Why MidwestContract Paralegals... Why Use Us?
Midwest Paralegal has been providing contract paralegals to the Wisconsin area for 20 years. Please recall when we started, there were only two of us. Now we have over 35 paralegals that are experienced in a variety of law practices. Litigation continues to be our strong hold, only because it lends itself to high peaks and valleys in the demand or reduction in hours.
As corporations are taking more control over eDiscovery, they are desperate to save money. Midwest has been hired to assist in-house counsel with litigation hold procedures; document retention issues and data review. Streamlining this process can drastically affect the bottom line, in the event of litigation and when focused document requests are made.
Firms are collaborating more with each other and their vendors. Midwest Paralegal, as an unbiased third party has provided paralegals at a rate of $70.00 - $80.00/hour for document reviews, database creations/indexing and case management. The costs are shared by the parties, leaving the heavy lifting for the attorneys. Due to the repetitive nature of the systems, Midwest employees have a strict protocol which provides transparent, auditable and defensible steps when searches are created/executed on massive data pools using litigation software. No one wants to have opposing counsel conjure up expensive time delays poking holes in not WHAT was done, but more HOW it was done.
The contract paralegals at Midwest can provide the communication bridge between the productions’s made and the data received. Quick analysis can be done to ensure that you are getting what was promised, and in a manner that will make it less costly for the client.
The Long Term Assignment 
My experience on a long-term assignment at a downtown law firm was invaluable. While working for Midwest, I had the best of both worlds. I was a project manager for over five years in one firm. I was responsible for the supervision of other Midwest employees on site, which ranged in number based on the needs of the assignment. In addition, I managed a product liability litigation caseload for the client. As a Midwest employee, I had the support of my co-workers and company, the stability of a forty-hour work week and benefits, yet I was able to utilize my paralegal skills doing work that I enjoyed, in a law firm environment. I was given the same responsibility as other paralegals in the firm and had a large variety and volume of work.
Acclimating to an assignment in a new office is a bit like being the ‘new kid’ at school. After a short time, it was as though I was an employee of the firm I was assigned to. My work area integrated with the rest of the employees, I was invited to meetings and office parties, and I made some wonderful friends. I worked closely with a handful of attorneys who treated me as though I was part of the firm. In fact, I participated in a three-week trial out of state. The experience was stressful and wonderful all at the same time. What I learned from that experience was great for my career and work experience, along with challenging me personally since I had to be away from my husband and children.
In summary, I felt as though I needed to work hard to overcome the stereotype of the ‘temp’ you have in your office for a few months and may not produce the best work product. I was in a position where I needed to provide excellent service to a client, at the same time keeping in mind the policies and wishes of Midwest.
I knew that at some point the assignment would end and I would return to the home office in Oak Creek. I returned in June, with a warm welcome from my co-workers. The silence of working in a small office initially was deafening compared to the hustle and bustle of a busy law firm. However, should another assignment come up, I am ready for the challenge.
HOW MANY PAGES ARE IN A GIGABYTE?
Midwest is asked on a regular basis to provide definitive page number counts for projects – as part of the bid process. It is difficult to answer when media is produced in one form and conceptualized in another. Native eFiles vs.Pages. Attorneys always want to know how many pages a data pool is going to be. To answer it would be no different than quoting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. It all depends. So, how do you provide a budget to the client when the cost vs. benefit ratio isbeing analyzed? I’m asked to give a “best guess” which I, in turn explain, has so many contingencies and disclaimers attached to it that it all but renders it useless. Pricing structures have been a moving target. Midwest bills based on the size of the files. Others have billed based on number of custodians. Since the size is a clearer indicator of the volume of work we are handling, we consider it a more straight forward, transparent process. Since it is unusual for custodians to maintain the same level of files – or importance in a case, the complexity can have a wide range of variances. Research on a multitude of web pages confirmed the difficulty in giving a page count. Color; Files types; Compression; Video’s; Proprietary idiosyncrasies; File Size; templates; layouts can all affect the number of documents and ultimately the number of pages a file will be. Midwest does track custodial sizes and over time can provide any patterns that can be discerned from a data pool. We can also give historical, anecdotal information (ie. archives for xzy company tend to be at least 5 gigabyte). Samples can also be provided – but often times, may not be a reasonable representation of all other files to be produced. The most important decision that can be made at this juncture is to hire a vendor that you trust. A vendor that not only has proven cost-efficiencies built into their work flow but a proven quality of service. A vendor that has guided you toward cost savings in the past is more likely to be one that will guide the process in the future.
PASSWORD PROTECTED
Did you know one of the most common passwords used is QWERTY? (The first six letters on the top row of your keyboard.) Apparently the password is so common, that techie’s refer to it as the qwerty keyboard. I learned that when I cleverly tried to set that as our password at the office. My systems guy would not allow it. Midwest runs passwords through its FTK – Password recovery software. This is related to the forensics work. It is amazing how fast any password that is a word from the English language, even with a numeric add on, can be cracked. The standard can be broken in a matter of seconds.
Recently Midwest was working on a laptop at a location, and we were receiving internet through a wireless connection that was not coming from our client. The connection was attributed to the company next to our project location. We had full access to three computers which contained sensitive medical information. I was stunned at this day and age, that a company with that type of information (including social security numbers) would not have the added security needed. We notified them immediately to lock the system down. The next day, because I’m a curious sort, I checked to see if they had. It was still not locked down.
Simple elements can be added to your passwords to make them more difficult to crack. Changing the CaPitaLizAtion on the words and obviously NOT picking words that are found in the dictionary. Password cracking software can also analyze information regarding the focused source and run combinations of addresses; dates of birth etc. to create likely passwords. The more information that is out there on you, the easier it is to create a password that you may have designed. If you use more than three digits in the password, it will significantly increase the difficulty in gaining access. GoOdLuCK
If you want to create a random password tool, use the following web page: http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/
Privilege - Avoid The Log Jam 
Midwest has bulk CD and DVD publishing
equipment. For those parents that
need to make bulk burns of their children’s
sports team pictures to share, give
Midwest at call. Customized labels can
be created to memorize the season and it
provides a great gift at
year end pizza
parties.
The cost is $15.00 for CD’s and the same for DVD’s. Turn around is generally a day or two. Contact Rollie Johnson if you need more information.
WIRELESS NETWORKS; 802.11a, b, g, n.
What Does It All Mean?
802.11 is a numbering scheme for wireless networks used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE is the foremost organization in the setting of computer and network standards. Without the IEEE hardware vendors would not have a set of guidelines or standards which would result in hardware incompatibilities.
The wireless standards come in four flavors 802.11 (a, b, g, n). You need two a (wireless network card, connected to a PC and a Wireless access point, connected to a high speed modem or router) devices working on the same standards to be able to communicate with each other.
802.11a: 54 megabits of data per second
Pro: fast maximum speed; regulated frequencies
prevent signal interference from
other devices highest cost; shorter range
signal that is more easily obstructed
802.11b: 11 megabits of data per second
Pro: lowest cost; signal range is good and
not easily obstructed
Con: slowest maximum speed; home
appliances may interfere on the unregulated
frequency band
802.11g: 54 megabits of data per second
Pro: fast maximum speed; signal range is
good and not easily obstructed
Con: costs more than 802.11b; appliances
may interfere on the unregulated signal
frequency
802.11n: 140 megabits of data per second
Pro: fastest maximum speed and best signal
range; more resistant to signal interference
from outside sources
Con: standard is not yet finalized; costs
more than 802.11g; the use of multiple
signals may greatly interfere with nearby
802.11b/g based networks.
Many wireless access points will use the (a, b, and g) standard. You could buy a Linksys (a, b, and g) access point for under $80.00. If you wanted the latest and greatest (n) you would have to spend about $50.00 more. Just remember (n) is a newer technology and if you have a old wireless network card or if you have on built in wireless card in your laptop it might not be (n) compatible. In this case you would use the fastest standard that watched your access point.
As a side note there is still no substitute for a wired network.
Midwest is going green! Utilizing government promotions, Midwest switched out all its old lighting in the back warehouse to more energy efficient lamps and fixtures providing us with better lighting using a more efficient product.
Midwest is very happy to announce the addition of Alan Maupin to its staff. Alan is a certified user of LAW and Certified User and Trainer for Concordance and will be a much needed resource on our eDiscovery Staff.
Due to increase in eDiscovery productions and computer processing, Midwest added 3 more state of the art processing machines and added LAW licenses to create another fully automated station. Midwest’s data hosting service using FYI was upgraded from 2 GB to 10 GB of memory for the FYI Server. Midwest will also be upgrading from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 this spring.
Joanne Powers completed four years at the offices of Miller Coors in January 2009. Joanne worked in the legal department coordinating claim files and litigation tracking. Joanne also worked with the document collections and litigation hold protocol. Joanne has been with Midwest since 1991.
Scott Mund, a past Midwest employee recently sent an update. I started attending law school full-time in June 2008 in order to graduate by May 2009. Since doing so, I’ve been working on the Wisconsin International Law Journal, where I am writing an article on international insolvency. Good Luck Scott!
