When you’re hiring for eDiscovery roles, you’re dealing with a unique challenge. These positions require professionals who understand both legal processes and complex technology, making them some of the hardest roles to fill in the market today.
The situation becomes even more complicated when CISOs and practice leads need to work together on hiring decisions. Security leaders focus on technical safeguards and risk management, while legal practice managers prioritise client service and regulatory compliance. These different perspectives often create friction during the recruitment process.
This guide shows you how to bridge that gap. You’ll learn why these conflicts happen, what makes eDiscovery hiring so challenging, and most importantly, how to create a collaborative process that gets both teams what they need. The result is faster hiring decisions and better long-term placements.
The tension between security and legal teams during eDiscovery hiring stems from fundamentally different evaluation priorities that often put them at odds during candidate assessment:
These competing priorities create a complex dynamic where both teams interview the same candidate but reach entirely different conclusions about their suitability. The challenge isn’t that either perspective is wrong, but rather that organisations need a framework for reconciling these different evaluation approaches to make effective hiring decisions that satisfy both security and legal requirements.
eDiscovery roles demand a rare combination of skills that makes finding qualified candidates exceptionally difficult in today’s competitive market:
These interconnected challenges create a perfect storm for recruitment difficulties. The technical requirements alone eliminate many candidates, but the additional demands for legal knowledge, project management skills, and adaptability to emerging technologies further narrow an already limited pool. This scarcity gives top candidates significant leverage in salary negotiations and role selection, making it crucial for organisations to present compelling opportunities that address both security and legal team priorities.
Creating unified job requirements starts with getting both teams in the same room before you write the job description. Schedule a collaborative session where CISOs and practice leads can discuss their priorities openly and find common ground. This conversation should focus on the specific challenges your organisation faces, not generic role requirements.
Start by identifying the core competencies that both teams consider non-negotiable. These might include understanding of legal hold processes, experience with data privacy regulations, and the ability to work under pressure during litigation deadlines. Document these shared priorities first, then address the areas where perspectives differ.
For technical requirements, create a tiered system that distinguishes between essential skills and preferred qualifications. Security teams might consider advanced forensic capabilities essential, while legal teams view them as nice-to-have. By categorising requirements this way, you can evaluate candidates more objectively and avoid eliminating qualified professionals over secondary concerns.
Develop shared evaluation criteria that both teams can use during interviews. Instead of separate technical and legal assessments, create scenario-based questions that test both skill sets simultaneously. For example, ask candidates to walk through how they would handle a data breach discovery during an ongoing eDiscovery project. This approach reveals both technical competence and legal awareness.
Establish clear weighting for different evaluation criteria before you start interviewing. If client communication skills are more important than advanced technical capabilities for this particular role, document that priority upfront. This prevents post-interview debates about which candidate strengths matter most.
Consider creating a joint interview panel with representatives from both teams. This ensures candidates are evaluated consistently and prevents miscommunication about their responses. It also demonstrates to candidates that your organisation values collaboration between security and legal functions.
A successful collaborative recruitment process requires structured coordination and clear communication protocols that keep both security and legal teams aligned throughout the hiring journey:
When conflicts arise, focus decisions on specific business needs rather than abstract team preferences. If you’re hiring primarily for litigation response, legal requirements might take precedence, while roles focused on proactive data governance could prioritise security considerations. This business-context approach helps teams move past personal preferences toward objective decision-making that serves organisational goals effectively.
The key to successful eDiscovery hiring lies in recognising that security and legal teams bring complementary perspectives that strengthen your recruitment process. Rather than viewing their different priorities as obstacles, use them as a comprehensive evaluation framework that helps you identify truly well-rounded candidates.
Building this collaborative approach takes time and effort upfront, but it pays dividends in better hiring decisions and stronger working relationships between teams. When security and legal professionals work together effectively during recruitment, they’re also more likely to collaborate successfully on ongoing projects and initiatives.
At Iceberg, we understand these dynamics because we work with both security leaders and legal practice managers every day. Our experience placing eDiscovery professionals across different industries has shown us that the most successful hires happen when organisations take a collaborative approach to recruitment from the very beginning.
