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Plunkett Cooney partners with Epiq to meet a firm’s unique needs

  • Case Study
  • Law Firms

A Michigan law firm with offices in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, Plunkett Cooney offers business and litigation services in areas from civil rights to real estate. As Litigation Support Coordinator at Plunkett Cooney, Andrea Barragan and one other individual support the entire firm of over 150 attorneys.

Their work is two pronged. “There is the eDiscovery piece that we handle within the firm,” Barragan explains, “and then there is the actual trial support that we provide to attorneys. On eDiscovery, we are the go to’s when the attorneys have questions about e-discovery on their matters. We assist them in engaging vendors to do collections because we don’t do that internally. Once that data comes in, we process and load it into Relativity for their review. From there, we will do searches if the attorneys ask, we train the attorneys how to use Relativity, and we create and export the productions out of Relativity.”

A unique partnership forged to meet customer needs

Epiq Managed Services stands out as one of Plunkett Cooney’s vendors. “Honestly, it’s just their level of support, and transparency with pricing,” Barragan says. “Pricing is big, but the level of support they continually provide has been great for us.” She estimates that her group is 15-20% more efficient and effective due to the partnership with Epiq.

“Most of the other vendors, if they are supporting Relativity for you, they want to load the data and run your productions. They don’t provide the administrative accessibility to do that yourself that we have through Epiq. ”

Along with being a vendor for collections, Barragan relies on Epiq for hosting, as well as subject matter expertise on Relativity, and for troubleshooting Relativity issues. “They are backup,” Barragan states. “If there is something that we are unsure of, or if we are too backed up to get to something, we email our Epiq support team and they jump in to either answer our questions to help us do our jobs, or we just hand it to them and ask, ‘Can you get this done?’”

The unique, customized partnership that Plunkett Cooney has forged with Epiq often translates to a second, seasoned pair of eyes and ears. “With really technical searches of data that some of the attorneys want to do, we will often send it to Epiq to double check, and ask ‘Are we setting this up correctly?’ We want to make sure that we are not missing any hits. In fact, we recently had to contact them because the discovery was 6,000 documents less than the inventory. We can go to them and ask, ‘What is happening with this?’ And if they don’t have answers, they work with Relativity to get us the answers we need.”

Graduating from vendor to partner

Understanding Plunkett Cooney’s operational flow and their legal team’s needs, Epiq Managed Services adapted its offerings to fill the gaps—stepping in only when needed. For Barragan, that sets Epiq apart. “Most of the other vendors, if they are supporting Relativity for you, they want to load the data and run your productions. They don’t provide the administrative accessibility to do that yourself that we have through Epiq.

“If we lost that administrative component,” Barragan continues, “it would cost our clients more money because we’re efficient and bill our time at a prescribed paralegal rate. If a vendor does it, they bill at a higher rate with a one hour minimum, whether a task takes them 20 minutes or 60 minutes.”

Dependability and honesty that breed trust

Barragan feels Epiq understands the importance of building a true partnership with clients. “It is not just ‘Here is one more job; let’s tick that off our list.’ It is an ongoing relationship, and you know that you can trust them for whatever needs are going to come up.”

She cites an instance where an internal change had reduced Epiq response times. “It was nice to be able to go to them and be heard and say, ‘Whatever you guys have changed, you need to change it back because it is not working for us.’ They heard it and they started working on it, and within a couple of months, those response times went right back to what we were used to.”

With Epiq, Plunkett Cooney’s Litigation Support team found a partner who could step in when needed, and, just as importantly, step back when asked. This can even extend to areas in which Epiq does not offer services. “There is that trust that if we need something that they can’t do or that’s not in their wheelhouse, they have never hesitated to say, ‘You know what, we don’t do that, but here is a product that you can look at.’

“The value is in the partnership and the support we get from Epiq,” Barragan concludes. “It enables our litigation support team to do our jobs more efficiently and more effectively.”

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