Navigating the Storm: Prioritizing Wellbeing in the World of eDiscovery!

My last year as an eDiscovery PM was the hardest. Every single day, I had to summon the will power to keep going.

The client work I was doing was awful. It was the most stressful matter I had ever worked on and the expectations were impossible to meet. It was beyond complex and we were all in fear of getting lit up by counsel for even the smallest of errors. Yelling, cursing, tattling...it was a real scene.

(That time I was told by senior counsel that they expected 100% perfection from my team is seared into my brain. No one was talking about psychological safety back then. I'm not sure the legal industry knows what that is, even now...)

So I made myself a little note that I kept on my desk for the really hard moments.

I needed to remember that there was an end in sight.

I needed to remember that despite what anyone had to say, the work was not more important than my wellbeing or my family.

I needed to remember that I could always choose me, and should choose me, even when everyone around me thought a search, or a production, or whatever silly work task someone came up with was more important.

I stayed committed to the work. Even up until the very end. Because I cared about the people I was leaving behind. I still do.

With time and space to really understand my experiences in the eDiscovery industry, I am more certain than ever that it doesn't have to be this way.

And I'm also more clear than ever that most people don't believe that, or at least can't see a pathway to real change. That's a consequence of an environment that's in a constant state of fight or flight.

I think if I went back in today, I'd find it's still, by and large, a terrible experience to be a project manager at an eDiscovery vendor. I'm holding out hope for real and transformative change for the sake of everyone working in the industry. And I do mean EVERYONE.

My sense is that it will take individual people changing they way they work, en masse, to see see any positive shifts. People have to choose to do it differently.

Until then, I offer my "prioritization list" to help you get through.

Know there's always a path out when you are ready.

And if you feel you have to stay, take care of yourself. There's only one you and will only ever be one you!

P.S. I offer 1:1 coaching programs that are custom designed to help. Get started here!