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Note: The following is a guest post from Daryn Teague, who provides support to the litigation software product line within the LexisNexis software division.
With corporate counsel, law firms and outside service providers mobilizing to deal with the data security threat confronting our industry, more legal professionals are debating the idea of moving to a “hosted” model for managing litigation software and data.
The idea behind the hosted litigation solutions model is that a customer (an in-house legal department, law firm or litigation service bureau) contracts with a technology company to obtain an environment for securely hosting litigation and discovery data.
The hosting services provider takes responsibility for providing 24/7 access to all software applications and litigation data – the best providers will do so with a “private cloud” delivery system – and integrates with any application you use, regardless of the product or software vendor.
To better understand why the hosted model is attracting so much sudden interest in the industry, we spoke to Matthew Morocco, manager of eDiscovery services at Ditto. Mr. Morocco identified five key benefits of the hosted model:
1. Security. “On the heels of a series of major data breaches in the news, all of us have heightened sensitivities about how litigation data is managed. Hosted service providers such as LexisNexis have dedicated servers at secure, state-of-the-art data centers, which are managed by trained data security professionals. This factor alone makes the hosted model attractive immediately to most litigation professionals.”
2. Expertise. “If a law firm or corporation wants to manage their own litigation data, they need to hire a broad team of technology, security and data management professionals. With the hosted model, you obtain instant access to experts who specialize in these various areas, and don’t need to worry about finding the right people to keep your data safe and accessible.”
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See these Case Studies From
Reed Smith, Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, and Rader, Fishman & Grauer
and more on the litigation solutions resources page.
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3. Cost Savings. “The hosted model opens doors to all sorts of cost savings in litigation support by taking out of the equation a variety of hardware, software and infrastructure investments you otherwise need to make. When you compare the bottom-line costs of a hosted model to managing eDiscovery on your own, the savings scale tips heavily in favor of the hosted model.”
4. Convenience. “Another factor that attracts many litigation professionals to the hosted model is that it’s just easier on us. End users are able to work within their own preferred litigation support environment and yet still have the ability to scale up quickly if the need arises by just picking up the phone to their hosted solutions provider and adding capacity.”
5. Risk Management. “Law firms and litigation support providers may be able to reduce their exposure to data security problems by turning to a hosting partner such as LexisNexis, which operates certified data centers in multiple locations and hosts litigation data in a private cloud environment. This isolated private cloud environment allows you to securely collaborate with outside organizations while controlling access for internal employees, a huge risk management benefit.”
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Ditto has an 18-year history of providing comprehensive litigation support and industry-leading eDiscovery solutions, according to Mr. Morocco. Among other discovery management applications, they offer the LexisNexis Concordance Evolution software to their law firm and corporate clients who wish to use the software hosted in an SSAE 16 certified LexisNexis data center.
Photo Credit: Flickr, Penn State Law (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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