SUBPOENA RESPONSE
Top 5 Recommendations
Legal process teams share their top tips
Every year we update our list of top five suggestions to improve subpoena response based on conversations with legal and operational teams. Here are the latest tips and old favorites:
“Because our bank has so many lines of business, we didn’t have one centralized solution for intake, collaboration or delivery—Safari changed that.”
Erin HormoziManager, Legal Ops Specialist,
TIAA
FIRST
Set Expectations
By sending an acknowledgment email
A routine message to each issuer is a small step that delivers big dividends. You acknowledge receipt, estimate your response date, ask that they not call for updates in the meantime, and notify them of your estimated cost to respond. You save time on phone calls from issuers and put them on notice that you expect them to pay. In response, issuers typically either narrow the scope, abandon a request altogether, or just reimburse you as expected.
Sample: Issuer acknowledgment
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SECOND
Craft a Workflow
That puts everyone and everything in a single place
Back on this list for 2021, establishing a consistent process might be the single best improvement you can make. Many companies, even those who get a substantial number of subpoenas, still respond ad hoc—usually because they’re too busy with their workload to step back and consider how to do better. But without a routine, they waste time and usually fail to recover their costs. Forward-thinking teams have a process in place for each step from intake to delivery to collecting payment.
THIRD
Type Less
By using software that automates manual tasks
Consider just a few of the steps in subpoena response that your team likely handles manually: track requests, weed out duplicates, type routine correspondence and declarations, monitor deadlines, burn documents to external media, prepare a package to ship or an FTP site, create invoices, and record payments. Every one of these manual steps offers an opportunity to improve. We typically hear that subpoena numbers increase year over year, but resources stay the same. Automation can save your team 30-60 minutes per request.
FOURTH
Just Ask
To be reimbursed for your response costs
Occasionally we talk with a team that hesitates to ask issuers to reimburse them for the response costs they incur. Meanwhile, Safari customers who do present invoices routinely recover their costs. You’ll of course comply your obligation to respond, so what is the risk in asking the requesting party to voluntarily pay your reasonable cost?
“Prior to Safari, responding to subpoenas took a lot of effort, and we knew we were leaving money on the table.”
CHRISTINA SANTANGELOLitigation Manager,
Red Robin
FIFTH
Tell Your Story
By showing results to internal teams
Maybe you invoice $25 for a response that costs you $125. This year might bring 50% more subpoenas than 2020 did. An issuer may have failed to pay for five previous responses or wasted your time by serving the same subpoena three different ways. One team member could be handling twice as many responses as another. All of these would be useful points to know—but when you struggle to keep up with your workload and track your work in a spreadsheet, surfacing this type of insight takes time away from getting your work done. With automated reports, the system tracks your work as you do it, and with a click you can pull together the information you need to manage workload and tell your value story to internal teams and management.
NEXT STEPS
- Schedule a conversation with a Safari workflow specialist or live demo of the system over Zoom: SafariSOP.com/demo
- Contact Safari Sales at sales@safariSOP.com or 425.298.3620
- View more resources in the Safari Watering Hole
