BUSINESS JOURNAL PHOTO | Anthony Bolante

Foster Pepper attorney Jeff Frank (right), who chairs the firm's litigation group, holds a 30-gigabyte USB thumb drive that holds the equivalent of about 300 paper boxes of hard-copy legal discovery documents. With him is the firm's ALS operations supervisor, Michelle Riverson; the two are in the firm's "private cloud" digital storage facilities in Seattle.

Local law firms have hung out help-wanted signs.

The demand for litigation support personnel — an emerging field where the law and technology overlap — is running strong. Local firms are hiring to keep up with demand that stems from fast-growing litigation practices and the proliferation of digital documents and communication in every area of law.

Litigation support hiring among recruiting firm Robert Half Legal clients increased “well in excess of double digits” in terms of percentage growth between 2010 and 2011, said Diane Domeyer of Robert Half Legal, where Domeyer oversees West Coast operations. So far, 2012 looks like more of the same with Seattle experiencing “above average growth,” she said.

That jibes with a national survey released by The Cowen Group , a New York-based litigation support staffing firm. They survey asked 22 firms with headquarters throughout the country (but none with headquarters in Seattle) about their litigation support hiring plans. More than half — 57 percent — anticipate hiring litigation support staff in 2012 with an average growth rate of 13.7 percent.

Apples-to-apples comparisons of litigtion support hiring can be challenging because different firms use different terminology, Jeff Frank, chair of the litigation practice with the law firm of Foster Pepper in Seattle.

The titles and duties — legal secretaries, legal assistants and paralegals — vary from firm to firm. One firm’s legal secretary may be another firm’s legal assistant and one firm’s legal assistant may be another firm’s paralegal. Today, these hires increasingly fall under the heading of litigation support. While litigation support is not a new role, the skills needed to do the job in the age of electronic discovery have changed and firms increasingly view litigation support as a distinct profession.

The job also is a ticket to ride for anyone who can juggle the demands of a hybrid profession requiring the courtroom savvy of a paralegal and the technical skill of a database administrator.

“There’s definitely a national trend of increased hiring, increased spending and increased opportunities in litigation support,” Domeyer said.

Frank agrees, saying demand for litigation support is growing faster than the demand for traditional legal assistants/paralegals.

“When you get a good one, you don’t want to let them go, that’s for sure,” he said.

Foster Pepper expects to hire one or two litigation support specialists during the coming year, but additional hires tell only part of the story. As openings in existing positions have occurred, the firm has made a point of hiring replacements with litigation support capabilities, said Frank.

The law firm of Lane Powell in Seattle also expects to add more people with litigation support skills this year depending on how many additional attorneys it brings on board, said Shevette Floyd, manager of legal support staff. “We want to ensure we have that skill set in-house so we don’t have to outsource (very much),” she said.

Although firms aren’t eliminating outside vendors, the growing demand for litigation support makes it cost-effective for firms to bring more work in-house, creating additional billable hours while saving clients money by eliminating the middleman.

Part of the litigation support boom has to do with an improving economy. Law firms are busier now and litigation is one of their fast-growing practice areas. But the biggest driver is the proliferation of digital documents and communication.

“Technology is playing a larger and larger role (in litigation) and a lot of firms are trying to beef that up,” says Shelly Langley, owner of Langley Recruiting, a Seattle legal staffing firm. “I’m seeing more paralegals being hired with database and e-discovery experience.”

One of the primary duties of a paralegal/legal assistant is to organize, review and analyze discovery materials. In the old days, discovery materials would arrive in boxes. Now they come on hard drives full of digital documents, but also packed with emails, Tweets and Facebook postings, creating an avalanche of digital records that is far greater and more complex than the paper files of the past.

“If you’re not up to speed on e-discovery … you can’t compete for the kind of litigation cases everyone wants to get,” said Erle Cohen, chief operating officer with the Seattle law firm of Garvey Shubert Barer. “In our case, our paralegals wear dual hats and have morphed into the technical role.”

Garvey Shubert Barer recently added a contract position and may add one or two permanent positions before the the year is over, said Cohen.

While e-discovery is the meat and potatoes, project management is another increasingly important aspect of litigation support. Clients are demanding more predictability about their legal bills, which requires firms to create and track accurate budgets and update clients on costs much more frequently than in the past.

That’s an area where attorneys definitely appreciate assistance. “Lawyers,” Frank says, “aren’t always the best project managers.”

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