The key to accelerating your career in 2024 is learning eDiscovery and this blog is going to give you a 3-step plan for litigation paralegals to follow to make it happen.
I feel so passionate about litigation paralegals learning about eDiscovery because I’ve seen what it can do for litigation paralegals’ careers.
Now, I’ve also seen and heard instances where people will say, “I don’t do eDiscovery or our firm doesn’t do eDiscovery.” And I would challenge that and say yes, you do.
You’re probably just not doing it in the most effective and efficient way, because if you think about it like this. We all communicate electronically, every one of us, text messages, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook.
When was the last time you received a letter in the mail, a handwritten letter from someone? It’s special when you do receive it because you barely ever receive it. So when your attorneys are saying to you, “Hey, we got this PST file from the client. Can you load it and print it all out? I want to review that and highlight it on paper.”
That’s still eDiscovery. It’s electronic information, electronic data you’re receiving and printing out.
👉 Learn more about what is eDiscovery here.
Prefer to Watch Instead of Read?
I am going to give you three steps that you can take today, right now, that can help change the trajectory of your career.
You’ll also read some stories of people who did just that that I think will inspire you.
Back in 2014, I was asked to be a part of this West Coast eDiscovery paralegal conference and I believe ACEDS was the host of it. I was on a panel of three people. It was me, the legal recruiter out of New York City from a big legal recruiting firm that specializes in eDiscovery and lit support tech positions, and the founder and CEO of a small startup company.
It’s a big company now and they focus on eDiscovery. One of the audience members was a paralegal who asked the founder of that startup company, “Do you see the technology that you’re creating and that other technology companies are creating eventually taking away paralegal jobs?”
The answer was no unless you’re a button pusher. If you are the litigation paralegal who:
- only gets to know the easy part of whatever it is that you’re doing
- is continually pressing the easy button
- doesn’t know how to use technology to its fullest extent
- isn’t being a project manager on your discovery cases
Then maybe, yes, some technology could take over part of what you do.
E-discovery Boot Camp
E-discovery skills are no longer on that list of “preferred” skills when employers are hiring litigation paralegals. These skills are required now.
Don’t limit your future career security by not knowing how to manage e-discovery projects.
This e-discovery training program will help you become a master at e-discovery project management in just 5 hours!
Focus on Career Security
Back then, AI and predictive coding was still a little “iffy” for some attorneys. They just weren’t as comfortable with it yet. Now, a lot of them are. In this type of predictive coding, where a machine goes through and decides what is and isn’t relevant, someone has to oversee it.
Someone has to review and say, did the machine make the right choice? That could be you, that could be the eDiscovery paralegal.
Now, if you were the paralegal who’s just checking the boxes, which is what the machine does now in AI, then yes, you could be out of a job. That’s really what I want to focus on.
I want every paralegal, litigation or not, to focus on career security instead of just job security. I teach it in my courses and talk about it on our podcasts all the time. What I want is for you to have career security. This means gaining skills that will advance your paralegal career, not just your job.
Even if you’re in a job right now, maybe you’re in personal injury, or at a family law firm that doesn’t do eDiscovery, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it.
Someday, that firm could close, or a bigger firm could buy it out, and you never know where your paralegal career will lead you. If you don’t continually add value and skills to your career, like eDiscovery skills, then it’s not going to go as far as it could.
Career security should always be at the top of your mind, more so than job security, because that job of yours is owned by the law firm, the corporate legal department, or the government agency you work for.
They own your job, but you own your paralegal career.
🌟 Here are the top 10 paralegal career takeaways of 2023.
Taking Action with Your Future in Mind
Let’s start with why every litigation paralegal should consider eDiscovery a required skill and how you can develop it.
Imagine being on a clear path as a litigation paralegal toward making much more money and opening up more job opportunities and growth potential.
We’ve even interviewed some people who have seen it. We sometimes tend to focus on what skills are needed to do our current job well. We want to be good at our job.
But I want you to have career security so that it doesn’t matter what happens to your current employer, and it doesn’t matter what happens to the relationship that you have with your attorney, whether they leave the firm, go to a new firm, start their firm, or there’s layoffs.
I want you to think about everything that you do in terms of how it is going to help your career be more secure.
This plan for litigation paralegals is for those who have done some eDiscovery work but feel like it’s just too much to learn or dive deep into.
👉 Here are 7 tips for Litigation Paralegals in 2024.
This might be because you have a litigation support department, and they do a majority of it.
Maybe you have no idea what the big deal is, and you don’t think this applies to you.
This plan might not be for you if:
- You have no interest in working on anything except paper
- You’re comfortable with the status quo, and you just want a paycheck.
- You don’t want career growth
- You want it just to have it easy as other things are priority right now
Regardless, you always want to focus more on career security than job security. Ask yourself, “What am I doing to ensure my career is secure regardless of this job?“
⚠️ Don’t let these 8 mindsets hurt your paralegal career.
Consider eDiscovery a Required Skill
Do any of these sound familiar?
- My attorney just wants everything printed out to review and highlight on paper. They’re old-fashioned. They don’t care if it came in electronically or not. They want to see it, feel it, and touch it.
- The cases that you work on don’t involve eDiscovery.
- Your litigation support person does the eDiscovery for you.
I’m going to circle back to that career security again. I know, especially when you’re busy as a litigation paralegal, it would be easy to say, “You know what, let them handle it. I’ve got enough on my plate.”
But what happens then is you slip further and further away from having that hands-on experience and being able to move into those roles that are going to be available for you if you keep up with eDiscovery.
I just had a telephone conversation this week with a paralegal who worked for a big firm in litigation, a great litigation paralegal. She was at a big firm that had a litigation support department, so she didn’t have to have much hands-on experience in eDiscovery. She got to go to trial and do all the things she loved to do.
Well, fast forward, she gets laid off during the pandemic and goes to another firm, a smaller firm, and this firm expected her to know how to handle eDiscovery cases and be an eDiscovery project manager.
Unfortunately, 90 days in, they let her go. Her call with me was struggling to figure out if she should take our eDiscovery Boot Camp or if she should stay in her current role.
She’d gone now into a completely different role because she understood she didn’t have the eDiscovery experience that these other law firms were asking her for.
Don’t Let Your Firm Pigeonhole You
I always say that you must be careful, especially in the bigger firms. If you’re in a small and mid-sized firm, this usually isn’t a big issue.
But if you’re in a big firm, you have to be careful that they’re not pigeonholing you into one specific type of duty or thing you’re doing, and then you don’t get exposure to anything else.
I’ll give you an example. There are some firms where there’s a trial department where all the paralegals do in that department is go to trial, and they’re very good at what they do. Still, they don’t ever prepare for depositions or draft discovery requests or help with motions for summary judgment.
They don’t have a well-rounded base of skills. Try not to get pigeonholed like this into one specific area.
👉 Check out some pros and cons of going solo vs a large firm.
Don’t Wait to Learn eDiscovery
You’re learning by trial and error, hoping that your mistakes don’t cause you to lose your job. You wonder sometimes if you’re cut out for it, especially when you’re trying to manage these eDiscovery projects and you feel like you’re in over your head.
But you also don’t want to bother people by asking too many questions. I want to start with this quick story about a litigation paralegal, who I’ve worked with.
I’ve been in business for 14 years, so this wasn’t right away. But she began making $200,000 a year at a big city firm because of her eDiscovery experience.
Is it always going to be possible? No, it’s not always going to be possible. But, if all you are is a litigation paralegal who’s really good at trial, but you don’t know eDiscovery, it’s probably not going to be possible.
Potentially possible? Yes, with eDiscovery. Without eDiscovery? Probably not.
I don’t know that many litigation paralegals making $200,000 a year who don’t have at least a moderately high level of eDiscovery experience.
I told you the story about the litigation paralegal who now regrets it because she’s a few years beyond that, and she’s gone from position to position trying to figure out where she fits in the litigation world. Take a look at some of the job requirements out there.
They all require eDiscovery skills. It used to be a preferred skill. Now, it’s a required skill.
👉 Learn about other required skills to be successful as a paralegal.
Litigation Paralegal Boot Camp
Are you tired of being the Panic Mode Paralegal who spends your days playing whack-a-mole with last-minute rush projects because you’re waiting for someone to show you what it takes to be great litigation paralegal?
This is the only program of its kind that provides litigation paralegals with all of the tools to master litigation cases from the complaint through the trial, and everything in between.
You will be the Confident Case Strategist faster than you ever imagined possible.
The Current Job Market
Now which one of these would you choose? According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for an eDiscovery paralegal is $74,513. Compare that to the average salary for a litigation paralegal of about $56, 230.
Now these salary averages are just based on titles. This is why I love what eDiscovery has done for the paralegal profession.
So that’s what ZipRecruiter says, but you know what? The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t have a title for an eDiscovery paralegal. It’s a whole new title. It’s hard to compare the two and take a look at these positions.
I’m going to show you the difference in what paths you can take in this three-step plan for litigation paralegals.
I want to warn you, that attorneys who are only going to hire one paralegal, they’re going to want one who’s going to be able to help them with eDiscovery. They don’t want to have to do that themselves.
Just go take a look and search for litigation paralegal jobs. Look at all the job descriptions in your area and count how many of them have eDiscovery as a required skill.
My goal for every litigation paralegal is to help you break through every possible ceiling that has ever been set for you.
Now is the opportunity to say, I’m going to be at the top of my game and I’m going to set the new bar for what it looks like to be a litigation paralegal.
So let’s start with our three-step plan for litigation paralegals to see a path to success!
🌟 Here are some tips for transitioning from a litigation paralegal to an eDiscovery paralegal.
Step One: Choose a Path
First, we’re going to choose a path, then we’re going to make a plan, and then we’re going to get the training.
I want you to walk away from this blog with a plan. To make the plan, our first step is going to be to choose a path. What do I mean by that?
I think it’s important that you think about what kind of attributes you have. What do you like to do? What interests you the most?
Because from an eDiscovery paralegal perspective, there are several different paths or routes that you can take depending on what you like to do.
There’s the tech side, which would naturally lead you to some type of litigation support position, maybe managing the litigation support department.
I interviewed someone who was a litigation paralegal, then an eDiscovery paralegal, and liked the tech side so moved into litigation support at that same firm. She is now working for a vendor as a solutions consultant.
👉 Learn more about her career journey here.
Maybe you want to take the case side. You want to stay more involved in the cases because when you take the tech side, you get removed from the day-to-day case management. Some might find the day-to-day case management kind of mundane or on the complete opposite spectrum.
Maybe you have the type of personality where you like to meet people. You’re outgoing, and you could move into sales.
I know several salespeople who work for some form or another of an eDiscovery software or technology company, and they make anywhere between $300,000 to $500,000 a year.
Are they good at their job? Yeah, they’re good at their job. It’s completely outside of being a paralegal. Still, your paralegal experience plus some eDiscovery experience could make you a really good salesperson, especially for companies whose major client focus is trying to get law firms to buy their software.
Along those lines, I know some people who went from sales and then moved into being on the board. They’re maybe the vice president of business development or the vice president of marketing. You could very well stay a litigation paralegal who knows eDiscovery.
But if you like case management and you want to stay at a law firm, then maybe you choose the case management and project management path.
The reason why I want you to choose a path is because next, I’m going to ask you to make a plan. I want you to have a plan and think about where you see yourself in five or ten years.
After you’ve given yourself a chance to write out some pros and cons, move on to step number two.
🌟 Get tips on making a 5-year plan.
Step Two: Make a Plan
We have got to have a plan now that you’ve chosen your path. Maybe, you’ve taken your notebook out, and written it down.
Let’s say you’ve decided you’re taking the case/project management path. You want to stay involved in the cases. You like working for the law firm or the in house corporate legal department.
You’ll want to create a career development plan. I’ve put together a template that you’re free to download below.
You’ll want to use it to think about the career development opportunities out there that will give you the project management experience you want. You can choose any course.
I don’t care which one you choose, which path you choose, which course you choose, or how you choose to get there. I just want you to have a plan and I want you to choose and get started on it.
A Paralegal Resource For You
Step Three: Get the Training
The next question you want to ask yourself is how am I going to get that training or that information?
How much time is going to be needed?
When am I committing to start it?
What’s the cost? Can I get reimbursed for it now?
Now before you say you won’t get reimbursed, your firm won’t do that. I can tell you of dozens of situations where people reach out to me after they’ve put their own credit card down for a course, and they reach out to me and ask for a copy of the receipt.
They have shown the attorney or their manager what they learned in the course, and they have offered to reimburse them.
If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no. You might be assuming that they won’t pay for something, and they just don’t know that you’re taking it. The worst that can happen is they say, no, it’s not in their budget right now.
That doesn’t mean you don’t ask in the future either, because maybe it’s in the budget next year. Remember, if you don’t ask, the answer is always going to be no.
The next part of your plan is determining what kind of software or technical training you need. Just pick one to start.
Pick the one that your firm uses now or that you’ve heard through the grapevine that they will be using. Then, go for one additional software training.
Then, choose your next level certifications. And then choose two of them. So maybe it’s going to be Relativity, Disco, Reveal, Brainspace, Logical, maybe it’s the ACEDS certification.
But let’s say first we’re just going to get that next-level certification, which is being certified through one of the software companies.
You take their free training online, like Relativity and Logical. They all have free training on their website. You can take all of their training for free.
Then you can sign up to take their certification, which is anywhere between $200 and $300, not super expensive, and then you’ve got two certifications in the software.
👉 Learn about a path to eDiscovery Certification.
Bonus Step
Then step four might be to decide if you’re going to get certified through ACEDS or some other national or international place.
You’ve got to get the training one way or another, whether it’s free, whether it’s through the Paralegal Boot Camp or some other place out there. You have to get the training.
Conclusion
Here are the three steps we went over in the above article:
- Choose a path
- Make a plan – a written plan
- Get the training
It’s up to you which path you choose, how you want to make that written plan, and where you’re going to get the training.
But if you follow these three steps, you will move from a litigation paralegal to an eDiscovery paralegal and then you get to choose whatever path you want to take from there.
Meet the Author
Ann Pearson is the Founder of the Paralegal Boot Camp, and host of the Paralegals on Fire! Podcast Show, and passionate about promoting the paralegal profession.
Ann spent 20 years working as a paralegal manager and a litigation paralegal before opening the Paralegal Boot Camp in 2010.
Ann’s training programs focus on adding immediate value to a paralegal’s career and bridging the gap between what a paralegal learns in school and what they actually do on the job.
Visit the About Us Page to learn more about why Ann started the Paralegal Boot Camp.
