Legal Technology Consulting Director - Discovery and Data Management

Harbor is seeking a Legal Technology Consulting Director - Discovery and Data Management to join our Corporate Legal Solutions practice.

The Corporate Legal Solutions practice provides services to corporate law departments around the areas of Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management, and Discovery and Data Management.

This role is for our Discovery and Data Management service line, which helps Fortune 500 companies establish, refresh, and effectively manage defensible eDiscovery programs.

As a Director, you will help lead and deliver on a strong pipeline of legal hold and broader discovery assessment and implementation projects. This remote role is open to candidates nationwide, with a preference for those based in Chicago, our headquarters, where part of the Discovery team is located.

The following is an overview of the services the Discovery team provides to help clients manage their eDiscovery obligations:

Assess

: Conduct eDiscovery process, structure, technology, and spend assessments and provide recommendations to enact change

Implement

: Perform the end-to-end selection, implementation, and migration of legal hold, data preservation, data collection, data processing, ECA, and document review systems

Enhance

: Drive process and program improvement initiatives, including designing operating models and related roles, establishing discovery service preferred provider programs, defining workflows, drafting eDiscovery playbooks, creating discovery dashboards, and more

Remediate

: Profile systems to create data inventories, map data flow for eDiscovery, regulatory, or compliance purposes, advise on good data hygiene, and assist with defensible disposition initiatives

Support

: Provide augmented eDiscovery case management support to drive progress on individual cases, serve as eDiscovery system administrators, and provide legal hold managed services

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead multiple client engagements and relationships
• Oversee all aspects of project delivery and administration
• Mentor and guide team members to drive timely completion of high-quality client deliverables
• Cultivate strong client relationships by consistently delivering exceptional service
• Contribute to business development and marketing initiatives to fuel team and company growth

Client and Project Management:

• Facilitate workshops with senior legal and IT stakeholders to understand current state processes and gather future state goals and objectives
• Benchmark eDiscovery processes, technologies, reporting and metrics, cost structures, spend, and team structures against industry best practices
• Identify eDiscovery service providers and available technologies to satisfy client requirements
• Develop and present recommendations and implementation roadmaps to client leadership teams on how to mitigate risk, lower costs, scale, and/or achieve operational efficiencies
• Map current state workflows to new technology-enabled processes and/or integrations to create innovative yet practical solution frameworks

Create eDiscovery process documentation, workflow diagrams, playbooks, standard operating procedures, roles and responsibilities matrices, checklists, trackers, and other deliverables

• Identify and document test scenarios to ensure new processes, technologies, integrations, data handoffs, hosting models, etc. align with expected outcomes
• Define change management strategies and execute key tasks required to ensure enduring change, strong user adoption, and a seamless implementation experience
• Partner with client teams to develop training curriculum and materials, as well as lead end-user training in partnership with technology providers

Serve as lead project manager for system implementation projects, including creating and maintaining project schedules, managing the project budget and scope, providing routine status updates, tracking and reporting issues, and coordinating activities with third party vendors

Serve as the primary point of contact and/or escalation path for our key client contacts, which include eDiscovery managers or directors, senior litigation attorneys, legal technology managers, legal operations leads, and legal IT managers

People and Team Development:

• Cultivate relationships at current clients and mentor junior team members to become trusted advisors and future lead client contacts
• Support quarterly business reviews with key account clients
• Enhance our project delivery methodologies, documentation, training, and tools
• Actively manage, develop, coach and/or mentor junior team members across all facets of project management and client engagement
• Participate in company-wide strategic initiatives
• Volunteer for company-sponsored community enrichment programs

Business Development:

• Participate in business development activities, including qualifying opportunities, creating proposals, leading or supporting new business pitches, and drafting statements of work
• Develop and grow existing relationships with vendors and other partners to expand or create new service offerings
• Attend industry conferences and events to bring fresh ideas and learnings back to broader team and identify new client opportunities
• Contribute to thought leadership pieces (e.g., participate in webinars, draft an article)

Experience, Education and Other Qualifications:

10+ years of relevant experience in legal consulting or technology implementation, specifically in a customer facing role advising clients

Significant experience performing eDiscovery process and/or technology assessments, selecting and implementing eDiscovery platforms, designing eDiscovery team structures and operating models, creating eDiscovery documentation (e.g., playbooks), or advising on best practices

Hands-on experience implementing Exterro, RelativityOne, Reveal, DISCO, Everlaw, Nuix, OpenText, or other similar systems

Strong knowledge of common productivity platforms, such as M365 Purview, Google Vault, Slack, and how their data preservation features work

Four-year degree in Finance, Business, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Science, Economics, Statistics, Accounting, Data & Analytics, and the like, or equivalent combination of experience and education

Demonstrated knowledge of the following areas:

• Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)
• Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP)
• Industry leading eDiscovery technologies and service providers eDiscovery stakeholders and their typical roles and responsibilities
• Common legal operations and eDiscovery platform integrations
• Information governance and good data hygiene practices
• IT implementation methodologies and controls
• Managing project budgets, resources, and timelines
• Ability to independently managing multiple concurrent engagements and clients
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills (written, via data and deliverables, and verbally)
• Keen attention to detail and capability to prepare polished client deliverables
• Willingness to self-study and learn new concepts or technologies to solve problems
• Aptitude and desire to learn and develop generative or other AI-enabled solutions
• Have permanent US work authorization

About Us:

Harbor is the preeminent provider of expert services across strategy, legal technology, operations, and intelligence. Our globally integrated team of 900+ strategists, technologists, and specialists navigate alongside our clients – leading law firms, corporations, and their law departments – to provide essential resources and invaluable insights.

Anchored in a rich heritage of deep knowledge, steadfast relationships, and mutual respect, our unwavering dedication lies in shaping the future of the legal industry and fostering enduring partnerships within our community and ecosystem.