The Legal Data Intelligence Podcast with David Cowen (Episode 12)

In this episode of Careers and the Business of Law: The Legal Data Intelligence Series, host David Cowen had a joint discussion with LDI founding members Scott Milner (Partner and Global eData Practice Group Leader, Morgan Lewis), Laura Kibbe (VP and Deputy GC, Unisys) and Adam Rouse (Senior Counsel and Director of eDiscovery Operations, Walgreens), on the key factors behind the emergence of the Legal Data Intelligence model.

This episode was recorded after the founding members participated in a panel discussion—Tackling Complex Data Challenges: Case Studies on the Legal Data Intelligence Model—hosted at ILTACON 2024.

Cowen’s guests talked about how the convergence of people, process, and technology is pushing the legal industry toward frameworks like the Legal Data Intelligence model and the myriad ways in which LDI provides career mobility to legal professionals interested in data and technology. Their conversation includes important tips, takeaways, and candid accounts on how the founding members continuously reinvent themselves by taking on new data challenges on a growing list of use cases across different practice areas.

Listen to the full episode and read a partial transcript below.

David Cowen: How are legal professionals reacting to LDI? We had quite a few members from the audience earlier who had raised their hands to learn more about LDI during the session.

Adam Rouse: We had people coming up to us after the session who had just started in legal. They wanted to know how they could leverage LDI to help them in their careers. So I think a big thing about LDI is diversifying the talent pipeline and really helping that next generation of ediscovery professionals, compliance professionals, and internal investigators and data security people come up in their careers. It’s about giving them career mobility so that they are no longer pigeon-holed into a narrow role. Ultimately, being a Legal Data Intelligence professional is having a transferrable set of skills.

How have technology and new frameworks like LDI changed the way legal professionals are tackling legal data challenges?

Scott Milner: We’re not starting from a blank piece of paper now. We are looking at what we have developed for years through people, process, and technology. And now we can get to the information faster. Many of the use cases that LDI has outlined are use cases that we have been doing for years. With the LDI model, we no longer need to approach these matters with a blank piece of paper—we now have a framework. We no longer need six weeks to get the Initiate phase started; we can do it in days.

Laura Kibbe: It has accelerated it. But I think it also plays an enabling role. You are now able to become more analytical in the Investigate phase. What LDI has done is not only consolidate all the use cases, but also the best practices, all in one place.

How have in-house and outside counsel expectations changed in the last few years?

AR: Speaking from an in-house perspective, I think the role of in-house corporate legal departments is changing and, I think, changing necessarily. We used to be just a cost center—businesses would put money into corporate legal because the assumption was that they would help them get out of trouble, assess risk, or analyze contracts. And that’s fine; we still need to do that. It’s a primary function that won’t change. But the tools, practices, methodologies, and skills associated with Legal Data Intelligence can be applied to any kind of data in any kind of context to do critical analysis. This is how we become a value add to the business—no longer just a counselor but a true strategic partner.

SM: You hire outside counsel to solve business challenges. So the client wants to know how to get information that they can use to solve a business problem from all this data. If I’m not only helping them solve the legal problem but also giving them takeaways and information from the data, that helps me create stickiness with the client. That incentivizes them to call me and get our help in solving more problems.

LK: The way we engage outside counsel has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. I appreciate grassroot litigators and trial lawyers and we do need them. But if you’re only a trial lawyer or if you’re only a compliance investigator, I’m probably not going to get the value I need out of that law firm. I really do see data-oriented legal professionals as a competitive edge in getting corporate business.

Editor’s Note: The format of this episode is a slight departure from previous episodes which, in contrast, were one-on-one interviews. The next episodes will revert to the original format as we release them in the months ahead.