Benefits of Collaboration in Lawsuits and Transactions

• Author: Dennis Kennedy - Tom Mighell
• Pages: 93-98

93

Benefits of Collaboration

in Lawsuits and

Transactions

Although the day-to-day practice of many lawyers tends to

focus on working with documents of one form or another,

most documents are part of a larger project. Legal projects

commonly fall into broad categories of lawsuits (dispute reso-

lution) or transactions (deals and planning). In fact, many firms

are divided into separate litigation and transactional groups.

Lawyers in large firms work in teams on litigation and

transactional matters, with partners, associates, paralegals,

assistants, and other staff comprising the team. Even in the

smallest firm, today’s cases typically involve some kind of

team, even if only a lawyer and paralegal. However, as we

have noted, if you focus only on the internal team, or who is

on “your side,” you will miss the number and variety of people

collaborating on a matter.

In a lawsuit, you may find yourself working with clients, wit-

nesses, experts, opposing counsel, vendors, service providers,

judges, court personnel, and others. As a simple exercise, take a

few moments to write down the list of all the people you worked

or dealt with in your last lawsuit, whether it settled or went to

trial. You’ll be surprised at the length of your list. For those of

you who are routinely engaged in e-discovery, that list no doubt

grows, as vendors, experts, consultants, IT staff, and records

managers become more involved in litigation, and trial lawyers

must learn to work with these individuals to ensure that discov-

ery is properly handled throughout the life cycle of a lawsuit.

In fact, litigation departments are increasingly hiring dedicated

12