Law firms take in lots of data to represent clients and better understand how well the practice is performing.
Some firms have hired data quality specialists to analyze the information and put the data toward refining best practices. The topics can focus on a variety of areas including billing, effective marketing strategies, document tracking, client retention, employee performance and profitability, settlements and judgements.
Matthew A.S. Esworthy, a member at Bowie & Jensen LLC in Towson, notes the common reason data quality specialists are utilized by firms is to ensure that the data being collected is complete and accurate. “If the underlying data is not reliable or coded in a consistent way, the use of that data will produce unreliable results,” he said. “… This role is really about making sure the underlying information is accurate and complete and being collected in a way that everybody in the firm agrees is important. There is some art to this.”
The size of the firm plays a role in if a data quality specialist is hired. “I think the big law firms would probably be more familiar with this (job position),” he said. “But the small to mid-size firms would probably have somebody doing this kind of work but don’t necessarily call them the data quality specialist.”
He notes a small to mid-size firm that was trying to focus on its immediate needs and limited budget would focus more on having a bookkeeper or a paralegal on staff rather than hiring a full-time data...
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