Lateral hires are usually met with excitement over the business a newly hired attorney will bring with them. However, that excitement quickly leads to a flurry of confirming which clients are leaving with the attorney, finding all their clients’ documents, reviewing those documents and transferring them to the new firm.

In an effort to curb some of the risks and inefficiencies usually associated with those processes, information governance and records management provider FileTrail launched its new FileTrail GPS: Mobility Manager platform. 

FileTrail president Darrell Mervau explained that Mobility Manager allows a user to pick an attorney that is leaving the firm and review their client-related documents.

Specifically, after selecting an attorney, Mobility Manager grabs all client-related documents associated with the attorney found in the firm’s email and document management systems. Reviewers at the firm examine and approve the documents through FileTrail and upload and transfer the documents to the new firm.

Mervau said the platform makes “sure the data that is allowed to be released is released and makes sure those checks and balances are done.” Currently, law firms rely on Excel spreadsheets and “ad hoc measures” to collect, confirm and transfer an attorney’s client documents, he said.

Mobility Manager is a standalone product, but it joins a host of FileTrail products geared toward information governance and records management, including 2018’s Governance Policy Suite. FileTrail’s Governance Policy Suite joined other solutions developed by FTI Technology, KLDiscovery and others that attempt to encourage and remind lawyers to promptly destroy data that is no longer needed.

While Mobility Manager may be the first legal tech solution targeting streamlining the transfer of a lateral hire’s client documents, it’s part of FileTrail’s ongoing focus on information governance and compliance.

In 2015, FileTrail said it strengthened its data management abilities when it integrated its enterprise content management and physical records solutions with NetDocuments’s email management and cloud-based documents services. By 2017, FileTrail updated its user interface to compete with other records management solutions like OpenText’s LegalKEY.

Now, Mervau said the uptick in lateral hiring places greater importance on efficiently transferring client-related documents. Indeed, according to The American Lawyer, nearly 9,000 lateral moves were made in the Am Law 200 from 2014 to 2018. As the hiring race continues, law firms need to make the transfer of client data more efficient so attorneys can quickly start working with their clients at their new firm, he said.