Interview: Ben Hammerton, Head of Sales – UK & Europe at Servient Inc.

Ben is someone I have worked with during my career and I value his experience and industry opinions and outside of work, his brothers beer! (Hammerton Brewery)

Ben has worked for some very prestigious firms over the years, companies such as EY, Unified, Consilio and Servient. He is able to offer a unique perspective when discussing the industry.

How long have you worked in eDiscovery?

10 years

What do you enjoy about eDiscovery?

I love the fact that every matter is different, and the constant changes that occur to the workflow during the matter. What is even more enjoyable is when a legal team use the more sophisticated areas of the system, such as Machine Learning (I prefer to call it ‘Intelligent Prioritisation’) and a seemingly insurmountable volume of data gets culled down to a dramatically reduced (and highly responsive) set of documents to review.

What have you taken away from the different firms you have worked for? How are you applying any of that knowledge in your current job?

Some good colleagues (after their non-compete). In all honesty, teamwork is what I have taken away, and how different people respond to different working environments and challenges…. so it has made me better at understanding what helps move things along best.

You have worked across the big four, boutique consultancies and now a software vendor, that also services clients directly – how have your roles differed?

My role has varied a lot due to the differences in the firms, which has kept it interesting and given me a much wider range of knowledge and skills. In my Big Four role I was tasked with creating a new department and service line from scratch, including office space, IT, and personnel, and then taking it to market. At the Boutique Consultancies there was an element of creating new service lines, but drawing down hard on my knowledge of the platforms we were using and showing differentiators both in the tools and the project management team. In my current role at a software/service vendor, it has been creating a new office for the firm, and bringing a new platform to market in the UK (it already having a large customer base in the US), which has meant learning the platform in and out, and then reaching out to new and existing contacts to extol its virtues.

What does Servient bring to the table?

Servient has a dual personality (so to speak), on the one hand it is designed with ‘Self Service In Mind’ which some platforms definitely aren’t, but on the other hand, when matched against others that are very user-friendly, it can still truly handle huge amounts of data without buckling. So that gives you the best of both worlds, Old and New architecture. That being said there are some definite ‘uniques’ in how Servient provides Machine Learning / AI (Intelligent Prioritisation), but which would take some explaining that shouldn’t be done here in this Q&A!

How do you see the eDiscovery marketplace changing over the next few years?

Over the last 10 years I have seen a few shifts back and forth between law firms (and some corporates) wanting to take eDiscovery in-house. What I would say is that going forward, with the way that true cloud adoption has accelerated at pace, I see the SAAS (Software as a Service) model being the most flexible and sensible way to perform eDiscovery services. Why tie yourself into a 1-3 year contract with a technology that may not keep up with industry advances, and which you might find it difficult to move from at a later date? The ad-hoc SAAS model allows for full flexibility…. and choice. The other way of looking at things is that the SAAS model means that you don’t have to invest in hardware, which is a continual commitment and devalues over time, nor the personnel required to look after it.

Oh… and another thing…. with GDPR and the many other regulatory requirements that exist now (and will change/multiply over time), I think clients would be best to look towards flexible secure true cloud systems, that will incorporate these new requirements as they appear.

Do you see the market place still being dominated by Relativity?

No, not at all. Whilst I have worked with the Relativity platform for over 8 years, and I like it, the platform is now easily matched by other platforms that have a different underlying architecture and can offer greater flexibility (both in features, but more so in cost). In addition, there used to be a concern amongst lawyers that different platforms would take time to learn and ultimately it was better going with what you know, but I am now seeing the opposite… the lawyers know the platforms can perform and have all the required feature set, and are actively looking at ways to save their clients money, and show that they are in touch with the technology on offer, providing a better all round service.

Do you see alternative tools such as yourselves, Disco, Nuix or EverLaw staking a claim?

Absolutely, and good luck to them! I myself was extremely excited to bring Servient to the UK in 2018 as part of the ‘new wave’ of eDiscovery providers. By having more than one true cloud provider out there, it actually helps us spread our message and increases acceptance that there is more to eDiscovery Life than Relativity. The fact that we are still here and succeeding 2 years later, shows that claims are certainly being staked!

Outside of eDiscovery what do you like to do to let off some steam?

Well, I do Krav Maga for fitness to work off what I have ingested/imbibed…. but what I have started doing as a proper hobby is Blacksmithing. Making fire, heating metal, hitting it with hammers, making something mildly resembling something, and then using the embers to cook sausages…. much more sensible.

What advice would you offer someone starting out in eDiscovery?

First off, get as involved in the mechanics of it all as quickly as possible…. don’t be shy of asking questions…. and try to tie what you have learnt into real life case studies and exemplar judgements…..as it won’t be long before you are in at the deep end speaking to, or assisting legal experts in data manipulation/presentation. After that, try and find a way of quickly and easily explaining what you do to friends, family, customs officers….. I quickly got bored of people glazing over when I tried to explain, and so ended up just describing eDiscovery as ‘Helping lawyers to fight each other…. in an efficient way’.

I hope that the above chat with Ben was useful and you gained an insight into his experience.