eDiscovery Training Valued More Than eDiscovery Certification – eDiscovery Trends
October 16, 2012
According to a survey conducted by eDJ Group and reported on by Barry Murphy within eDiscovery Journal (eDiscovery Education? Yes! eDiscovery Certification? Maybe…), almost all respondents believe that eDiscovery and education and training are important and three fourths of them believe that good eDiscovery education and training programs exist today. However, when it comes to the importance of eDiscovery certification programs and whether good programs exist today, slightly more than half of respondents responded favorably to eDiscovery certification programs.
In the story by Murphy, eDiscovery Journal displays graphs representing the results of each of the four questions, as follows:
- In general, do you believe that good eDiscovery education and training are necessary for the betterment of the industry?: 98.3% of the respondents said yes, 1.7% of the respondents said no.
- In general, do you believe that good eDiscovery education and training programs exist? : 74.9% of the respondents said yes, 25.1% of the respondents said no.
- In general, do you believe that good eDiscovery certifications are necessary for the betterment of the industry? : 58.1% of the respondents said yes, 41.9% of the respondents said no.
- In general, do you believe that good eDiscovery certification programs exist? : 54.8% of the respondents said yes, 45.3% of the respondents said no.
Based on the small footer in each of the graphs, it appears that there were 179 respondents to the four question survey.
Murphy’s eDiscovery Journal also notes several of the organizations that provide eDiscovery education, training and/or certification programs – two of which, the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists® (ACEDS™) and The Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) have had programs featured on this blog. In addition to the ones that Murphy mentioned, Magellan’s Law Corporation offers Discovery Project Management classes, conducted by our own Jane Gennarelli.
eDiscovery Certifications Compared to Other Industries
With nearly everybody saying that eDiscovery education and training is important, but less than 60% saying that eDiscovery certification is important, that’s quite a disparity, especially since many training programs offer some sort of recognition for completing the training and passing a test (either a written test or practical exercise, or both) to “certify” knowledge of the material. In his article, Murphy notes that “eDiscovery is a process made up of many tasks, most of which are performed by various team members. What I hear from eDiscovery professionals when it comes to certification is that there is simply not enough definition as to what it means to be a certified eDiscovery professional.”
When you look at other industries; however, the certifications are more specialized. For example, in IT, Microsoft has certification programs for IT Professional (MCITP), Professional Developer (MCPD) and Technology Specialist (MCTS) – in each case, the “MC” stands for “Microsoft Certified”. From a Project Management standpoint, there is the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI), among others. These certification programs all appear to be widely accepted. Maybe specialization is the key to creating eDiscovery certification programs that are widely accepted, with each certification based on the expertise that each team member should possess?
So, what do you think? Will eDiscovery certification programs ever become widely accepted? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.
For someone just recently starting out in the Legal and Litigation Support industries i am looking to education and certification to help me in understanding my role and the industry better. I agree in that sometimes having a qualification doesn't mean that you have the experience required but i believe it shows dedication and motivation to succeed in the role. Experience will come in time and no one can buy experience however from personal experience having knowledge (even if it may get quickly outdated and need refreshing) helps in then obtaining that hands on experience.
Maybe for seasoned professionals in the industry the certifications are not that important as they feel they know the required knowledge of their role, however for those starting out in the industries they are a good step into showing empolyers that you have the motivation and determination to the company and the role. I believe the eDiscovery programs will become widely accepted as there are always people trying to get into a new industry as well as people who wish to keep up with emerging and changing technology and processes.
To me, this isn't really surprising. The folks in this industry who are commanding the higher salaries and sought after are not the ones with certifications, they are the ones with experience. I believe this is because of the different skills and expertise which are constantly changing. A piece of paper only shows you were able to answer a series of OBJECTIVE questions in a field where your responses to individual crises are valuable becuase of a person's SUBJECTIVE responses.
Hence the problem. No examination is going to be able to determine whether a person is experienced vs. good at taking the test. It goes back to a chicken vs egg argument I had a few months ago with a colleage...
Question: If I have the experience why should I take the exam?
Answer: Becuase everyone is taking it and you want to be included...
Response: If all the people who are new to the industry are taking it to become "legit", doesn't the certificates authority come from acceptance by people who have been doing this the longest (and thus don't need it)?
There's a strong resistance to "certifications" within the legal industry as a whole. So your survey may be skewed by the number of lawyers responding. Moreover, my "feel" for this issue is that while ediscovery processes may be reasonably well understood and even standardized, the nature of preservation, collection and processing seem to be subject to a large number of variables (amount of data, number of custodians, the IT environment and its configuration, ongoing demands of the business, the nature and importance of the lawsuit, perception that additional claims or criminal charges that may be brought, nature of the information or data needed for the lawsuit, advances in technology at all levels, changes in the law or best practices, etc etc). These variables keep the perception of the usefulness of certificates low as it is unlikely that the specific problems involved in any ediscovery project were taught in any class. Moreover, as time passes, the certificates actually represent outdated thinking and perhaps false security that the person holding the certificate is acquainted with the stae of the art. Hence the emphasis on training - and I suspect that if the question had been asked, it would have been on current training to boot.