Top factors that contribute to burnout among legal professionals
Ari Kaplan. (Photo by Tori Soper)
Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Bill Potter, the vice president of presales engineering at Nuix, a leading investigative analytics and intelligence software provider.
They discussed the white paper “Burnout to Breakthrough: The Role of Technology in Reshaping Legal Wellness,” the factors that contribute to burnout among legal data services professionals, ways that teams can address this, and why e-discovery professionals should advocate for automation and AI-driven solutions.
Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your role at Nuix.
Bill Potter: I started my career as a litigation support analyst and then worked in legal staffing before joining Nuix, where I worked for about four years. I left to help launch Rampiva, which Nuix acquired about a year ago, and I am thrilled to be back at the company.
Ari Kaplan: You recently contributed to the white paper “Burnout to Breakthrough: The Role of Technology in Reshaping Legal Wellness.” What factors contribute to burnout among legal data services professionals today?
Bill Potter is the vice president of presales engineering at Nuix, a leading investigative analytics and intelligence software provider.
Bill Potter: The legal data services industry combines high levels of detail with tight deadlines and significant financial pressure. In addition, the opportunities for growth and upward mobility are often limited, so it can be an industry where people are overworked, unappreciated and limited to serving in positions that do not offer meaningful professional development. All of these factors weigh heavily on personal wellness.
Ari Kaplan: Are specific aspects of traditional e-discovery workflows contributing to stress and burnout?
Bill Potter: The volume of data is continuously increasing, but that doesn’t mean the number of essential documents has grown. It just means there’s more information to sift through, and the pressure to control costs while managing more data is immense. There is also often a shortage of trained professionals, and transforming a generalist paralegal or IT professional into an e-discovery expert is a challenge, and the industry has not kept up with the rising demand for talent.
Ari Kaplan: How can teams meet the demand for talent?
Bill Potter: Culturally, companies need to place a higher value on work-life balance and make small gestures that have a meaningful impact, such as offering “Summer Fridays.” On a more tactical level, they can use metrics and dashboards to empower their legal teams to help demonstrate the value of their work to the organization’s leaders. If you can show that you have helped to reduce a dataset from 200 terabytes to 20 or helped substantially reduce the time it takes to execute a workflow, it gives you the ability to advocate more effectively. Investing in software that minimizes the need for late nights and excessive workloads is crucial, as the best leaders invest in tools that let their teams go home at a reasonable hour rather than relying on extended hours to meet deadlines.
Ari Kaplan: Nuix recently launched the Neo Legal platform. How does it address the challenges e-discovery professionals face?
Bill Potter: The Neo Legal platform makes processing data faster and more accessible. What used to take 90 minutes and 80 different clicks in our traditional Workstation can now be done in three minutes using Neo. It is transformative. The unified platform allows users to seamlessly move from issuing legal hold notifications to reviewing data. By eliminating delays between steps, Neo removes the constant “fire drill” mentality that often forces people to miss important personal events or work late unnecessarily. Automation makes once-manual processes and makes them more consistent and defensible, reducing the burden on experts and accelerating data culling. Automation allows teams to focus on higher-level work, create workflows that anyone can follow, and reduce the stress on teams that cause burnout.
Ari Kaplan: How does Nuix Neo leverage artificial intelligence?
Bill Potter: Nuix has integrated AI before the review stage, which makes data classification more impactful. By using AI-enhanced models, teams can better understand what’s relevant and what isn’t before they even begin review. This is a considerable advantage, especially when negotiating the scope of review. AI also allows for faster and more accurate decision-making, which reduces unnecessary work during the review process.
Ari Kaplan: How should e-discovery professionals advocate for its adoption as AI becomes more prevalent?
Bill Potter: Understanding the different types of AI is essential. For instance, Nuix acquired Topos Labs a few years ago, which uses cognitive AI, a more auditable, resource-efficient form of AI. Unlike generative AI, cognitive AI scores and classifies information without generating new content, making it much more secure and manageable within the confines of e-discovery. When advocating for AI, professionals should focus on solutions that provide immediate benefits and are secure, scalable and auditable. AI also introduces the opportunity for really smart technical professionals to evolve their careers because being an e-discovery expert familiar with AI is a valuable combination.
Editor’s Note: Bill Potter will be joining Amy Sellars, e-discovery counsel at Gunster, and Stacy Sampeck, assistant general counsel for labor, employment and benefits at Solventum, in an Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists webinar called “Burnout to Breakthrough: The Role of Technology in Reshaping Legal Wellness” at 1 p.m. ET on Sept. 24. You can register here.
Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.
Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.
This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.
