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Major municipal law department partners with Epiq Managed Services to meet staffing, consistency and scalability challenges

  • Case Study
  • Law Firms

A major municipal law department (the Department) provides representation for a broad array of the city’s entities. With hundreds of lawyers and almost as many support professionals, the Department represents the city, elected officials, and the city’s agencies in affirmative and defensive civil litigation.

“We are very much like a large law firm that sends out a lot of their work as opposed to doing it-house,” explains a director in the Department’s eDiscovery Unit (the Director). “Instead of us having corporate clients, the city’s agencies are our clients.”

The Department has moved away from using internal resources and towards more outsourcing. Since 2019, the Law Department has partnered with Epiq Managed Services for eDiscovery—a partnership that addresses the challenges inherent to hiring eDiscovery professionals for a governmental organization. Instead of constantly trying to hire people for specific platforms and tools, we lean on the expertise provided by Epiq Managed Services.

“The Epiq Managed Services agreement has been light years better for us when it comes to the administrative side of the business, this is a big reason why managed services were very appealing to us. It cut down on our admin overhead tremendously. Instead of receiving and approving dozens of invoices a month, we get a handful.”

Ensuring consistent eDiscovery best practices

Epiq assists the Department in all aspects of their eDiscovery requirements, from collections to productions, and everything in between. “They are a great partner,” the Director states. “They understand our needs. They are always willing to listen to what we are trying to accomplish and really just help us meet all our goals and deadlines.”

Consistency is a priority for the Department. Understanding the Department’s standards and practices, Epiq Managed Services helps normalize best practices across all matters and case teams. “Epiq knows what we are trying to accomplish,” explains the Director, “They can make sure that it gets done the right way, and the same way. That helps our teams because we have consistency with best practices, workflows, and the way that our matters are set up.

Easing administrative burdens

As a government entity, the municipality must comply with all of the complications of procurement and contracting procedures. The Director appreciates Epiq’s ability to navigate these challenges. “The Epiq Managed Services agreement has been light years better for us when it comes to the administrative side of the business,” he attests. “This is a big reason why managed services were very appealing to us. It cut down on our admin overhead tremendously. Instead of receiving and approving dozens of invoices a month, we get a handful.”

Previously, the Department had to request individual budgets for every matter, and sometimes for different parts of the same matter. The partnership with Epiq Managed Services eliminated this burden.

The people make all the difference

While the Department appreciates Epiq’s technology and their ability to wield it effectively, the Director puts more emphasis on the people and processes. “We are satisfied and happy with all of the technology,” he elaborates, “but it is really the workflows that we have, and the people that we work with that make it happen. Anybody could offer the same technology that Epiq is using. Our relationship with Epiq, our workflows, our best practices, and all the experience that Epiq has in working with us over the years, those are the key drivers of what makes our relationship successful today.”

The Epiq Managed Services agreement and team has always been able to meet the Department’s needs. “We revisit whether we need to grow teams or add resources to our managed services environment occasionally,” the Director concludes. “We may have stressed resources a little bit at times, but never to the point where they couldn’t scale it. We are super satisfied with the Epiq team, their work, and the relationship we have with them.”

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