Getting to Know our Team: Danielle Noonan

A common thread among the lawyers at QuisLex is feeling confined at traditional law firms and have a desire for adventure. My story is not so different. After law school, I was a litigation associate at a New York law firm focused on pharmaceutical patent and product liability. It was an amazing experience and interesting work but, after three years, it was time to find a different work environment. Alternative legal career opportunities were compelling to me, and my search led me to a position based in India. Feeling adventurous (and a little apprehensive), I applied. When I learned that Ram Vasudevan was the Founder and CEO, any apprehension disappeared. I had met and worked closely with Ram when he was at Skadden a few years earlier. I soon left New York to join QuisLex in Hyderabad for seven years. That time in India was incredible, and what I learned about process from that team and culture has made me a better lawyer.

Part of that culture is to deliver client delight and ensure client success. Today, I am back in New York and happy to represent QuisLex stateside. An important part of my job is to help educate clients who are newer to the eDiscovery space on industry standards, to set realistic expectations, and provide them with the comfort that we have the expertise and sufficient controls in place to guarantee a defensible work product that will always be higher than the industry standard. At QuisLex, “client delight” is not a marketing slogan. It is a way of life and a point of pride for the team.

One key reason that we are able to deliver quality work is our permanent workforce, which provides consistency. Most other managed services organizations do not employ their people as full-time employees. QuisLex does. Not only that but many have very long tenures at the company. This workforce is our central hub and drives the implementation of consistent standards and guidelines for our clients across all projects and with various outside counsel and vendors. It is this consistency that delivers successful outcomes. The team’s depth of institutional knowledge, having worked with most clients for years, allows us to hit the ground running on client matters without ramp-up time. This also makes it possible to continuously find more efficient and effective ways to do the work since we know it so well.

My colleagues are dedicated, driven and passionate. They make legal work more interesting because of their process and technical expertise. I’m proud of the work we do on specific matters, but some of the projects I have the most pride in are the ones where we design ways for clients to implement standardized processes and guidelines across all their matters. This does more to ensure consistency and build long-term efficiencies than delivering any single project ever could. Part of the work I truly enjoy is leveraging a diverse set of skills and talented team members to help clients save real money by strategically implementing technological, analytical and process-based solutions. These are skills I developed in India that I never would have obtained practicing law in New York.  

Understanding process and technology in addition to the law is not the only skill I learned from my colleagues in India. The management team always performs a Bollywood number for our annual event. The QuisLex talent show might be more intense! We rehearsed as hard as we worked. I cherish memories of gathering with colleagues on the roof each evening to learn the dance steps and listen to Bollywood music while watching the sunset over Hyderabad.

Danielle Noonan is Associate Vice President - Legal Services at QuisLex. 

She earned her Juris Doctor from Cardozo School of Law and her Advanced Masters of Law (LLM) in Digital Technology Law from Leiden University. She enjoys cooking vegan food, practicing yoga, and playing with her dogs.