Deloitte: Legal and IT Need To Speak the Same Language

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

Although more than one-third (35.5 percent) of corporate legal and information technology (IT) teams say they are working to improve communication across departmental lines, a mere 8.1 percent of executives believe their company teams fully understand each other, according to a new Deloitte poll.

“Legal and IT teams have been working together more closely each year, responding to litigation or regulatory investigations.These fast-paced, complex efforts to locate, collect, preserve and analyze electronic data—evidence, really—are crucial to defending corporate reputations, legal claims and more,” said Mark Michels, a director in the discovery practice for Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP.

When asked whether the experience of a chief information officer (CIO) and general counsel (GC) enabled them to bridge the gap, 20.2 percent of respondents report that their company CIO and GC do not understand each other’s field. However, 16 percent indicated they have experience in each other’s fields; 4.5 percent report their CIO has some knowledge of the law and 5.9 state their GC has some knowledge of technology.

“Industry aside, in-house legal teams commonly rely on IT leaders as expert witnesses in court or regulatory hearings to describe how electronic evidence was located, collected, preserved and analyzed,” continued Michels.“Having these teams work together now can only benefit everyone involved.”

Deloitte Discovery is a one-stop service that provides corporate legal departments and counsel with assistance for discovery-related issues including designing and implementing e-discovery readiness plans, performing data collection, data filtering, processing, hosting, document review and production, and utilizing advanced analytics to help improve efficiency and defensibility.