Gather Some Workflow, Career, and Life Advice from Martha Louks and Stellar Women

Shortly after she took the stage during our keynote at Relativity Fest 2023 in Chicago, Martha Louks—director of technology services at McDermott Will & Emery—sat down with me for a Stellar Women podcast.

And wow, did Martha have a wealth of insight to share with us.

During our conversation, you’ll hear this superstar’s thoughts on short message data and the e-discovery challenges it presents; the many possible avenues of an e-discovery career; how to balance being a professional and a single parent; and plenty more.

This is one of Stellar Women’s most powerful, authentic, and poignant conversations—buckle up!

Blair: Can you set the landscape of why short message data is such a challenge for our community right now?

Martha: We started out with paper documents, right? And a paper document is what it is. We had interoffice memos, letters people were sending in the mail, whatever. There were boxes of paper, and we started scanning because it had to be digitized. So our platforms have all revolved around documents—original, real documents. And email fits pretty well into that paradigm, so now our systems are really, truly optimized for email and attachments. But short message data is different.

Let's say I've got a text message chain. Well, one message is not really a document, right? Five messages isn't really a document, but 150 messages isn't necessarily a document either.

It's a problem for technology because we have to figure out an entirely new way of dealing with this, from the start—from collection. Collection is going to be tough to solve because people use the platforms that they use, and we just need a way to collect from wherever the data is.

What we're doing in the industry is starting to format things in a standardized way, so that we're able to process data properly. That was one challenge with short message data: the challenge of just looking at this stuff in a way that the reviewer could easily understand. If I look at just one text alone in a document viewer, that's not very helpful. If I'm looking at a big, long list of text messages in a list—a document list—it's maybe a little bit better, but there are a lot of things I might want to do that are not going to work with that approach.

So now we start figuring out, how do I look at it? I want to see it the way it looked when the person was texting. I want those bubbles. I want to see a conversation and look at it like it was in the original form.

I also want to see the reactions and the emojis; I want to see everything because that gives you context to figure out sentiment.

Right. And you hit on the exact problem: there are discrete pieces of data, and the meaning comes from the context of the other pieces of data around them.

Years back, it was a processing challenge. We needed to have good data. I needed to know what to expect in a review platform so that we could work with it in a consistent way. And with email, you've got your To and From and CC, your subject, and your text. It's always the same fields; we know what we need to work with. But with modern data it's a little more complicated, to say the least. So it's a metaphysical step, and we're starting to standardize on the processing side.

Now, this is going to change discovery and the way we do it. We're going to revamp the industry because the technology is going to have to evolve to meet the needs of today's data challenges. And it's exciting.

I’ve been in discovery for a minute now. And you know, when I started working, I started as a paralegal.

I didn't know that! Did you ever see yourself here, when you were first starting out as a paralegal? That you'd be on stage and kind of leading the industry in this new revamp that we're having?

No, no, I didn't—I just wanted to get some experience working at a law firm. I had graduated college and I was taking some time off from school just to work and get life experience. Then I went to law school for not even a full year, and I quit because I realized that was not the path for me. And so, in my time as a paralegal, my thought was: “I'm just going to become an attorney and do, you know, lawyer things.”

What's it been like now, to kind of be center stage as a technologist instead?

It's humbling. It is humbling because this industry is filled with so many hardworking, smart people, and everybody is solving problems every single day. That's one of the reasons I like discovery. There are creative people who have just lots of interesting ideas, and to have recognition for that in this community makes me feel so proud.

This problem with modern data—we're going to have to change how we work across the board in every step. As we grapple with these challenges … there are so many opportunities to express ideas and opinions. The fact that people are open to it and agreeing just makes me feel really, really validated and really happy and proud.

Martha, you've been able to do all of this, do all of these speaking gigs, while managing a lot of other stuff. Let’s talk about the cognitive load that a lot of women in this industry carry along with their day-to-day jobs.

I think that's a really important conversation. For anybody listening who isn't aware, I'm a solo mom. My ex-husband passed away last year, and I've been dealing with how to balance all of this: your professional responsibilities and your home responsibilities. It's really tough. As you're growing in your career, hitting the point where we're moving into management or we need to really dig deep to go to the next level, you want to network with people and understand how your industry works and what the next thing is—and all of that takes time and it takes thought and consideration. And with women in particular, we know that women tend to do a lot more in the domestic sphere. There's the imbalance of that mental load, which creates cognitive stress. …

It is incredibly taxing. … And it's the best job I have. I love being a parent and I love my daughter. But it's hard sometimes. And sometimes I think the pressure is just from not having downtime. One of the challenges for me in these last several months has been just adapting to being on. When I'm at work, I'm not really in parent mode; I'm in work mode. And that's one thing. But then when work is done, I'm picking right back up and now I'm in parent mode. So after bedtime, you have maybe 1 or 2 hours—and most parents I know have that little time after the kids go to bed where this it’s like mom's time, and dad's time. This is where we sit down and we're going to watch an episode of TV.

What are some ways that we can prioritize ourselves? Any tips you have?

Absolutely. Self-care is the most important thing. What I have found, in my life, is that everything flows from feeling okay in myself and in my body. To be healthy is so important. I make exercise a big priority. And I try to make healthy eating a priority as much as I can. When I do, I feel better, and everything goes better. I perform better at work. I am a better parent. I'm a better friend.

Put your oxygen mask on first. I think taking care of yourself is so important. And if you don't do that, you're just going to feel more of a struggle with everything else.

Take care of your body and your mind.

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