Luber: Hey everyone, Marc Luber here.
Today on JD Careers Out There we're looking at the alternative legal career of being an
e-discovery consultant - so stick around.
[theme song] Alright, today's guest is Chad Schwarz who left the practice of law to become
an eDiscovery Consultant.
Today, Chad's a Vice President and an eDiscovery Consultant in the Dallas office of a global
management consulting firm.
As you may already know, at JDCOT we help you find and succeed in fulfilling careers
using a law degree by exploring career paths both in and out of law.
Today Chad's going to tell us all about eDiscovery Consulting.
so let's get started.
Chad, welcome to JDCOT!
Chad: Hey Marc, thanks for having me today; I'm really glad to be here.
Luber: Yeah, I'm glad you're here - and Chad, I'm going to ask you to tell us all about
this path - and we're going to want to know who fits in, how to break in and how to succeed
once you're there.
But first, tell us this: what is eDiscovery and what do eDiscovery consultants do?
Chad: That's a great question and a great way to kick things off.
eDiscovery, I think in a nutshell, really I'm dealing with just the discovery process
in litigation and so, eDiscovery, while it generally just involves discovery itself,
it's really dealing with the electronic data more specifically.
So my job in particular is dealing with the clients from the beginning of the litigation
process and working with them on the preservation, collection, processing, production, hosting
of all their electronic data.
And throughout that process, I'm working with them to help consult and provide a structure
for the workflow, to help meet their deadlines and all of their needs, but also to consult
with them on best practices, ways to save money, new technology that's out there and
overall helping to provide efficiency to the discovery process.
Just because with how large datasets are becoming—this is not a shock to anyone, but datasets keep
growing and growing, so I'm helping them manage those large datasets and, in a lot of ways,
make sense of them.
Luber: Interesting!
So then, what would you call your role?
If people are watching, saying, "This sounds really interesting," are you just considered
a consultant?
What kind of role is this?
Chad: I think it's definitely a hybrid.
I think it's part consultant, part project manager.
I think on any given engagement, I'm doing a little bit of both.
Sometimes they're more project management-heavy; sometimes it's more consultant-heavy, it really
depends on the case.
Luber: And so, is that the type of role anybody would be looking for if they start looking
for this type of work, are they looking to say, "I want to be a project manager, I want
to be a consultant," or what is it that they'd be saying?
Chad: There are different roles within eDiscovery that lend itself more towards the consulting
aspect and more towards project management.
You can work in eDiscovery and be a 100% project manager.
I think, for me, what it boils down to is that it's an excellent career path for those
that have that legal degree, legal background, maybe experience in the law firm environment,
allows you to use that education but I'm not actually practicing law.
Luber: Alright!
So that should give you a little taste of what eDiscovery consulting is all about.
If this was helpful and you're on YouTube, please give us the thumbs up!
And if you want to hear more from Chad on eDiscovery consulting, come on over to JDCOT.com.
He's gonna tell us all about this path: how to break in, who fits it best, what's a typical
day and how to succeed once you're there.
If you're already at the site, you could just scroll down to the full video.
Make sure you join our membership so you get access to all the helpful video content.
Thanks again for watching everybody.
I'm Marc Luber and I'll see you soon.