Assistant Vice President - Legal Discovery Management

Job Title

eDiscovery Operations – Sr Counsel

Legal Discovery Management (LDM) is an internal organization within the firm’s Litigation Department.

As a Senior Counsel in Legal discovery operations team you will support and facilitate the legal discovery process, including the identification, preservation, collection, review, and production of information relevant to litigation matters, regulatory inquiries, and internal investigations. 

Duties will include but will not be limited to: performing custodial/data source research and identification, along with the preservation, collection, disposition, and/or secure delivery of data within pre-defined Service Level Agreements; acting as liaison between LDM and its partners, participating in end-to-end eDiscovery projects and programs with a focus on process improvement; managing various projects with multiple stakeholders; coordinating project milestones and deliverables; working directly with all staff levels from analysts to senior management, and delivering results on both near- and long-term initiatives.

• Act as a point-of-contact for legal teams, advising and coordinating discovery activities.
• Respond to and fulfill eDiscovery requests across various data sources, including but not limited to electronic communications, voice, structured and unstructured data sources.
• Coordinate the discovery lifecycle among all collaborating parties, including the firm’s internal attorneys, outside counsel, vendors, and the firm’s internal discovery IT group.
• Conduct early matter outreach, discovery planning, budgeting, custodian scoping, tracking, status reporting, managing to timelines and overseeing production requests.
• Coordinate with internal IT and business partners, and external vendors in support of request fulfillment, including restoration of data with appropriate chain-of-custody documentation, where required.
• Oversee day-to-day case details for certain matter types. Maintain a level of understanding of the business uses for the systems from which data is being requested and proactively address questions related to fulfilling such requests.
• Act as a liaison between the eDiscovery team and global systems and data center contacts, including but not limited to tape operations areas/data centers and third parties, to manage various legal discovery requests.
• Facilitate the flow of documents and knowledge throughout the discovery process: direct documents into the appropriate workstreams and transmit questions, answers, and information to/from the managed review vendor and internal or external counsel.
• Support the continuous improvement of eDiscovery operational processes globally, including request processing, research, preservation, collection, disposition, delivery, and control.
• Draft and/or review process management documentation, maintain organized updates and detailed matter/project notes and documentation.
• Data-driven problem solving and decision making; manage and appropriately escalate delivery impediments, risks, issues, and changes associated with process enhancement initiatives.

• Law Graduate / J.D. from an accredited law school.
  Attorney must be licensed to practice law and a member in good standing in the state/jurisdiction in which the position is based or otherwise in compliance with the in-house counsel registration rules of that state/jurisdiction.

• Minimum 5+ years of discovery experience at a financial services provider, consulting firm, discovery vendor, or top-tier law firm, with cross-EDRM hands-on and advisory experience.

• Understanding of firm change management processes and procedures (SDLC, etc.) and experience working in a secure environment with sensitive data, including PII.

• Familiarity with Electronically Stored Information ESI investigation procedures, preservation, disposition, recovery, and analysis of data from a variety of electronic communication, voice, and unstructured systems (e.g., M365 Purview, MS Exchange, Connected Archive, Lotus Notes, Robocopy, OnTrack, Hard Drives, Ascent, Digital Safe, NICE, Cisco, SharePoint), backup tape infrastructure (ArcServe, TSM, TDP, NetBackup), structured data systems, databases and/or EDRM (eDiscovery Reference Model), or litigation support-related experience.

• Project Management, ITIL, ACEDS, PMP background.

• Familiarity with, knowledge of, or understanding of legal chain-of-custody requirements, regulatory processes, and basic Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

• Self-motivated, highly flexible, organized, and team-oriented, with the ability to track multiple workstreams and manage confidential and/or sensitive, time-critical, and competing priorities and projects. Comfortable responding to shifting priorities and working independently with minimal supervision.