eDiscovery Leaders Live: Stephanie Clerkin of Korein Tillery
Stephanie Clerkin, Director of Litigation Support at Korein Tillery, joins George Socha, Senior Vice President of Brand Awareness at Reveal, as part of a special ACEDS #eDiscoveryLeadersLive series broadcast from ILTACON 2022.
Stephanie is the Director of Litigation Support at Korein Tillery, one of the country’s leading plaintiffs’ complex-litigation firms, where she leverages over 15 years of experience in finance, consulting, and data analytics to manage massive litigation projects, as well as the firm’s e-Discovery platform. Working with all departments in the firm, Stephanie understands how to bridge the gap between the legal teams and IT personnel to streamline discovery efforts and design cost-effective solutions for clients. She is responsible for the processing, analysis, review, and production of numerous terabytes of ESI. Stephanie is an ACEDS Certified e-Discovery Specialist. She is a Member Liaison for the St. Louis ILTA Community and served on the conference planning committee for ILTACON 2018 and 2019 and a member of Women in eDiscovery and the Sedona Conference. Outside the office, she tirelessly dedicates countless hours to several community organizations, including the Make-A-Wish® Foundation.
Stephanie shared her experiences coming to legal nine years ago with no background in legal and jumping directly into the deep end of the eDiscovery pool. She talked about how she joined the firm, what those first days were like, and how ILTA came to the rescue. Stephanie discussed the changes – and lack of changes – she has seen in the industry over the past nine years. She talked about how her role had evolved over that time, how it has stayed the same, and how as a department of one she supports and entire firm.
Key Highlights
- [3:43] Bridging finance, consulting, data analytics, and legal.
- [5:38] Early days at Korein Tillery.
- [6:42] At Korein Tillery, valuing interpersonal skills over technical ones.
- [7:49] A deer in the headlights - figuring out how to do her job with no previous legal experience.
- [9:10] ILTA to the rescue.
- [9:32] Getting involved with ILTA.
- [9:49] A strong presence at ILTACON for the St. Louis chapter.
- [10:44] What has changed during her nine years in eDiscovery.
- [11:18] Still a department of one at her firm.
- [11:49] How a department of one supports an entire firm.
- [13:11] How she delivers eDiscovery education to her attorneys.
- [14:07] Using internal versus outside resources.
- [15:01] Getting content ready for review.
- [16:11] Review – often handled by their own attorneys.
- [17:08] Work with expert witnesses.
- [18:13] How involved experts are with the data.
- [19:36] Building a personal brand.
- [21:54] Final thoughts about ILTACON.
Key Quotes
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- “[The need for help] was how I learned about ILTA, because there was nobody else internally I could turn to. Our IT director was a member of ILTA and said, ‘I don’t know what all you do but I think there’s a community of people out there that do what you’re going to try to do.’”
- “Shockingly, not a lot [has changed in legal technology in nine years]. A lot of the same challenges are still there, just wrapped around different forms.”
- “That’s something that has changed. I get pulled in earlier in the process, at the protocol stage now, instead of, ‘We just agreed to do this and can we?’”
- “We host I’d say 90% of all our data on premise but in the last couple years anything that involved collection, that’s getting outsourced. It’s gotten way too complicated; there are too many things that can go wrong.”
- “Being on the plaintiff’s side, we try to streamline as much as possible, do a lot with as little as possible.”
- “When someone’s able to do the review, review productions, prepare for depositions, they are a lot more prepared. They are the subject matter experts on the case at this point.”
- “If anyone is ever worried about attending a conference or worried they are not going to know anybody, you might not know anybody at the first day of these events but by the last day you’ll have two hundred new friends … because this community is so welcoming.”