In the world of IT and wearing my project manager hat on, ediscovery/edisclosure is another ‘activity’ to add to the list of items to consider. In the past (before ediscovery/edisclosure is coined) and in projects I have been involved in, I will do ‘cultural sensitivity’ sensing and ‘who is who’ and ‘who knows what or their role etc’ (the word coined is stakeholder analysis). I have held workshops (e.g. internet banking projects) whereby lawyers were invited as ‘key stakeholders’ and IT people were doing ‘who knows what’. Guess what were the outcomes? Lawyers may know a lot but they generally don’t want to reveal or share ‘openly’ in a workshop. If they do reveal or share, there will be more meetings with several paper memo type exchanges.

What can be done to improve collaboration between lawyers and IT people?  Before attempting collaboration, both teams need to sense ‘who is who’ (not only the IT people) and whether they can deal with whatever the outcomes and learn to accept whatever the consequences.  (fear of being open?) I don’t know any rule books or processes to do this. It’s beyond reckoning… Like some people just can’t ride a bike no matter how many books they have read or seen. This is just my sudden reckoning!

I like the word, protodigital. I would like it better if this word can be a mantra for lawyers and IT folks to get to know ‘who is who’ to reach to ‘who knows what’.