Akerman eDiscovery Services Practice Group Chair Elan Hersh was featured in Legaltech News in "Collaborating Through the Chaos: A Chat With Legalweek Speaker Elan Hersh," discussing how legal teams can reduce risk and improve outcomes in complex litigation by treating collaboration as a core operational discipline rather than a relationship skill.
The article examines the communication breakdowns most likely to derail large-scale matters, from class actions to multidistrict litigations, and how structured governance frameworks and clearly defined roles can prevent them. Elan noted that the stakes are highest when the number of parties and volume of data are greatest, making upfront planning essential.
The larger the matter is, the more stakeholders that are involved, the more critical it is to have that operational governance and structured collaboration framework tightened up at the outset," Elan told Legaltech News.
He further underscored that the discipline to build those frameworks, not goodwill alone, is what separates organizations that manage complexity well from those that don't: "Collaboration as operational infrastructure is not just good relationships, it's the discipline to build them. Consistency is the antidote to complexity."
Elan and Raymond Gentile, Staff Attorney, Litigation and eDiscovery Services Practice Groups, will speak on the panel "Collaboration Protocols: Coordinating Defense Counsel, Vendors, and Opposing Parties" at Legalweek 2026 in New York City on March 12. The session will explore how defense counsel, service providers, and corporate legal teams can build collaboration protocols that minimize inefficiencies, define clear ownership, and deliver defensible outcomes.