Karen Hendrickson Email and Phone Number

Directed a team of 150 Practice Support professionals throughout the 15 U.S. offices reporting to the Global Chief Operating Officer. Developed and implemented strategies to ensure that the Firm’s clients receive the highest quality legal support services in a cost-effective manner. Collaborated with other Chief Administrators, Practice Group leads, and diverse teams to ensure optimal operating levels and efficiencies in keeping with business strategies.• Fostered and maintained a positive, responsive, accountable and team-oriented Practice Support environment in all U.S. offices, encouraging cross-office and cross-departmental support.• Liaised effectively with Partners, clients and specific Business Unit Legal Process Managers to understand business goals, market trends, and competitors for the development of collaborative strategies. • Partnered closely with key stakeholders for proposed initiatives and recommended policy and procedural changes to the GCOO, CG, CIO, CFO and CEO.• In conjunction with the finance team, developed and managed budgets, communicated utilization and realization numbers with firm leaders and developed cost-benefit and profitability analysis for ongoing initiatives to identify areas for growth and improvement.• Developed the Firm’s innovative electronic discovery processes which brought efficient solutions using advanced technologies both in the contentious and non-contentious spaces.• Developed defensible and cost-effective solutions to create profit centers.• Leveraged in-house counsel selected vendors to achieve consistent and favorable rates for clients.• Ensured that the Practice Support departments comply with data protection, and U.S. Federal and state rules and regulations by developing and monitoring Best Practices for risk reduction, privacy and compliance.

Managed a department of 20+ Project Managers and Analysts to provide comprehensive support for all electronic discovery and trial support needs for a team of 150 litigators and 250 active cases.• Reported to the Director of IT and coordinated efforts with the IT department to establish and develop protocols for firm-wide support of the litigation teams.• Developed business initiatives and projections to manage a multi-million-dollar budget with direct control of staffing, hardware and software purchases, firm training and CLE initiatives, negotiation of vendor contracts and management of complex international trial support needs.• Developed billable targets for all department staff and increased gross revenue by 80 percent in two years.• Reduced client write-offs to 10% by developing time tracking standards and task timelines increasing overall revenue realization.• Forged strong vendor partnerships to obtain favourable pricing.• Revised billing strategies and monitored in-house capacity to off-load large cases to vendor partners as needed.• Implemented firm-wide Best Practices regarding overall electronic discovery, particularly processing, hosting, review and production of large multi-party litigation.• Partnered closely with clients to develop data preservation, data harvesting initiatives and development of direct and secure data transfer strategies to streamline forensic collection at multi-location client sites.• Prepared and maintained budgets and variances for all ongoing cases.• Coordinated and managed the establishment of an onsite temporary attorney review team.• Established document review strategies to track quality control percentages, and measure performance.• Developed variance and tracking reports for all projects, prepared and maintained budgets and verified client billings.

Provided regional support within the Morgan Lewis Resources practice group; the Firm's 4th largest practice, including coordination with the IT department to establish litigation support protocol and preparing strategies for acquiring and implementing state of the art technologies firm wide.• Responsible for providing broad and detailed structure to the newly established Litigation Technology department within the Morgan Lewis Resources practice group.• Conducted daily management and oversight of all detailed of electronic discovery and litigation support for the east coast offices, including New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, Princeton, and Miami, which included preparation of business initiatives and staffing plans as well as negotiating vendor contracts and pursuing creative solutions for client's electronic discovery need.• Established formal job descriptions, and technology standards. Hired and trained new teams for all five East Coast offices.• Advised case teams and clients on data preservation initiatives and managing. Securing client data across U.S. and international litigation.• Worked closely with clients to establish best practices and ensure defensible strategies are in place for all data restoration and culling efforts.• Established, in conjunction with IT, centralized server management to eliminate data duplication as well as control access of sensitive client data.• Coordinated data review and production strategies with large temporary attorney review centers in the PH and WA office. • Developed standardized and coordinated training in the use of litigation software tools, established production protocol and advised cases teams on production options.• Worked directly with the GC of a major international client to guide a large international Anti-Trust litigation both in Asia and Europe, ensuring compliance with EU Privacy laws and maintaining of procedures to prevent cross contamination of data across the U.S. borders.

Managed and oversaw all aspects of litigation support for the legal dept. of ConEd, including budgets and strategic direction for over 5,000 asbestos claims.