eDiscovery Attorney

Linklaters•Washington DC, DC

About The Position

This role involves providing US-qualified legal advice and sign-off on privilege, disclosure obligations, and legal risk within eDiscovery strategy for litigation matters, investigations, and regulatory cases. The eDiscovery Attorney will work closely with the eDiscovery team to integrate legal input into their operational strategy, best practices, and vendor management. The position supports matter teams in planning and executing document preservation, collection, processing, review, analysis, and production workflows, ensuring these processes are proportionate, cost-effective, and aligned with legal requirements. The role also includes liaising with various stakeholders, advising on the legal defensibility of eDiscovery technologies, assisting with review planning, preparing matter updates, and advising on legal and regulatory compliance in external provider and client relationships. Additionally, the attorney will contribute to internal best practices, playbooks, and training, and stay abreast of legal, procedural, and technological developments in eDiscovery.

Requirements

US qualified lawyer with a minimum of ten years post qualification experience
Experience advising on eDiscovery, reviews and productions and investigations
Good understanding of the e-discovery lifecycle, including preservation, collection, review and production.
Familiarity with relevant rules, practice directions and disclosure obligations in applicable jurisdictions.
Extensive experience using leading eDiscovery platforms such as Relativity or similar tools.
Understanding of analytics, email threading, deduplication, predictive coding and technology-assisted review.
Self-starter, keen to take ownership of the role and develop it within the context of the service required.
High degree of initiative
Excellent communication and influencing skills
Good interpersonal skills with the confidence to deal with all levels of staff
Strong attention to detail
Strong organizational skills and able to demonstrate a pragmatic approach
Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple deadlines and stakeholders.
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
High attention to detail and a practical, solution-focused approach.
Confidence working with legal teams, clients, data specialists and external vendors.

Nice To Haves

Experience with cross-border matters, data privacy issues and regulatory investigations would be an advantage.

Responsibilities

Provide US-qualified legal advice and sign-off on privilege, disclosure obligations and legal risk within eDiscovery strategy for litigation matters, investigations, and regulatory cases.
Work with the eDiscovery team on the operational strategy itself.
Coordinate closely with the eDiscovery team to ensure legal input is integrated into the eDiscovery team's existing strategy, best-practice and vendor-management functions.
Support the matter team with respect to the planning and execution of document preservation, collection, processing, review, analysis and production workflows.
Provide legal sign-off confirming that review and production strategies developed with the eDiscovery team are proportionate, cost-effective and aligned with relevant legal and procedural requirements.
Liaise with partners, associates, clients, vendors, forensic specialists and review teams to coordinate reviews and productions.
Provide legal review and sign-off on document review and production protocols and associated training prepared by the eDiscovery team.
Advise on the legal defensibility of review tools, analytics, technology-assisted review and other eDiscovery technologies selected and operated by the eDiscovery team.
Assist matter teams with review planning, including reviewer training, escalation routes, quality control and consistency checks.
Prepare matter updates, status reports and metrics for internal teams and clients.
Advise on legal and regulatory compliance considerations in external provider and client relationships managed by the eDiscovery team.
Provide legal input into internal best practices, playbooks, templates and training on document review, production and eDiscovery processes owned by the eDiscovery team.
Monitor legal, procedural and technological developments relevant to eDiscovery and share practical insights with teams.