Our Proclamation

Driven by industry-wide structures that promote overwork, poor mental health plagues eDiscovery practitioners.

The Mind-Budget Connection (“MBC”) is a group of volunteer eDiscovery professionals comprised of in-house counsel, law firm lawyers, and vendors.  The MBC’s mission is to address and analyze industry-wide practices that contribute to the problem and negatively affect the quality of service clients receive, in particular contractual arrangements that encourage a commercial “race to the bottom” that often results in a heavy human toll.

The MBC firmly believes that good mental health is not only necessary to improve personal well-being but is also good business. Healthier minds result in greater peak performance, which leads to more efficient work product and better client outcomes.

Our approach to changing the contractual foundations that drive poor mental health outcomes in eDiscovery is guided by two core tenets: awareness and commitment:

Awareness

The first step to changing a problem is awareness. We aim to shine a light on the issue of burnout in our industry and bring attention to its root causes. We believe this is not a problem that can be solved by any individual; the personal drive for self-care and mindfulness are not enough.  Rather, we must examine the way we contractually agree to interact with one another and how those agreements affect the mental health of those actively working on client engagements. 

Commitment

Beyond awareness, we believe the necessary structural change to the eDiscovery industry requires the following commitments:

• Conduct evidence-based studies, research, thought leadership, and peer-to-peer discussions to educate practitioners at all levels about these issues
• Provide the eDiscovery industry with a practical framework practitioners can use to effectuate change
• Continually advocate and build support in the eDiscovery industry for these initiatives
• Ensure these initiatives have a measurable, positive economic impact on the businesses that adopt them