Why MidwestYou Want It When?
Yes, we’ve covered this topic before, but we think it bears repeating: Numbers…… life has become all about numbers. Here are a few:
To receive in data for possible production, it needs to be transported. If it is done electronically, the transfer can take hours depending on size. Quality control needs to take place to identify records that cause errors. There is a variety of reasons this can happen. Many of the problems can be corrected, but it is a step that needs to be factored into the time. Uploading the data then to a search and review tool takes time directly relational to the size of the files.
Litigation Support products can review some tens of thousands of records including email, word documents etc. in a matter of seconds. For example, 55,000 records can be searched over multiple terms - and in the scenario that I am giving you - we will use 30 word searches. The next step takes a bit of time, because once you have a document that has a hit, you want to find out if there are any related attachments to that document. Concordance can go out and search for attachments over all the search terms - and can complete that work in about 45 minutes. The investment of that 45 minutes will give you a list of all documents that were attached to your hit documents and lists the related doc IDs of one to the other. This is assuming top notch equipment and a top notch server. The downloading of the data to our office can be done over the internet. It can take hours to download files that are in this range of size. It also takes hours for us to take that information and put it up into our eDiscovery processing equipment. There is no speed demon on some of this - it is amazingly fast when you factor how much is being moved… And yet at times, like a pot of water watched for boiling, it can seem insanely slow.
If you are looking at a production request that will require input from the IT department of your client, factor in that their systems may not be as fast as yours. Factor also that they may not work hours outside of a traditional work day. Ask IT if they could sort what is being sent based on size, and address those records that are massive - on an individual basis, i.e. do you really need their marketing database? Quality control of this type can go a long way in saving money and time shipping records that are outside the scope of requests. Confirm in writing with the IT the process by which the data is being prepared and transferred. The discipline of working within reasonable deadlines has always been a challenge in the legal world. As we utilize the advantages of electronic transmission, it is just a better process of an old design. Regardless, you can’t cut it so close that your data transmission is equivalent to a messenger racing to file a brief within the hour 80 miles from the courthouse without getting a ticket… sound familiar anyone?
Twenty Year Reflection
How Did You Do It?
by Shawn Olley
I didn’t do it alone…..
Raymond Feest, (CPA) met with me in 1989 to discuss how much money I should have set aside before I ventured out to start Midwest. He told me if we had something that didn’t sell in six months; we had something no one wanted…. I consider these words of wisdom to live by.
Julianne Barker, Esq., a paralegal at Mulcahy & Wherry, S.C. at the time, helped me prepare the incorporation papers of Midwest in September 1989.
Mitch Marks handled the books of Midwest for all but the last few years – when he took a job with a local municipality. Claudia and I were approached by Mitch’s accounting firm, after they saw our Incorporation noted in the Business Journal. We met with a salesman that had an uncanny resemblance to Barry Manilow. He told us he would sign us up, but that Mitch would do all the work. Mitch was the person that counseled me into the financial advantages of buying a building. He simply said due to the size of the company, “it’s time”.
David Berman, Esq. was our first client. He was an advocate, a promoter, a resource and a dear friend.
Tom Courtney, Esq. was the attorney that hired us on our second job. Tom provided the work the first year that allowed Midwest to grow and mature in the safest of environments.
Don Rintelman, Esq. was the attorney that handled the buy-out of my partner, Claudia’s portion of the business in the mid 90’s. He was amazing and wonderful and insanely competent.
Bonnie Vermiglio is my banker at CHASE. She checks the balances and provides the loan structures when needed. She has been Midwest’s financial guru.
Bob Prindiville’s firm, Design Group Three, handled the complete renovation of the Midwest Paralegal building for me. It is with his quiet expertise and talent that the environment from which Midwest has thrived is so beautiful.
Nancy Pirkey, Esq. handles the occasional crazy personnel questions. She treats each oddity as if it is the sanest question she has ever heard. She has been a great resource, counselor and friend.
John Maloney, Esq. is my personal attorney. I have claimed him and counted on him for the past twenty years. He has never disappointed. There is a great calmness that comes with knowing your attorney is always there. He has been a great counselor on all business decisions I have made. He has talked me off the ledge when needed and nudged me when I wasn’t quite sure of myself. He is a trusted treasure.
This is hardly an exhaustive list of the professionals that have helped Midwest Paralegal over the past twenty years. It also is a reflection of all the people that you need when running a business regardless of size. Appreciation seems like such a small word. However, it is with the deepest appreciation that I tip my hat to these individuals and the attorneys in particular. I look forward to the next twenty years with my safety net of counselors beside me.
Midwest Paralegal Services, Inc.
& Digital Intelligence Working Together
Digital Intelligence, a premier company in the area of forensics and related services, has teamed up on several projects with Midwest Paralegal Services, Inc. The two companies complement each other when managing large data collections that need to be posted for review. Digital has the capacity to extract massive data pools and works with Midwest in using their FYI Concordance review product. “The balance has been great for us, said Shawn Olley, Owner.” “Since the equipment to manage all areas of a collection and review can be expensive, having a resource that has proven their expertise has been a great security blanket for us”.
Whether the need is to obtain records from a litigation opponent, or respond to a request for documents, Digital Intelligence can provide assistance in preserving and analyzing electronic evidence to avoid the pitfalls of spoliation unique to this type of evidence. Digital Intelligence focuses efforts on uncovering valuable electronic data and maintaining the integrity of this evidence. Expert staff can also help prepare or respond to electronic evidence discovery requests.
By utilizing the experienced paralegals and eDiscovery analysts at Midwest, resources can be combined to provide the best of what both companies have to offer.
“DUPLICATE: to do something more than once, especially unknowingly or unnecessarily”
HMMMMM Does this sound like something you want to do at the current hourly billable rates? If not, consider De-duplication on your projects.
A recent project that Midwest handled for a client resulted in the request for back up tape productions. Once the dust settled on the discussions, the sides agreed to produce, but de-duplicate out all documents and emails that were duplicative of what was already produced. Midwest had handled the production, so already had all the data on its system to do the comparisons.
We expected a high de-dup rate and provided the client with a guesstimate. We nailed it. The result was an average of 93% duplication over a data set of 320,000 records. This resulted in us having to search for word hits on some 20,000 records. The hit rate on that was about 19% (greatly depends on the words you search) which resulted in 4,000 records for attorney review.
Rewind. We started with 320,000 records and ended up with 4,000 records the attorneys needed to review….. why wouldn’t you de-duplicate. It just makes sense.
It's Not a Problem Until It's a Problem
Investments in the litigation support area of your practice are not unlike the money you put in a new roof. You can’t see the advantages until it starts to rain. When evaluating the choice of personnel that handles your electronic productions, imagine putting them on the stand. Would you feel confident if they were asked the following questions?
- What formal training have you received in the area of eDiscovery?
- What set protocol does your firm have in place regarding eDiscovery?
- How did you complete this project?
If the answers are:
- I haven’t had any…
- There is no protocol …
- I’m not exactly sure….
Price Point Perfection
The endless circle of document storage. The price to store for a year is cheaper then destroying a box. So, you store the box for years and years. When the decision is finally made to clean house at your warehouse of choice, the quote received to remove the box from the shelf, unsubscribe it from the warehouse system and destroy the box - would be equivalent to storing it for another twenty years. So, the economical thing to do for your current budget is to store it another twenty years. Let the next budget consider the cost. This is called Price Point Perfection and is a process by which the client willingly submits a box of data to the black hole of document retention. The cost of stopping the storage is so prohibitive, that firms just keep adding to the universe, and ultimately the cost.
For Example: $0.43 per cubic foot for storage vs. $4.25 per cubic foot for destruction plus $3.50 per cubic foot for the regular retrieval charge.
Consider scanning the boxes once. Having the materials stored on DVD that are retrievable and maintained on-site. A complete set could be made for alternate second site storage by using an external hard drive or DVD. This provides a redundant safety net of materials. Contact Ron Kroes, Imaging Manager, scans can be done for pennies a page.
Summation Deposition Transcripts
Using Notes in Summation to create a traditional Deposition Summary Format
With Case Explorer in FOCUS (dark blue banner)
Hit Alt L
That will ask if you want to load the note file as a database. It also cautions you that when you close out the case – and then reopen you will be brought back to your normal document database file using eForm.
Once the note file is loaded – you may choose the fields you want to use from the fields list (word [fields] in the core database view. Depending upon which fields you populated you can play around with layout (see the screen print as an example).
Once you have what you want to show in the table, Go to File at the top and scroll down to export to Excel. Assuming you have Excel on your system –it exports automatically.
- On May 19th, Shawn Olley met with the Spring Paralegal Class of MATC- Madison’s Paralegal Program to discuss resume creation and job hunting protocol.
- On March 3, 2009 The Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin accepted Midwest Paralegal Services, Inc. as a member with an A+ rating.
- This Spring, Midwest was re-certified as a DBE company in compliance with 49 CFR Part 26. This includes the City of Madison; Dane County; Milwaukee County and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
- Board of Bar Examiners approved Midwest Paralegal’s training in Summation, Concordance and Trial Director for 4.0 CLE’s. Please contact Shawn if you would like to set up training at your office, or the offices of Midwest.
