed as screening tools or for other questionable purposes, the unwarranted elimination of valid (and valuable) resources is always a risk. Why would anyone want to capriciously disregard skills and experience that could increase one’s odds of success in any demanding effort – especially when variability and complexity are as high as is the case with even moderately-sized ESI corpora?
While many attorneys readily step “outside the profession” for specialized expertise, whether for use as expert witnesses or in the process of boiling down the specifics of a case strategy (forensics, anyone?), such practice hasn’t yet seemed to find common application in the area of ESI. Choosing to overlook needed skills for lack of a law degree burdens the decision-maker’s client with unnecessary risks (like unwarranted settlement, sanctions or outright inability to prevail) and costs (such as over-preservation or the need to review huge volumes of irrelevant information with expensive “JDed” hours).
Some call it the “Unwise Practice of IT (by lawyers)”; some widely-recognized experts (many with “Esq.” on their business cards) prefer the harsher “incompetence” label. But as with any other seemingly irrational bias, the perpetrator (and his client) is often the first (and worst) sufferer of the consequences.
The practice seems to be changing (albeit very slowly) primarily through the efforts of enlightened magistrates and judges. For my money, the next-up catalyst will be the plaintiffs bar (whose curious failure to capitalize on such opportunities will surely give way to rapid change on the heels of early-adopter success).
In the meanwhile, to the “unwashed masses of JD-less practitioners” I say – consider carefully the opportunity costs of your own decision to pursue (or forego) law-school enrollment.
October 19, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Joe Treese
Member Type: Firm | Role: Consultant | Size: Solo | Years of Experience: 30+ | Certifications/Licenses: eD Academy & Advanced eD, GU
I’m not an attorney, nor have I played one even on the playground. That said, I’ve found the “JD preferred” phrase to be a show stopper. Last year’s Texas Trial Lawyer Winter Meeting showed me many attorneys are nervous about Electronic Discovery, but really don’t understand it. “Talk to one of our younger associates, they’re more familiar with technology” is something I heard more than once. My response to such comments was to ask the question “Who would you trust more, a young attorney out of school for less than 5 years or someone who has been neck deep in the technology for 30 years?” If nothing else, my question did raise eyebrows.
October 19, 2012 at 3:15 pm
TerryD
Member Type: Other