Why Great eDiscovery Project Managers Embrace Structure – and Break It When Needed

In ILTA’s Just-In-Time podcast episode, “What Makes a Great eDiscovery PM”, moderator James MacGregor, Founder & Managing Director of Ethical eDiscovery, and Dina K. Hetherington, Founder of DKH Legal Tech Consulting, talk candidly about the skills, habits, and trade-offs that define strong eDiscovery project managers today.

This article pulls on that conversation and focuses on one theme that kept showing up:

Great eDiscovery PMs love structure – and they’re willing to break it the moment reality demands it.

That tension is where the work really happens.

Why structure still matters in eDiscovery

eDiscovery projects are messy. New custodians appear late. Data arrives in strange formats. Deadlines move.

Precisely because of that chaos, structure is non-negotiable.

From the podcast discussion, a few recurring elements of good structure stood out:

• A clear lifecycle. Even if each matter is unique, you still have familiar phases: intake, collection, processing, review, production, reporting. Naming those stages helps everyone know “where we are”.
• Checklists and written plans. Good PMs don’t just “keep it in their head”. They document the plan, dependencies, and QC checks so no one is guessing the next step if the PM is unavailable.
• Questionnaires and intake forms. Early questionnaires force stakeholders to think through objectives, data sources, and constraints before the first collection or search query.
• Buffers in the timeline. They don’t promise “we’ll process this in 24 hours” just because it’s theoretically possible. They pad timelines to absorb the inevitable surprises.

Structure reduces cognitive load. It makes it easier for new team members to plug in. It gives clients something concrete to react to. And it gives you a baseline when things go off script.

Why flexibility matters just as much

The problem is that eDiscovery doesn’t respect your beautiful plan.

In the episode, James and Dina called out familiar scenarios: data errors, unexpected formats, software hiccups, new volumes landing late, or even the entire matter settling after weeks of careful preparation.

That’s where flexibility shows up:

• Timelines change. New productions, new custodians, or new search terms can blow up a carefully staged review schedule.
• Scope expands or contracts. A regulator asks different questions. Opposing counsel challenges a protocol. Suddenly you’re collecting from mobile devices or ephemeral messaging platforms instead of just email.
• Priorities flip. A hearing moves up. A settlement conference appears. Your carefully sequenced tasks need to be re-ordered overnight.

Great PMs expect this. They build in buffers. They avoid over-promising. And they stay calm when a late-stage change forces a re-plan.

Critically, they’re transparent: instead of hiding issues, they explain trade-offs in plain language – “If we change X, here’s how Y and Z will move” – so case teams can make informed decisions.

How great eDiscovery PMs balance structure and change

Listening to the conversation, a pattern emerges. The strongest PMs don’t pick structure or flexibility. They deliberately design for both.

Here’s how that looks in practice:

1. They start structured, not rigid

They create a clear plan, but treat it as draft:

• Define key milestones (collections, first-level review complete, privilege review complete, production dates).
• Capture dependencies (e.g., “search term agreement must be final before batching for review”).
• Set conservative internal dates and only communicate ranges externally.

The plan exists so everyone knows what “on track” looks like. But it’s understood that the plan will change.

2. They maintain a living checklist

Checklists aren’t static documents buried in a folder. They’re living workflows that evolve:

• When a new issue shows up on a matter, they add it to the playbook.
• When software or data types change, they update the process instead of working around it ad hoc.
• When a failure mode appears once, they add a QC step so it’s less likely to happen again.

Over time, their personal checklist becomes a team resource – and eventually, a firm playbook.

3. They think in options and consequences

A recurring theme in the podcast: great PMs don’t just say “yes” or “no”. They offer options:

• “If we limit custodians to A, B, C, we can hit the current deadline but risk missing some traffic from D.”
• “If we add mobile collections now, we’ll need to re-plan processing and review – here’s what moves.”

This helps litigation teams and clients choose consciously between speed, cost, and completeness, rather than discovering trade-offs after the fact.

4. They are honest about mistakes – and learn from them

Mistakes happen: missing a document family, mis-configuring a search, or exporting the wrong production set. The podcast was very clear on one point: the cover-up is always worse than the mistake.

High-performing PMs:

• Surface issues quickly to their team and client.
• Explain impact and options to remediate.
• Fold the lesson back into their process and checklists, so it’s less likely to recur.

This creates a culture where juniors aren’t afraid to raise their hand, and where quality control is a shared responsibility rather than a blame exercise.

Where tools like Lupl help you do both

The structure-flexibility tension isn’t just about mindset. It’s also about the tools you use to run matters.

For many teams, the “plan” lives in a Word document, an Excel tracker, or someone’s inbox. Those formats are fine for one-off projects, but they struggle when:

• Deadlines move every week.
• New deliverables appear mid-stream.
• Multiple firms or vendors are involved.
• Partners and clients want a clear, current view of status.

Lupl is designed to give eDiscovery and disputes teams a structured workspace that can flex in real time:

• Workstreams as living checklists. Turn your eDiscovery playbook into a reusable matter template – from preservation through production – and adapt tasks as the matter evolves.
• Clear ownership and dates. Assign tasks, shift deadlines, and rebalance workload without rebuilding the plan from scratch.
• Real-time visibility. Partners and matter leaders can see where things stand without chasing new versions of a spreadsheet.
• DMS-native documents. Lupl connects to iManage, NetDocuments, and Microsoft 365 so documents stay in your DMS while the matter plan, links, and status live in Lupl.
• Integrated communication. Tie conversations, notes, and status updates back to specific tasks and phases, so changes are visible to everyone who needs to act on them.

The result: you keep the benefits of a well-designed structure, but you’re not afraid to “break the plan” when the case demands it – because the workspace flexes with you.

The takeaway

Great eDiscovery project managers don’t cling to a plan for its own sake.

They:

• Use structure to reduce friction and keep teams aligned.
• Accept that the plan will change – sometimes daily.
• Communicate options and consequences clearly.
• Learn visibly from mistakes.
• Invest in tools that make it easy to update the plan without losing control.

If your project plans still live in static documents, every change hurts more than it should. Moving to a dynamic matter workspace is one of the simplest ways to support the kind of PMs James and Dina describe on ILTA Voices – and to make that balance between structure and flexibility feel less like a juggling act, and more like a practice you can repeat.