Stephanie Clerkin, CEDS, RCA, is the director of litigation support at Missouri-based Korein Tillery, one of the...
Jill I. Francisco, ACP, received her BA in Criminal Justice, (concentration in Legal Studies), from Marshall University...
Tony is a highly accomplished and results-driven Legal Professional with 17 years of legal industry experience. He is...
Published: | January 16, 2025 |
Podcast: | Paralegal Voice |
Category: | Paralegal |
Digital information management is a delicate balancing act, connecting the moving parts of a busy legal operation with the information technologists who manage the data. How do you pull an entire office together and manage and leverage all that information?
Guest Stephanie Clerkin is the Director of Litigation Support at Korein Tillery and a 2024 recipient of the Gayle O’Connor Spirit Award, which celebrates e-discovery and legal technology leaders who make noteworthy contributions to the fields of e-discovery, legal tech, information governance, cybersecurity, and data privacy. The award is named for the late Gayle O’Connor.
Hear some of the secrets of bringing people together around technology (even dragging along some of the stragglers who have “always done it this way”). You’ll learn to adapt to different styles, demonstrate the value of efficient data management, and sometimes do more with less. Legal tech and data management never sleeps. Helping everyone – from support staff to senior attorneys – keep up is a challenge.
Finding a mentor, establishing a work life balance, and mastering technology test us all, but Clerkin has tips you can put to work now.
Special thanks to our sponsors iManage, InfoTrack, and NALA.
Gayle O’Connor Spirit Award announcement
Relativity e-discovery platform
Tony Sipp:
And welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp. I’m here with Stephanie Clerkin, our guest. Stephanie is Director of Litigation support at Coron Tillery, one of the country’s leading plaintiff’s complex litigation firms where she leverages over 15 years of experience in finance consulting and data analytics to manage massive litigation projects as well as the firm’s e-discovery platform working with all departments in the firm, she understands how to bridge the gap between the legal teams and the IT personnel to streamline discovery efforts and design cost-effective solutions for her clients. She’s responsible for the processing, analyzing, and review of production and numerous terabytes of ESI. Stephanie, thank you for being our guest and thank you for being here.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Appreciate it. Again, I’m excited for this.
Tony Sipp:
Stephanie, please tell us a little bit about the Gale O’Connor Spirit Award that you just recently won.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Yeah, so still a little been in Shock over this one, but I wish I had the pleasure to meet the late Gail O’Connor. We crossed paths once over the years at a legal conference, but then Covid hit and unfortunately we lost her during 2020, but the Go Spirit Award was founded just to honor her legacy and her energy and enthusiasm, and when they founded the Spirit Award, it was set up. So it’s an award that your peers nominate you for and it goes to someone who embodies her worth, ethic, and energy and passion. So this is one of those where I was really even more honored because it came from my peers.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. It’s really an honor to have that award that comes from your peers. And so what does it mean to you personally and professionally?
Stephanie Clerkin:
I still am humbled saying this, but I’ve received a couple others over the years and while those have been great, it’s a little different when you’re up against people who you’ve respected for a decade in the industry and who I’ve considered even mentors in many ways over the years, and not only to be nominated and make a finalist list with them and then get awarded them, it’s just been a little bit mind blowing and I’m super appreciative for that. It’s been good that it’s kind of solidified back in, I want to say 2017, I kind of wanted to change up some things in just my life and personal professional life. And for years I was posting stuff. It was on LinkedIn, it was very just professional, dry to me, maybe not to others, and I was like, I wanted to show more of my own personality and it was kind of a little bit of a risk at the time starting to mix personally and professional commingling into contents. But over the years I think it kind of hit a nerve and I’ve met so many people because of that. So it was kind of a good testament that you can still be authentic and not have to conform to a traditional, this is how we think you need to use this platform to be successful and just show your own personality. So that was a nice validation of that.
Tony Sipp:
That’s so true. It just being able to be your authentic self is liberating. It’s so liberating. And LinkedIn is like that platform, the professional platform, right? As opposed to some of the others. It’s good to hear that you were able to do that and look at you now. It’s so fantastic.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Cat memes,
Tony Sipp:
Dumpster, Fire Earrings and all. I love it. I love you. Get to be you. It’s fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your job and starting out, what got you into the field and how does your background serve you and the field for your firm and litigation support and e-discovery, because you’re known for bridging the gap. So tell us about how you started off and how you ended up where you are.
Stephanie Clerkin:
So like many people, you ask any eDiscovery, it was very random in a way. I spent seven years after college in finance consulting world, and I was in the business advisory services group at one of the largest regional accounting firms here in St. Louis. And at the time, there were two types of projects I worked on. One was data analytics and incorporating it was just the start of getting some of the software into help the audit teams and look at some more metrics that they might not normally look at as part of audits. And then the other half was some of my bosses were testifying experts, so we would help build the damage models that you see in litigation, these huge cases. And after doing some of those large complex cases, I knew I was going to have a hard time going back to these small 10, 20 hour projects.
So I had started looking elsewhere and after I had resigned, I was going to take a whole different role. My old boss said, okay, good. Now you’ve resigned. There’s no conflict. Go talk to our friends over here at co artillery. They’re looking for a project manager. They have a ton of data and really just need someone to help manage it and get a bunch of people to talk to each other, which was my specialty. So here we are 11 years later, and yeah, it’s been great. And I didn’t even know what eDiscovery was when I started. I was googling that my first couple weeks. So yeah, I was brand new to legal on that aspect, although I knew a little bit of jargon from again, expert side. But yeah, it was a lot of just trial by fire.
Tony Sipp:
That’s awesome. So it’s possible to switch careers and be successful still.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Yeah, I tell people all the time really eDiscovery, it really just taps from a whole lot of different careers. It is one big consulting project is what I do. I mean, if you have the baseline to know how to manage any type of project and just adapt and learn on the fly, you can do so. Yeah, I think that’s why there’s so many from various walks life.
Tony Sipp:
That’s awesome. That’s really good to know and inspiring as well. Again, with the bridging of the gap between legal teams, and you kind of covered it a little bit. Tell us what your secret is to fostering effective collaboration between such diverse teams and departments. Because you do this firm wide, well, I already know you have the right personality for it, but what’s your secret to making everybody work together, come together and fulfill the firm’s goals?
Stephanie Clerkin:
That was one of the challenges at first because how do you tell people to work together when you don’t even know who they are or what the cases are about? And it really started with just learning personalities, being able to slowly learn how certain people work and they’re all different. Does this person like a ton of updates? Does this person, they want nothing until they need it? Do they want to see only charts and graphs or do they want a giant Excel spreadsheet, email versus phone? It was kind of learning a lot of that as a starting point. But then I think part of it comes naturally as you start proving you can be helpful. You’re not trying to take someone’s job, you’re trying to make it easier and just working in little time saving tips. They slowly add up and then you can slowly develop your way into, I know who you are now, can you help me with this? And over time, I’m now one of the probably only people that work with everybody in the firm across offices. So it’s a lot of probably annoying them as well. Hey, I still need an answer to this. I will find you right.
Tony Sipp:
Start knocking on doors,
Stephanie Clerkin:
Calls, texts. Yeah.
Tony Sipp:
Can I get your cell phone number please?
Stephanie Clerkin:
I have them all. Yes. It goes both ways though. That means they also have mine.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, true, true, true. Do you find that some people are just afraid of that technology? You’ve come with that knowledge and experience. Do you find that that’s an obstacle that you’re trying to overcome? Some people
Stephanie Clerkin:
It’s getting better than it was years ago, for sure. We still have times where the preference is let’s print and make a bunch of binders. Well, yes, we could do this online in an easier way, but there’s some things that’s not worth a battle. If it’s still going to get the job done and it’s not that much of an extra burden, well there’s no reason to force it Sometimes where it’s been a little more challenging, it is with some of the more advanced technology, it took a while to get people on board with using some case management platforms or instead of manually highlighting printed out PDFs. Well, we could do this a lot easier in other programs, but it usually just takes having one champion or one person seeing, oh wow, we could have been doing this for years, why haven’t we? And then it kind of spreads from there. Again, it’s different groups work differently, so what works for one case may not work for another and it might be okay.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, that makes sense mean. And you’re managing massive amounts of data like terabytes of ESI, so it’s no small feat. What are the biggest challenges and how do you tackle them in delivering cost-effective solutions to clients?
Stephanie Clerkin:
Well, a lot of times it’s just resource constraint where, I mean, we’re on the point of side, so we don’t have necessarily the unlimited defense budgets. Some of these folks we’re up against have. So it’s trying to do more with less. And whether it’s less technology or if it’s less people or time, sometimes we just don’t have the time to do a lot of stuff that’s hard. And it’s keeping up with just the changes. Up until a year ago, it was just me doing all of this myself.
Tony Sipp:
What? No,
Stephanie Clerkin:
It’s been just me. So I’ve been training someone for the last year, so now there’s two of us. But still, I mean in order to do all of this by myself, I had to automate as much as I could and get some good workflows in place to be able to function as a human, first of all, and not sleep deprivation 24 hours a day, but just to keep things organized, right? I mean, we might have 12 million documents in a workspace. I mean that’s larger, but anything in the millions is standard these days, and that’s after cuing that down sometimes. So
Tony Sipp:
Wow, that’s impressive. We’re going to talk about your experience with Relativity right after the commercial break, and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp, I’m here with Stephanie Clarkin. Stephanie, I know you are an expert and Relativity, which is a hard task to achieve in the first place. I mean that Relativity is like the mothership. So tell us a little bit about how you became an expert and you are such a leader in the St. Louis community, and what advice would you give professionals looking to deepen their skills on this platform and how did you get to where you are on Relativity?
Stephanie Clerkin:
Yeah, so like I mentioned, I kind of fell into e-Discovery. Well, what I didn’t mention is the week before I had started, we had had a different platform. We’re not going to throw any shade over that way, but a different platform that nobody really knew exactly how to use. So I had nothing else to do. So I spent six-ish weeks learning it and learning what a DAT file was, thanks to YouTube and just figuring out how to get data in and out and then realized it didn’t work. And then we ended up getting Relativity brought in three months later and up until, I mean, we still have it just in the middle of a Relativity One migration now. So my whole career I’ve used Relativity for 95% of the cases I’ve been part of. And well, when nobody else knows a platform, you have to quickly learn it and then be able to teach people.
And that’s what I did back in December, January, 2013, 14. I wish I would’ve taken some exams sooner, but I did my first exam at my first Relativity Fest in 2014, and that was just the basic review manager. I think it’s now review, there’s the basic review one. But yeah, I ended up taking a couple more after that and then took the RCA, which even having worked in Relativity for two and a half years, when I took that, I still had to study pretty intensely to make sure I passed that. And one thing I remember after I took it is I said, I wish I took this a good year or two ago. I learned so much while studying for that. That would’ve been very helpful a couple years in the past. So what tip I give people if they want to eventually go that route, even if they don’t pass, if you have the ability to take it and not be out a lot of money, especially sometimes we’re seeing what the material is, you can then tailor your training going forward.
But I know that the Relativity site put together some now certification tasks. I was just on there recently looking at how it’s set up, and that’s a great resource right there. I still plan to take two more to get that master status in my spare time here, but got to get through a couple other things first. But yeah, if nothing else for certifications, I always learn so much while studying for those tests, even if it’s something I didn’t think I’d learn something new as part of it’s every now and then. It’s like, seriously, I could have been doing this the easy way for 10 years and I just now figured this out, one of those tips. But yeah, I think there’s an impression sometimes so that people can come in and take some of these tests though without really using the product. And in theory you can, but it helps to have some hands-on experience for sure, to understand why you’re memorizing stuff and not just memorizing it to pass a test.
Tony Sipp:
Right. Hands-on application. That’s awesome. So we were talking during the break about mentorship and with your vast experience, what role do you feel that mentorships plays in your career and how do you inspire the next generation of litigation support professionals to get engaged and get involved?
Stephanie Clerkin:
So I mean, I can thank a lot of my knowledge on what I would call organic mentorships. They weren’t formal, they were just people I knew I could go to and ask 1 million questions without judgment. And again, I said my role didn’t exist when I started, so I had nobody to ask those questions to. So it was a lot of finding others in the St. Louis community just that were in my role and willing to talk and learning from them or the ilta message boards were a huge resource for me looking at what’s going on and slowly just meeting people at conferences. I started seeing who were the speakers, and some of them I would just reach out to if I saw them on LinkedIn or at the conference and could can we chat sometime? And that’s one thing I love about this industry is everyone usually says yes.
And I started making sure when, I think it was 2017 was the first year I spoke at any conference, if people came up and asked me that question, well absolutely, let’s chat afterwards and just slowly expand my network that way because I wanted to pay it forward. So now, I mean I have several people that would probably consider me like an informal mentor, not just in legal, but some are out of the industry altogether. They’re an HR or somewhere completely separate, but we still chat or get coffee every now and then if they’re local or even virtually, and especially the women in the group I’m part of, there’s a lot of things you see the further you get in your career, especially being a woman that it helps to talk to others who have been through that.
Tony Sipp:
Right. And you’ve been through that and here you are
Stephanie Clerkin:
On both sides. Me too. Still talking to people too. Yeah,
Tony Sipp:
You’re in that leadership role and people see you that way, and I’m glad that you give back in that way. And you’re involved in a lot of organizations like atla, we Women in Need Discovery and Make A Wish. How do you feel that these roles compliment your professional work and what motivates you to stay involved with your community involvement?
Stephanie Clerkin:
I used to be more involved. I will say I joke, there’s BC before covid, which is also before children for me. So it’s two things, but I didn’t want to completely drop all of those type associations. So for a while, one of our St. Louis Ilta group, so that’s International Technology Association, was one of the most active in the country and we’re not even, it’s like we’re not New York, Chicago or St. Louis, but everybody knows everybody and we would get together and get some really good discussions. So I’m still in charge of our St. Louis chapter. We’re a lot less active to pick that up maybe next year. Everyone has a problem. It’s a lot harder these days to get people together, but a lot of my knowledge and white papers and blogs I read still come out of the ILTA community, so I still am part of that.
I’m on the Relativity Steering Committee, which is how I got to meet so many others that used it in St. Louis to begin with. And we all still email each other quite a bit. Just, Hey, have you run into this. Any suggestions for this workflow outside of legal? For about a decade, I was part of Make A Wishes young professional group. So I was part of, I think I was the fifth or sixth person to join back in 2012 when they founded it. And then I ended up being on the board and president off and on for seven, eight years before having to retire a little bit. But I’ve done seven wishes with the kids over the years, but I’ve had to take a little break until I have more spare time to jump back in there, which I hope to do in the future. But it’s nice though sometimes to have those outside of the industry organizations. It puts a perspective back on things. We were having a really stressful week at work one year and one of the nights I had to leave early. And even though we had massive stuff going on, I’m like, I got to go. I was getting to tell one of my wish kids, they’re getting their trip to Hawaii.
And then you go to that and then you’re like, wait a minute, is this really As it puts things back in perspective, no one’s dying. If this PDF isn’t going to get PDF tonight, we can do it tomorrow. There’s no court deadline. This is just some unnecessary pressure here. So it’s nice to sometimes bring it back down to Earth.
Tony Sipp:
It helps keep you grounded. I do the same thing. I get involved with a lot of organizations non-for-profit organizations outside of laba, but outside of Big Brother Big Sisters of Los Angeles, LLS, it’s a good reminder of don’t take yourself too seriously. There’s other things that are really, really important that, I mean, people’s lives are on the line.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Are we really going to stress about this font being germine verse Ariel?
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, it’s good. And I love getting involved. I stay involved. That’s how I started cycling, actually getting involved with that. Yeah, my first century was because I was a part of LLS.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Oh, that’s awesome.
Tony Sipp:
And I still try to cycle. You do stay engaged, stay involved. So it helps keep you grounded. It helps keep me grounded as well. To that point though, how do you maintain a work-life balance? I mean, it seems like you’ve been doing everything kind of by yourself really. And I know you have kids, you’re a mom and I love the BC before Covid before children. How are you doing that and what suggestions do you have for others to maintain that? Because boundaries get crossed a lot. I mean, it’s got to be hard for you, especially you in your position to maintain those boundaries.
Stephanie Clerkin:
So even before kids, I always kind blend it work in life more than trying to keep it separated. It just worked for me better than, okay, I’m going to leave at five and not look at my phone till the morning. Well, that doesn’t work. I’m too anxious it, it’s going to make my night worse. So I already had kind of that commingle approach and I’ve kind of just had to keep it up now, except I will say guess people have been supportive of me instead of staying here until six, seven, I used to, some nights I might leave at four 30 or log off at five because then the kids are home and that it’s chaos. And then if there’s stuff that needs to be done, I’ll just finish it later on. And with people at different time zones, sometimes that works out even better. If someone needs something later at night and I’m on, well, that’s a really easy solution for me to just help them with that. So it’s been a lot of no sleep though too. I’m not even going to pretend there’s sleep involved with the small children, but at least that’s part of having a three and 1-year-old. I just have some supportive colleagues. I think that’s the only way I’m getting through these really early days of children.
Tony Sipp:
And congratulations, by the way. I mean, it’s fantastic to be a mom and the importance of rest. I mean, moms, it’s a lot.
Stephanie Clerkin:
It’s amazing how well you adjust to waking up three times a night and not sleeping. I have two that don’t like to sleep still. Last night alone, I think I was up at 12 30, 2 45 and 4 45 for an hour each time. So this is now sponsored by Starbucks Triple Espressos here.
Tony Sipp:
That’s awesome. Are you on a hybrid schedule? I mean, are you able to work from home as well?
Stephanie Clerkin:
I do. I usually work from home two to three days a week and come in a couple days a week. It’s nice to have both because there are some days where it’s just, especially if there’s back-to-back meetings, it’s like I need that extra couple hours back in the day to get stuff done. But I also do like to see other adults. So it’s
Tony Sipp:
Wrong with the three 1-year-old every day. I mean, you can have great conversations.
Stephanie Clerkin:
They’re getting more entertaining as we go. I’m sure my office setup up computer wise is also better. So there’s technological advantages here.
Tony Sipp:
That’s awesome. Let’s take a quick commercial break and we will be right back to talk with Stephanie about some more topics. Welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp and I’m here with Stephanie Clerkin. Stephanie, you’ve been doing so much for the legal field and your contributions have not gone unnoticed. What are some goals that you have for yourself both professionally and personally as you continue to make an impact on our legal community?
Stephanie Clerkin:
So I think I alluded to a couple already. I’d love to take two more of the Relativity Specialist exams to get master status. I think I need processing and project management I think are the final two that just requires some more studying. So that’s one thing professionally I definitely want to maybe do this year. Both TBD.
Tony Sipp:
You got a few more days left.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Yeah. Oh gosh, I don’t even know. Yeah, nevermind. Let’s go with 2025 for that one.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, there you go. There you go.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Yes, in the next 365 days, we’ll see if I can at least knock out one of those. We’ll keep it simple. I also would love to make it back to a couple conferences I don’t usually attend. I had a great experience with Georgetown conference last year, and if I could make it back there and speak again, that would be a huge goal for me as well. Again, that’s not until next November, so I have time. Personally, I really, it’s a couple things. I’d love to get a little more routine with the kids next year. There’s just been a lot of stuff that’s messed up routines this year that I’d like to get a little more structure there and also make more time to see my friends outside the house. All of a sudden it’s end of the year and it’s like, wow, I barely made it outside of work and kids stuff anywhere for me. So more me time in there. So they’re not huge goals by any means. Sometimes those small ones are really what you need, and there’s plenty of time for long, long-term, five year tenure goals. But we’re focused right now on the next year to two I think for most of my world.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, it’s good to make small goals every little every day. The small little goals make a big impact and make such a big difference. So yeah, I agree with you. I do the same thing myself a little.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Actually, here’s one more for you, since you mentioned cycling. So I’d like to hit a 52 week streak on my Peloton. I’m at week 40, so I’m getting closer. We’re almost there.
Tony Sipp:
I am here to support you on that. So I will post, get on my bike, and I will start cycling and post my pictures and maybe Strava every once in a while. So we’ll see how that goes. So that’s great. I love that. I love everybody getting engaged physically. It just makes you feel better as well. So Stephanie, I’d like to ask guests this question. What is something that people would be surprised to learn about you?
Stephanie Clerkin:
Probably that I was very shy for most of my life until probably 16 to 18. And even then, there are moments in my twenties, I went back to my introverted retreated world. So that usually catches people off guard because
Tony Sipp:
You’re not, you’re so out there.
Stephanie Clerkin:
I’m still an extroverted introvert where I have to recharge after the big conferences and even big work deadlines, the adrenaline stops and you just got to regroup. So yeah, I was the shy kid that got made fun of for a good chunk of my teens. So I think many can relate to that. But yeah.
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, it’s served you well. It has served you well. I mirrored it introvert, so I understand. So it’s fantastic. So final thoughts. If you can leave our listeners with one piece of advice or takeaway about navigating the legal tech industry, what would it be?
Stephanie Clerkin:
One, just try to stay up to what’s changing. And that doesn’t mean knowing the ins and outs, but if you start seeing, just take the one everyone knows with chat, GPT and everything coming out, the amount of people that even six months in I’d run across just not at my own firm, but just in general in the industry that had no idea what that was. Still, it’s like, okay, at a minimum, at least know it exists. Let’s do the baseline and then how to use some of this stuff. And whether or not you again know, how does this exist? Is this stuff that we need to be on our radar for the future? And there’s plenty of, I mean, paralegal association is a good example. I’ve done some even more basic type training with Excel and other tips and tricks out there. Just look for some of these resources. There’s a ton out there. And if you your own tip, feel free to throw that out there as well, because kind of how I got into some of those speaking engagements, I just posted a, this is my favorite Adobe action that just saved me literally 18 hours of time. Then people would pile on, well, guess what? I got this one and this one. And we’ve been doing that now with some prompts. For example, here’s a good prompt to make a macro for Excel. So there’s a lot of free resources out there, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to just do a quick, actually, you can go into chat GPT and say what legal developments happened that I want to see. There we go. What happened in 2024?
Tony Sipp:
Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah, so it sounds like educate yourself, consistent learning. Constant learning. There’s a lot of free resources that are out there that you can just learn from. You don’t necessarily have to pay, but get the credentials when you can get the credentials, but take advantage of the opportunities that are out there already. So that’s great advice, really great advice. So thank you, Stephanie. Where can people get in contact with you if they want to reach you? And before you answer that, Georgetown, did you hear what she said about speaker roles? I just want to mention that. So, and anyone else who wants to jump on board, she’s out there to speak for you. But yes, where can people get in contact with you?
Stephanie Clerkin:
So if I didn’t mention it eight times already, you can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the easiest. I do check my messages consistently and respond to probably 99% of them. So feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to talk to anybody, especially if you say you listen to the podcast and heard me there. So come on over to my chaotic LinkedIn profile.
Tony Sipp:
Thanks for the shout out folks. This is another episode of the Paralegal Voice. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time. Thanks, Stephanie.
Stephanie Clerkin:
Thank you.
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The Paralegal Voice provides career-success tips for paralegals of any experience level.