LegalWeek Interview: Brad Schaffel of Sullivan Cromwell

Go ahead and tell us who you are, where you work, what you do here. Great. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Brad Schaffel.

I a senior manager of electronic discovery and litigation support for Sullivan and Cromwell. I've been with the firm for almost five and a half years now. But you've been in Discovery for quite some time.

Yes. I have. In fact, I realized that this month, March is my thirtieth anniversary of working in the profession. That is something thirty years.

Right. Sometimes -- Yeah. -- it definitely it definitely has had those moments. It's not always the easiest profession, which I think we know.

Right. Alright. Please. You know, I'm in that camp. I'm definitely in that camp, and I ask for everyone's help.

Let's get rid of the e. Let's retire it. Let's retire it. There's just discovery. We're back to where we started.

There's a only discovery. The pendulum has has swifted back in the other direction. Absolutely. Right.

Showing the client that does not have a computer and Why differentiate at this point? That's right. Exactly.

Be e before electronic is So how many legal weeks have you been to over the years? So you've been in the business for thirty. Thirty. I cannot recall off top of my head how long we've been doing used to be called legal tech, but did used to be called legal tax -- Right.

-- and I could not, for the life of me, tell you how many total I've been to. I know I've been to at least sixteen the last sixteen -- Mhmm. -- give or take, you know, with with pandemic and what have you. But I realized that during my my first job when I was a paralegal, and it was before Windows, we were in a dos based world, I attended legal tech then looking for a docketing software.

So Is that right? Yeah. I go back maybe not the full thirty years -- Yeah. -- but, you know, definitely almost.

No question. It was much much smaller. Right. And I feel then I work for a very small offer So it was, I think, a little bit different in that you attended to solve a problem or to educate yourself.

Now it's a little bit like homecoming weekend. That's right. It is. It is. It is.

Seeing a lot of old friends and new faces and still learning new things, but then it was really it was a tech show, you know, as I recall and you were going to purchase something or solve a problem because, you know, technology in the legal space was just starting to ramp up and pick up speed. It was right when Windows ninety five was hitting the industry and That's amazing. Yeah. So it was different.

It was very different. It was definitely nothing like what we see today.

Was it people were so relieved to see each other in person again? Or People were. People there were there was a sigh of relief. There was that collective release that people felt, but it was muted also because there was still a mask mandate.

This year, it does feel like it's very much back to the way it was pre pandemic.

It's party. It's a scene, man. It is. It is it's interesting. So I was not here last year, but this is my first one in four years. Mhmm. And I used to go every year.

I'm a tough sell in that regard because I'm always looking for the knowledge that I don't already have.

And it sometimes becomes difficult. Those of us who work day to day in the industry could very easily, perhaps, be a panelist. You're the one sharing our knowledge with the audience. You know?

So who is presenting or speaking or has something that we're not experts on ourselves yet, that we are not running into, or who else is running into the challenges day to day that we're experiencing that I think to the early days of discovery and with support where we would do lunch and learns -- Right. -- as a community, as an industry and you know you sort of went around the table and what are you struggling with? And, you know, what is this group wise email as opposed to this outlook email? Gotcha.

What's your plan to be able to give the gift of knowledge to other people when you leave here at legal week? Well, my role in my career as, you know, as a manager as somebody who leads other professionals is to share that knowledge. I mean, that in a way that's my only responsibility, my only role. You know, it's no longer about me, and you know, it's about the next generation of our industry.

In our community and sharing what we know with them. So I'll take what I learned and bring it back to the firm or if I'm, you know, any of my networking groups that maybe I'll be speaking with, I will share it freely then and there because I think as an industry, we are better for it when we when we do share what we know. Hopefully, then someone else that I'm speaking with will share what they know. And fill in any gaps in my knowledge that I don't already have or cover those things I don't know that I'm missing.