I recently read an interesting post by Barry Rozen on his Litscovery Blog about the emerging role of IT-legal Liason and its importance in effectively managing electronic discovery.[1]
In essence, the purpose of such a position is to have a "middle person" between the IT and Legal departments who has a fine mix of legal experience and IT savviness to process eDiscovery and similar requests.He goes on to discuss the dangers of housing this role in the IT or legal departments, arguing that if the IT-legal liaison falls under IT or legal, he or she will come under pressure to further the departmental goals, often compromising other important responsibilities the role requires for proper management of electronic discovery. Rozen advocates setting up and autonomous IT-legal liaison department.
His description of the IT-legal liaison resonates with my concept of an e-discovery project manager. As I've written before,[2] I think that legal project management serves as a useful bridge between the IT and legal departments.
[1] Barry Rozen, The IT-Legal Liaison Role: A (Very) Small Step in the Right Direction, Litscovery Blog, Apr. 13, 2010, http://blog.litscovery.com/?p=41 (last visited Apr. 16, 2010).
[1] Paul C. Easton, Law & IT: Can't We All Just Get Along? With Project Management, Yes!, Legal Project Management, May. 7, 2009, http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/05/law-it-cant-we-all-just-get-along.html (last visited Apr. 16, 2010).
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