A lot of important and useful information is posted to litsupport each week. The following is a distilled summary, in the form of questions and answers.
Q. What are the respective advantages of working in the IT department versus the litigation support department in a law firm?
A. For litigation support: avenue to education in specific areas, including Concordance/CPL, Opticon, Summation, Introspect, JFS, iPro, Trial Director, Case Central, EnCase, Attenex, LAW 5.0, Ringtail, Stratify, Kroll, Caselogistix, dtSearch, Federal Rules handbook, and thus arguably more rewarding and stable job opportunities; challenge of dealing with the most random, obscure requests and having the best possible customer service attitude; potential pressure/challenge of having billable hours;
For IT: more in-depth technology understanding, thus arguably more comfortable environment; "techy, dirty geekdom" - if you enjoy it; may cap off in position/salary level, but may transition easier outside of law world; potentially more stable budgets because you are supporting multiple practice groups.
Q. How to advance a career in Lit Support coming from the IT side of lit support?
A. Learn Concordance, Opticon, Summation, IPRO, LAW, and some say SharePoint in any case.
Q. What are the advantages of the Litigation Support group being part of IT in a law firm?
A. Litsupport gets more credibility as technical professionals; litsupport becomes better consultants in eDiscovery; IT gets better educated in discovery/forensics requirements; litsupport gets more network privileges and can do its work easier. Potential disadvantages: litsupport gets dragged into non-litigation projects; litsupport finds it easier to communicate with IT, but lawyers are less close to litsupport.
This summary from the Litsupport Group postings created by the wonderful and talented members of the group has been culled by Mark Kerzner (mkerzner@top8.biz) and edited by Aline Bernstein (aline.bernstein@gmail.com).
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