Frank Ready of Legaltech news surveyed the eDiscovery provider landscape about remote working now and in the future post pandemic world.
Ready interviewed Shamus Flower, senior vice president at Consilio, David Greetham, director and vice president of e-discovery sales and operations at Ricoh, an EDRM Guardian partner, and Mary Mack, CEO and chief legal technologist at EDRM.
David Greetham related that Ricoh’s remote offering and delivery was in effect before the pandemic hit and that productivity gains couldn’t be isolated to that cause.
Once the pandemic is over, Greetham does not foresee providers…
…longing to return to a more office-centric lifestyle—especially given that remote working can potentially eliminate the cost of commercial real estate from a business’ overhead. But while remote working may remain largely intact post-pandemic, the execution may not be exactly as it’s been the past several months.
For starters, e-discovery workers could find hours becoming slightly less flexible. Greetham expects that workers will operate on a schedule, but with greater allowances made for employee work habits. He gave the example of an employee who doesn’t like to work between noon and 3 p.m.
“I think it’s going to be hard to say no because you’ve already done it, albeit during a pandemic. So that’s an interesting challenge, [but] I don’t think it’s an unsurmountable challenge,” Greetham said.
Mary Mack, CEO and chief legal technologist at EDRM, thinks remote working is a long term trend.
She indicated that cybersecurity was one of the main concerns that kept more e-discovery companies from fully taking advantage of remote working setups before the pandemic.
“There were thoughts that physical security was way more important and that it was almost impossible to secure the [employee’s] home. But I think that whole thing has been blown to smithereens because we had to do it. E-discovery companies had to secure the home,” she said.
