Maurice Vincent and Ron Robinson: Building E‑Discovery Partnerships for Solo and Small Firms

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca. All

Ron Bockstahler: right, welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, joined by my co-host RB. Today’s show is one our solo and small firm listeners are going to want to lean into a lean in on. E discovery is now a $15 billion industry, and it eat up eat eats up the lion’s share of cost of modern litigation, and most attorneys going out on their own have never been taught how to handle it. We’ve got two guests with us today who do this for a living, and they happen to work for one of the fastest growing private companies in America. With us from Complete Legal, a Kansas City-based e-discovery and litigation support firm that just landed on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list. We have Maurice Vincent, managing partner of the Chicago Hub, and Ron Robinson, their director of e-discovery sales. Between the two of them, they’ve got more than 50 years of experience helping law firms from solos to AM 100 make making sense of discovery without going broke doing it. Maurice, Ron, welcome to the show. Thank you, Ron.

Ron Robinson: Very delighted to be here.

Ron Bockstahler: Look, before we get started, our first question I want to set the table for our listeners. The difference between a good outcome on a case and a financial disaster in litigation also come often comes down to one decision: who you partner with on eDiscovery. Maurice, Ron, you have been making that difference for attorneys for a combined 50 plus years. Although you guys don’t look it, with that, what’s the secret? What are you guys doing different than no one else is doing?

Ron Robinson: No, I’ll let you go,

Maurice Vincent: Ron. It’s interesting because we have spent a lot of years working with clients where we do not want to be a trans a transactional relationship with them, but a partner, and it’s taking the time to actually go through the assessment process to make the determination on not only how we can help them solve, but what we can help them solve. Building through those relationships, we have some really, really talented people who have the ability to not only assist but really navigate through the entire process or of that litigation, and we take pride in that, and we’ve done a great job. And I’m going to let Ron add what he like he’d like to as well. No,

Ron Robinson: I think you absolutely capture the essence of it. Really, for us, it’s about it. You you made a salient point in your opening, Ron, which is that so much of the litigation can be. spent. The money can be spent. I’m sorry. Money can be spent on the discovery. And really, what we’re looking to do is just give our clients the least amount of relevant information to help them understand their client’s risk, and also to craft legal strategy. And so that’s anathema to the traditional approach, but that’s really what it’s about, and that requires a lot of things we can get into on this show. But it’s it’s mostly about leveraging the symbiotic relationship between human intellect and legal technology.

Ron Bockstahler: Well, it definitely shows. Let’s talk real quick. Let’s go back to you know, congratulations, Complete Legal made Inc. 5000 lists for the fastest growing private companies in America in 2025 A boutique shop in a market dominated by giants like KL, Discovery, Epic, and Casilio. What do you credit that growth

Maurice Vincent: to? I’ll start with that one, Ron. It’s it’s culture. It’s building. We we look at complete legal as as a puzzle. We have assembled side pieces, center pieces, corner pieces, and we’ve mapped those all together to build a great culture of individuals who are client centric, and we work together to literally build the right solutions to service our clients in a way that really strengthens our retention in the market. So for us, it isn’t it isn’t just about the solutions; it’s the people who deliver those solutions and making sure that we have open lines of communications that we’re. Part of that strategy throughout the life cycle of the case that we’re working with a client, Ron.

Ron Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. Second that it’s about being absolutely client obsessed. It has been for us. It’s also been, as as Mo just articulated, about designing and executing on tailored solutions, we have the expertise not only because of the experience that you see represented on this show, but throughout our our enterprise to understand where clients are positioned, understand what’s before them, and our our mantra is simple: it’s just ask, listen, learn, and then we certainly come with a point of view once we understand what the case is all about, and then we start to consult with them on what makes the most sense for their matter.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, I think it’s interesting that you bring up the culture, and that is so key. But you may not have known about that when you both joined Complete Legal. So, what is it that after the years of experience that you both bring that brought you to complete legal and you made you that pulled you in?

Maurice Vincent: Well, that that’s interesting, and I’ll definitely go first on that one. These symbiotic relationships that we have built over time have a tendency to rotate and loop back, so it’s really kind of a circle that happens with those relationships. Two of the main partners of Complete Legal, Ron and I have had history with them for my goodness, probably 20 plus years, and whether we were working directly with them, indirectly with them, we’ve stayed in touch until we came to the point where Complete Legal was ready to integrate our level of expertise to actually help make them better, but also help make us better as well. So we have had experience with the owners of Complete Legal for the longest time, and when they were willing, when they were ready to uplift that culture to another level, they said, “Here are two individuals that we need to bring aboard that can help us continue on the path that we’re traveling.

Ron Bockstahler: Now, Mo, I love you, but I want to hear from Ron. You know, he’s got a career that spanned 20 plus years: SPI, Encore, complete legal. One thing you can read about him: you go to his LinkedIn profile, and it talks about the clients that have followed him. Ron, what are you doing different that people just want to work with you, particularly?

Ron Robinson: Yeah, and I don’t know that necessarily, Ron. I would say it’s different, but certainly there is an emphasis. You know, I said it earlier. It’s it’s about being client, absolutely client focused. So I spent nine years inside of a couple of firms, AmLaw 200 firms, right? And at one point, I thought I would go to law school, and quickly decided, “Ooh, that’s not in the cards for me. But what I did, it was a proving ground for me. So I really became keenly aware of what’s necessary, what lawyers need, what lawyers expect, and I believe that that experience. I know that that experience informed my attitude around service, and so, yeah. And and and I consider myself originally. I went to went to school to study architecture, and so I still consider myself a builder, right? A builder of solutions, a builder of teams, a builder of people, and I never lose that focus. Absolutely, never lose that focus. So you know, you heard Maria referred to ask, listen, and learn. That’s really the attitude that I take, and I get within complete legal. I get the SMEs that are necessary, depending on the the needs of the matter involved. So again, we craft the solution. You ask me for folks who have followed me. You can’t fake that, right? There’s there’s an absolute sincerity that folks will pick up on, and then they’ll see that get actualized when you’re when you’re performing the work for them,

Ron Bockstahler: I think it comes through. I think we framed this for our listeners. This is a $15 billion industry, so about 73% of the cost to go into litigation is going to discovery. So working with a team that can you know handle that and make sure the the attorneys look good. The people that can build this that’s that’s a huge huge piece right now, of of what we’re looking at. Let’s yeah. Oh, our

Rebecca Bockstahler: audience is a lot of solo practitioners or smaller firms who don’t have an in house e discovery team. Probably don’t have the volume to necessarily be the largest client at one of you know a vendor you might find if you Google it right away. So what do you would you say to attorneys who are solo or small firms about what complete legal. Do for them differently, and how a relationship would look with a firm that size.

Ron Robinson: Yeah, we look to our clients to understand Rebecca Arby what their bandwidth is, what their capacity is, what their expertise is. Anything that distracts from the practice of law and focusing on the merits of the case is is not good, to to say it politely, right? And so we have we literally go from the ability to gather all of that electronically stored information, right? The relevant facts for their case in a legally defensible way through and including presentation, making it available for attorneys to review, presentation delivery to opposing or to a government agency, and if it ultimately makes it to trial, which you know fewer than 2% of the the cases do, then going alongside them, supporting them in trial for the smaller firms. It’s been my experience that they need help in many areas along that way. This is kind of how I tell the story, if you will. Imagine. So we all know that ESI, electronic control information is ubiquitous, right? It’s on our phones, it’s on computers, it’s on servers, it’s in the cloud, right? And you’ve got to figure out where to go to get this information that’s relevant for your case, for your matter. So imagine all of those points, those data points, if you will. And this isn’t my-I wasn’t the first person to come with this. I think it’s appropriate, though. Imagine those as stars in a night sky, and what we see our role as is essentially taking all of those seemingly disparate data points, those stars, and drawing constellations, so that the legal team can then understand. As I said earlier, understand their clients’ risk and exposure, craft legal strategy, and as I said earlier, also then we don’t just rely on technology to do that. We don’t just rely on human intellect to do that, but we leverage that relationship between the two of them. So I hope that answers your question. It’s a it’s a long winded response to your succinct question, Mo. We’re

Ron Bockstahler: just gonna let Ron talk the rest of the show. We’re good.

Maurice Vincent: I would like to add one small bit to that, Rebecca. You you use the word capacity. What we are, in addition to what Ron said, is capacity. We’re similar, really, not too far off from Amata in the solutions that we provide for the small to medium-sized firm. They don’t have the the they’re not bearing the cost of someone who specializes in in litigation support, ESI, and those types of things. So what we want to do is we want to become an extension of them, and not just a vendor on the outside, but someone who actually, again, is alongside them as we go through the case with them on the best ways to go through this discovery process. So when we become that capacity and that consulting type role, that’s where we have a huge impact with that small to medium sized firm, is because we become their lit support department.

Ron Bockstahler: So, so let’s take this level. And Mo, I’ve heard you say this a dozen times. You know, no two firms are alike. So, I’m kind of curious. So, what’s let’s talk about a five attorney law firm. What are you going to do different than a big firm is going to come in, and how would you support him differently? Give us some specifics of how you’re going to take care of that. And and look, I’m going to trial. I’m a I’m a five attorney law firm. I’m going to go to trial. I don’t know what 345, times a year, right? With these birth firms, they’re doing that on a weekly basis. So what’s going to? How are you going to do things differently? How are you going to support me as a small firm,

Maurice Vincent: Ron? You want to run with that one?

Ron Robinson: He calling you. I think he’s tired of hearing me, but

Ron Bockstahler: that’s just a contract. I was trying to make Mo feel good, right? Oh, that’s

Ron Robinson: okay. Go ahead.

Maurice Vincent: We work with some behemoth firms by far, and not that our we have a great deal of success in the small to medium-sized firm range. They love us because we’re nimble. We’re a speedboat that can move and turn when they need us to, and we’re in that role with them, providing that guidance and direction relative to some, and helping with some case strategy, especially when it comes to ESI, but because our service ranges from because discovery is still paper all the way to review, we have the capability to provide those types of services for that small firm and and have it under one service umbrella as opposed to connecting with different. That do different things. So that’s that’s really for them. That’s one solution. But we also understand that one size does not fit all. So you’re right. Some are going to be four times a year. Some are going to be six times a year. And we need to be ready and available to provide the services that we provide to help support them in a way similar to the big firm who has the resources at their disposal internally, and that’s where we become extremely valuable to them because again, they have an internal lit support department. We become their internal lit support department by working with them on that level for any size case, and again, what what a better strategy with us to for a large firm to inundate a small firm with something they don’t understand? That’s where we become extremely valuable to them. I I hope that answers the question.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Agne. I’m

Ron Robinson: sorry.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Go, Ron. It’s all you.

Ron Robinson: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Just maybe some of the notes, nuts and bolts in there, Ron and Rebecca. We begin with obviously to even work on a matter, we have to run the conflicts check. We clear conflicts, and the first thing we do when we run that conflicts check is we also then research the case, understand where they are in the case, right? And what where are they with the discovery? Discovery’s been propounded, obviously. But you know, has a has a schedule has the discovery schedule already been pushed out by the by the judge by the justice, right? Have you had your meet and confer? We go. We look at all of that, right? Then we sit with the firm and we we we start. It’s a working backwards exercise for us. We say, “Hey, what is it you’re looking to achieve, and what are your thoughts about how you’re going to approach this? Before we ever start talking about the data or the or the documents, and then they start to share that with us. Oh, okay, and then what do you have the capabilities to do? Some will say, as an example, well, you know, we think we’ll collect the data ourselves. Okay, can you do that in a legally defensible manner? Does your whoever you’re going to use to collect it, maybe it’s one of your employees? Do they have the alphabet soup, meaning the certifications behind their name. Would you even want them in a deposition if it comes to that? If you’re challenged, right? So we start to go to those sorts of questions, and then we just walk it through. Okay, for similarly situated firms, here are some of the approaches we’ve taken. How meaningful? And we we we literally get down into the nitty gritty. How meaningful would this be for you? And when we show them, this would be these would be the benefits of this approach. In other words, we’re designing workflow. These would be the benefits of these approaches. Here are some of the pitfalls you really need. We’re not going to let you go off the ledge, and in fact, we’re going to insist that you don’t. Right? And then, obviously, we talk about the attendant price for all those things. Always bearing in mind, it’s interesting, Ron, that you make the point, and it’s a salient one here. 70-three studies show that 70-3% of the costs are of a matter are for discovery. That is way too high, way too high. So we really bear that in mind as we walk through all of that, and I hope that that might illuminate some of what Mo said as well.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, yeah,

Rebecca Bockstahler: that was interesting because what I hear you saying is that really you’re acting as a consultant. It’s a consultative process, and Mo, I think you even said that you provide guidance, and so something I thought about was before, when when attorneys are in the decision making process of hiring somebody to help them with discovery, or a firm is in that process. Before you even get to the point where you get to be the person that comes alongside them, what do you see as some of the most common and maybe most expensive mistakes firms will make on discovery before you’re even involved?

Ron Robinson: I think you actually said it without really realizing you said it, RV. Having worked with attorneys as long as I have, it’s my belief, my firm belief, that attorneys are trained in precedents, right? Give me your relevant case law, and I’m going to build my argument on that. Well, I think they do a follow that same path when it comes to making decisions about business partners that they work with, and so if they have worked with some of the firms that some of the organizations, Ron, that you named earlier. They tend to go back to that. That might not be the best solution for them. So we really want to understand what the decision factors are. Sometimes, quite frankly, it’s dictated by their end client, right? Any myriad of reasons, so we dive we dive into that, and we just make a compelling case with them. Incidentally, a lot of what I talked about just a moment ago, around the research and all that, that’s all on us. That’s just the cost of doing business. That’s a lot of value that we bring to them in the consulting conversation. There’s no the clock’s not running at that point.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Okay,

Ron Bockstahler: we did some research to put some numbers about what Ron’s talking about. A typical civil case in this country today involves about 130 gigabytes of data, roughly 6.5 million pages pulled from 10 to 15 custodians. That’s the equivalent of 100 pickup trucks full of paper, and the average smart mode you collect from a custodian contains 30 gigabytes of user-generated data on its own. Who in the right mind wants to do this on their own? This is a professional gig here. So, Mo, let’s go back for an attorney who’s just gone out on their own, maybe doing employment work, commercial litigation, family law, anything where ESI shows up. What are the first two or three things you tell them to put in place around discovery before they get blindsided by their first real document request?

Maurice Vincent: I would say number one, find a resource because that’s a part of it, literally, is a part of what they’re going to do, no matter what. I would also say find a resource that’s going to consult with them instead of just processing. There’s a way to look at this logically, systematically, with an approach to let’s dive into this. That’s going to be the least expensive way to achieve what we’re attempting to achieve, and then trust us, trust them to actually really decipher ESI and help them be better understanding. To let a part of it go, so they can focus on practicing the law. Our job is to get them the things that they need. Understand the search terms. Run the conflict checks. All the things that we’re going to do to support them, so that they don’t have to worry about that piece of getting through that. And and again, they want to practice the law, and our goal is to help them doing that. And that’s the thing that they should focus on. And Ron, please add add something, please.

Ron Robinson: Just really quick. Also, I would add to that: if you haven’t seek, if you haven’t already, seek out a trusted business partner who can help you develop a repeatable workflow.

Ron Bockstahler: Right, Rebecca, finish her off with our last question.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Our last question? Well, actually, I don’t. I have more of like this is not going to be the last question, but something that I found like like keeps coming back to me is when I think about the experience that the two of you bring to the table, and I looked at Complete Legal’s website, and it had the offerings of what you can have, and I’ve got it’s like information governance, e-discovery, forensics, hosting service, manage review, paper services, and my first thought when I saw that was probably when you were starting in this business, paper services might have been listed as the first

Maurice Vincent: one,

Rebecca Bockstahler: and then maybe those would even be reversed to some degree, and so the one thing that keeps coming up to me is how attorneys who fall back on what they think they know or what they’re used to could be very outdated, because if I’m leading with paper, then that’s maybe not you know where I’m really looking with e-discovery or with discovery. But what do you see for the future of your business? I mean, everybody’s talking AI. Everybody, technology moves quickly, as we all know. So, so what do you see, and how are you preparing,

Ron Robinson: Rebecca? It’s it’s a real simple answer, and it’s this: a toaster. Like what? Let me tell you why I say that. A client of mine, former client of mine, his name is Peter Hutt, a partner in an AmLaw firm here, and I’m in the Washington D.C. area. He and we worked together multiple matters across a good span of time, and he said to me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Hey, Ron, you know, you know, when I first started working with you, a lot of the discovery for my matters was paper based, and he said, and the relevant information, the relevant documents that I needed would typically fit in a red well, right? Expandable gusset. And he said, well, with e-discovery, it’s really no different. The relevant information that I’m going to use to rely on my case is the electronic equivalent of a red weld. And he said, and I understand there’s a lot of technology, and it’s all. He said, all I really need for you to do for me is to build me a tow. And you get the metaphor, right? We all know what a toaster does, right? The end result is is self evident, and that’s really what he wanted. He wanted our expertise to handle all those things. And I and I hope this is answering your question, RB. So, what does that look like in today’s world in in in Gen AI? Really interesting, I believe, because as you all as you know from my bio, I worked at a cloud computing company for a while, and obviously, very advanced technologies. The thing that should give every practicing attorney pause right now are the hallucinations associated with Gen AI, and you know when I was in law firms, incoming paralegals and incoming first years would always be taught to sight check, right, and blue booking, and there’s a reason for that. And if we are trusting technology right now, such that we’re not doing those fundamentally sound things that we know make sense in the practice of law, you know, woe, woe to us! And you, you. I just saw an M law firm last week that got their hands slapped pretty badly by a judge for that very reason.

Maurice Vincent: And Rebecca, I love the the framework or the question, but we also, as complete legal, we understand that we’ve got to meet firms where they are, so we we literally keep ourselves not only relevant but active by offering a span of services that we offer. At some given point, paper will be gone, and we will likely transition out of it because it’s it no longer is relevant in the legal field. We’ve expanded our base so that we can be again, as I said earlier, nimble. We can make the move based on the firm of where they are, but we still can consult, even though it’s it appears to be paper base. There’s relevant information stored in other areas, so being in that consultant role to make sure that we look where you can look and suggest looking there becomes relevant to us, so that we can literally meet a firm where they are.

Ron Robinson: And if I may add one more thing, I realize I spent a lot of time on this. We don’t get to determine the form of the evidence, right? And so there’s still there’s still a good amounts, right? There’s still paper, and it’s it’s it’s it’s tapering off, but there’s still a good amount of it. And for our clients in the Chicago area that need that, that have paper as part of their evidence, we run we have an operation there that can that can handle that as well. Interesting fact. Could not even make this up. Got a call last week, and well, I could, but I won’t. I got a call last week from someone. They have 10 million, 10 million pages of records in a warehouse, and need a solution for that. I’m like, wow! I didn’t even know this this much paper still existed outside of like outside of Iron Mountain, right? Yeah, that’s

Ron Bockstahler: the case. Interesting. It’s it’s amazing. Well, I would say this like Mo Ron, great having you on the show. There’s a definite reason that Amata Law office suites that partner with Complete Legal to handle all the clients that they’re working with because you guys know what you’re doing. You take care of your clients, and and it it shows just in talking to you the passion, the understanding of what you have. So we really really appreciate it. Appreciate you coming to the show, Mo. I’ll give you the last word. The last word.

Maurice Vincent: I haven’t been given that for a while, especially at home. No, Ron, we we really want to thank you for thinking enough of us to give us an opportunity to be a part of the Somada solution to strengthen relationships and provide another level of service to them, and we’re excited about performing in that role and literally helping you guys look good and strengthening those relationships and we will we will perform for you. We’re excited about it.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely appreciate it. Thank you so much, gentlemen. All right, that’s all we have for today. A big thank you to Maurice, Mo, and Ron for joining us and pulling back the curtain on what goody discovery actually looks like. If today’s conversation got you thinking about the next time a discovery demand lands on your desk, I hope you’ll take one idea from Reese and Ron and put it to work this week. We’re going to have their information will be in the show notes. We’ll be putting. Different things out about them. You can you can find Complete Legal at the Complete Legal US, and if you’re a Chicago attorney, their hub is right downtown at 205 West Randolph. Reach out to Maurice or Ron directly. Tell them you heard you heard them on the show. All right, if you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who could use it. The 1958 Lawyer is brought to you by Amata Office Suites. For more than 30 years, Amata has helped law firms of all sizes do more with less, build on our five pillars: fractional support staff, virtual office options, office space, legal community, and marketing support. Whether you’re a solo practitioner just starting out or an established firm looking to right size your overhead, Amata gives you the infrastructure of a big firm without the big firm price tag. Learn more at Amatofsta.com. Until next time, work on your firm, not just in it.

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