It is our pleasure to introduce Sarah Cole, the newest addition to the Rational Enterprise team. In her role as Senior Director of Consulting at Rational Enterprise, Sarah uses her extensive experience and expertise to arm Rational’s clients with intelligently tailored solutions to their data governance, investigative, and discovery needs. Sarah is an ardent advocate of predictive and textual analytics in the legal technology space.
We caught up with Sarah to discuss her new role and to share her insights on consultancy, eDiscovery, and the information governance industry.
Can you tell us (a little) about your background?
I began working in legal technology over a decade ago, shortly after I passed the bar exam. Since then, I have made a career out of embracing innovation, advocating for smart technical solutions, and applying best practices.
I’ve run the gamut of eDiscovery roles, working hands-on in: Review Management, Database Administration, Discovery Project Management, Analytics/TAR/Solution Consulting, as well as working behind the scenes in Continuous Process Improvement and Business Intelligence roles.
Some professional highlights for me include becoming one of the earliest Relativity Masters in 2016, being nominated in the first ever Stellar Women in eDiscovery awards in 2018, participating on the NYSBA advisory committee issuing Guidance around Cyber Incident and Data Breach response, and co-teaching an eDiscovery session for the New York State Judicial Institute.
When I’m not nerding out on technology, I love to travel and learn about new places and cultures, go for long walks around the Ramble in Central Park, pursue creative outlets like writing and painting, and spend time with my friends and family.
Your new role at Rational Enterprise is Senior Director of Consulting. Why is consulting so important in the eDiscovery and/or information governance industry?
Information Governance and Discovery fields are rapidly evolving both with newly emerging technologies and increased adoption of predictive modeling. Consultants ensure clients are applying the best solutions to reach their goals.
Whether it’s advising on an active project, working one on one with a colleague, or using the text of Game of Thrones or Harry Potter to demonstrate analytics technology, nothing is more gratifying than seeing someone experience that “lightbulb moment,” when they understand how a tool or solution can enhance their practice.
What attracted you to Rational Enterprise?
I’m attracted to the smart technologies, especially analytics and predictive modeling. I was introduced Rational’s technology several years ago while working for eDiscovery service provider and was impressed by Rational’s algorithm and user interface.
What are you most excited about working on or implementing at Rational Enterprise?
I’ve spent most of my eDiscovery career begging clients to bring me into their matters as early as possible, so broadening my focus to include information governance, the leftmost component of the EDRM, seemed like a no-brainer.
What is one element you notice that clients for either eDiscovery and/or information governance are currently underutilizing?
eDiscovery clients, especially in the United States, aren’t using what they know proactively for early matter analysis, risk identification, and to identify new documents that are relevant to an ongoing investigation. As a result, they are over-collecting broad swaths of data and paying twice as much as what they need to in order to cull via in hosted review platforms.