The Jobs Project to Develop EDD Staffing

Last month, George Socha and Tom Gelbmann launched a new project within the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, called the Jobs Project, to create a framework to help organizations identify, assess, advocate for, recruit, hire and retain the appropriate professional resources.

The Jobs Project will not serve as a jobs clearinghouse nor is it meant to substitute for the expertise and judgment of the folks who create jobs, hire people and the candidates themselves.  Quoting Socha and Gelbmann from the release in today’s Law Technology News:

“We hope to address three problems we have seen in connection with electronic data discovery positions:

1. Companies, law firms and providers are uncertain as to how to create successful e-discovery jobs, and are unsure how to define and describe these jobs, and how they fit in the larger organization.

2. Once an organization creates an EDD position, it often faces substantial challenges filling the post. Too often, the alignment between candidates and positions is poor. Those hiring are uncertain how to appropriately assess candidates, and candidates do not appreciate what potential positions really entail.

3. Turnover is high, which is bad for everyone.

Our goal is to help address these issues by developing a framework for evaluating and addressing pre-discovery and discovery personnel needs or issues. We will develop scenarios based on existing business models, hopefully to create a starting point for needs assessment re: workers. The intent is to help organizations by creating a framework to help them identify, assess, advocate for, recruit, hire and retain the appropriate professional resources.

We have just begun the process, so we cannot predict the full extent of “deliverables” we will create. But even before the project officially launched, participants began preparing a two-tiered conceptual workflow for the staffing process.   At a minimum, we expect to create a guide, similar to the EDRM Search Guide .”

So far, participants include The Cowen Group; Faegre & Benson; Fios; The Glenmont Group; Haynes & Boone; Kennett Group; Kirkland & Ellis; MetaJure; Morgan Lewis; Pitney Bowes; and Symantec.

For more information click here  and click here.