Consilio In Action: Delivering Onsite Excellence
For major corporations, handling multiple complex litigations at the same time is a regular part of doing business. It also means they’re no stranger to complicated eDiscovery projects and large-scale document reviews.
For one global e-commerce and technology corporation, it handled these eDiscovery demands by embedding a Consilio team at the corporation, working side-by-side with company employees on a daily basis. Consilio’s team has worked onsite at the corporation for nearly a decade, operating as a true partner in the corporation’s eDiscovery efforts.
This honest and transparent partnership has been critical to eDiscovery success at the company, according to one Program Manager: “I always feel like we’re getting the truth from the Consilio team and that we can trust that where we’re putting our attention is exactly where our attention needs to be.”
Working Side by Side
When you work as closely every day as these teams do, a strong and positive working relationship is key. For the Program Manager and the Senior Operations Manager, that comes down to two essential things: the people and their communication.
“I think the strong points for me in the relationship have been the people,” the Program Manager explains. “There are a number of Consilio people I’ve worked with at some point or another over the past 30 years, and I have deep relationships with them. The newer people from Consilio have also been easy and fun to work with. They’ve been flexible, they’re willing to try new things, and they listen to what we want to do.”
The Senior Operations Manager agrees. “I’ve been working with the Consilio group for about a year-and-a-half, and every person who’s joined the team has brought something so unique and new that was desperately needed,” she explains. “Each of them has expertise, incredible people skills, a vision, and a way of suggesting things that we haven’t even thought of before or that we have thought of but haven’t put the energy into refining. They’ve helped us clarify our thoughts and given us a way to make them a reality in a lot of cases.”
Mike Rosado of Consilio, in particular, has been instrumental in helping the corporation think through its programmatic approach to eDiscovery. “He was part of one of the core groups that helped us conceive of our program to teach lawyers about eDiscovery within the corporation and get everybody rowing in the same direction,” the Senior Operations Manager explains. “He’s brought a lot of vision to tools that we’re developing internally to help with legal holds and always keeps the user top-of-mind.”
“One of the reasons we brought Mike on this team,” adds the Program Manager, “was because he has great experience. He’s got a great background in eDiscovery, and it shows in how he works with us every day. He has good ideas on how we should fix a problem, handle a problem, or implement something new. He’s been a wonderful addition.”
Robert Stangler of Consilio has also played a pivotal role when it comes to leading the onsite team. As the eDiscovery and forensic collections manager, Stangler feels as though he is not just a vendor but a truly valued member of the client’s organization. Stangler states, “The most important things to me when it comes to this client are communication, trust and the willingness to hear new ideas. We have formed and continue to build trusted relationships within the organization. If we identify ways to improve processes, we have the support to investigate further and work with the client’s various internal teams to assist in implementing and testing future changes.”
For the Program Manager, “Communication is key in this relationship and what we do.” Having worked with the Consilio team for many years, she has great communication with the long-time Consilio staff, and has seen that flow over to the newer people on the Consilio team. The Senior Operations Manager has had similar positive experiences, saying “With routine, day-to-day eDiscovery issues, I find that the individual team members are just so great at knowing when to escalate, knowing how to reach out. They do wonderfully in that sort of communication context.”
With complex eDiscovery, issues and unforeseen challenges inevitably arise. The Consilio team has been great at handling them – in many cases, even communicating with the corporation about the problem before they found it themselves, according to the Program Manager. In situations where the corporation spotted an issue first, the Consilio team was quick to address and resolve it.
The Secrets to a Successful Relationship
When teams work together on a daily basis over long-term projects, it’s critical that everyone be on the same page. Consilio and the corporation have managed to strike the right balance.
“For me, one of the biggest things I look for in team members in a situation like this is being really forthcoming and honest about issues,” says the Program Manager. “We all know that this process doesn’t always go smoothly. We all know that the corporation won’t do everything perfectly and that our systems might be incomplete. We’re always improving and it’s important to have people who are willing to acknowledge those gaps and address them moving forward.”
Transparency is also a critical factor for the Senior Operations Manager. “This team does a really good job of that,” she says. Honesty and communication have helped build the arrangement into the successful relationship it is today. “I never worry that things are being sugar-coated for us,” the Program Manager says.
Overall, the Consilio team has given the corporation a great amount of insight. The relationship isn’t simply transactional – “we need you to do this thing.” Instead, “they’re providing us with way more value than that every single day in terms of their expertise,” says the Program Manager. “That’s something you can’t really put a price on.”
At the end of the day, the two companies work as a partnership. “There are other lawyers or companies who might view them as vendors and we don’t look at them that way,” the Senior Operations Manager concludes. “They don’t just show up and rifle through your documents. They have a stake in this as well. They’re a partner in this and we work together.”