How to grow your law firm, tackle artificial intelligence and other challenges by 2025
Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Lynn Tubalinal, the director of litigation support at Dykema, and Julia Voss, the director of litigation support and e-discovery at UB Greensfelder.
Both are among the industry leaders who contributed to the recently published report Advancing Litigation Support to Fuel Growth in a Changing Legal Market, supported by Opus 2.
They discussed the effect of the increasing volume and variety of data, how a team knows that it is time to upgrade its technology, successful strategies for driving adoption, and effective generative artificial intelligence use cases.
Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your current role.
Lynn Tubalinal: I started my career as a paralegal and leveraged my technical background into a litigation support role. I started leading teams at Sidley Austin where I spent 8 years. Three and a half ago, I moved over to Dykema. I was a litigator at a large firm in the early 1990s, and had one of the most important cases. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern civil litigation, were changing. I was given the task of figuring it all out and began teaching my colleagues about these developments. I have been the director of litigation support and e-discovery for 11 years. I’ve been the director of litigation and ediscovery at my firm for 11 years. You can feel isolated in these roles and not know what other people are going through until you start talking to them. In this fast-paced business, we don’t always have the opportunity to connect and speak with one another. Through these reports, I could relate to the perspectives of my peers and identify strategies that could work for us internally and as an industry.
Lynn Tubalinal is the director of litigation support at Dykema, and Julia Voss is the director of litigation support and e-discovery at UB Greensfelder.
What effect do you expect this trend to have?Julia Voss:
The increasing volume and variety data was one theme in the report. What impact do you anticipate this trend will have?Julia Voss :
The increasing data volumes are forcing more litigators to realize that they need a technological solution to manage their dockets. They used to be able to manage small cases with only a few hundred pages, but this is no longer possible. Today, the variety of data is a complex issue because there are so many data sources. It seems like there is a new update or app for the phone or Microsoft every day. Litigation support professionals are always chasing new updates and developing methods for collecting data. We used to think we understood e-discovery when we could collect emails. What advice would you give to others who are managing this change?Lynn Tubealinal:
Do not get overwhelmed. We’re all going through it at the same time. What works best for you and your team? Discuss specific issues with your peers. For example, how to handle data types that are unique. Learn which solutions you can provide to the case team. It’s not always a simple solution. For some cases, you may need to use different applications. We provide technical support, but we also focus on the challenges faced by the case team to develop a holistic approach. We need to help our internal clients communicate more effectively with external clients. The report Advancing Litigation support to Fuel Growth in A Changing Legal Market also highlighted the need to update outdated technology, namely case management. How do you know when it’s time to explore a new solution, and what are your tips for others as they select new applications?
Julia Voss: You start to realize it might be time to look at a new solution when people aren’t using the one you have or there is better technology that can provide more support. Listen to people around you in order to better understand their needs. It is difficult to find people who have the time to test out new solutions and determine the best course of action, especially when there are so many options available thanks to the advances in generative AI. With many things changing at once, you need a group of people who understand what your technology is doing and what a new product could improve.
Ari Kaplan: Does outdated technology contribute to a lack of adoption?
Lynn Tubalinal: Litigation support teams must always balance the use of outdated technology with the cost of moving to a newer, faster and better solution. It can be difficult to convince teams to upgrade. What strategies have you used to encourage adoption in your firm
?Julia Voiss:
It is important to present the benefits of the application rather than just highlighting the features. The best strategy is to start with a small group that pilots the app and then presents the results in order to influence adoption. A hot topic, generative AI is and will remain. What have you learned so far from your experience with AI? We have just purchased a component of generative AI for our eDiscovery document review platform, and we are excited to deploy this. I’m trying identify my champions who can use this in their cases and provide honest feedback. Most lawyers are more interested in the results than the technical details of the technology. According to the impressions I’ve heard about generative AI, everyone is waiting to see what other people are doing. We don’t want to be left behind, so we are cautiously stepping into the arena. We have been testing generative AI for a few month and are now expanding access to grow adoption. We need to convince our team members to invest in training and resources to upgrade their skills with generative AI so that they can continue to assist the legal teams to move forward. Education and marketing are key. I spent a lot of 2024 promoting my team, because not everyone understood what we did. My team is trying to do the work but may not know how to market my team while they are helping others. I have been working internally to encourage more direct support such as a telephone call over an email, or Teams chat. We are moving back to basics to better showcase our talent and capabilities.Julia Voss:
What didn’t surprise me about this report is that we’re all trying to do some of the same things. We are internally rebranding the group as the data-intelligence team. We are showcasing the skills of our technologists and e-discovery counsel to raise their profile and highlight where they can provide support, so the trial teams can focus on the merits of their cases.Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.
Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal–or the American Bar Association.
