John Benson

About John Benson

A seasoned e-discovery and digital forensics professional with over a decade of experience bringing diverse teams together to deliver optimum experiences for end users and results for firm clients. I bring an exceptional track record of leadership inside and outside the work environment with a passion for technology and a clear vision of technology’s potential to transform the legal landscape. I frequently speak to organizations as an expert presenter on the topics of e-discovery, digital forensics, and cyber security. I’ve also served as a guest lecturer at the UMKC School of Law on the topics of emerging legal technology and cyber security. As Solutions Architect, I support the firm\'s attorneys and clients with all aspects of discovery, from collection and forensics, to document review, and on through production and trial presentation. As product manager of the Relativity e-discovery platform, I coordinate technology platform integrations, updates and upgrades, manage user stories and use cases, and manage vendors, consultants, analysts, and developers. Additionally I design and implement best in class processes and procedures related to data collection, data processing, and document review. I built the internal digital forensics practice from the ground up, creating a new firm service offering and profitable revenue stream. Over the years I\'ve been involved in digital investigations involving topics ranging from trade secret theft and non-compete violations to white collar crime and cyber incident response. As a founding member of SecKC, the worlds largest monthly information security meetup, I am the meeting emcee, serve on the code of conduct board and the speaker review board. I founded the Cowtown Computer Congress; a not for profit hackerspace in Kansas City providing a shared workshop and teaching facility to hackers, makers, tinkerers and other creatives to collaborate, learn from one another and build cool stuff.

Experience

1. Solutions Architect

   Stinson LLP

   Jul 2016 — Present · Kansas City, MO, US

   Digital Forensics * Built the digital forensics practice from the ground up, creating a new firm service offering and revenue stream * Conduct digital forensic investigations related to theft of intellectual property, employment law, white collar crime, and general business litigation matters* Collect data from a variety of physical and cloud based sources including Office365, Google Workspace, iCloud, Slack, computers, tablets, and mobile devices* Bridged mobile forensics and e-discovery platforms to make text messages for review and production in a flexible and highly usable formProduct Management * Product manager for Relativity, the firm wide discovery platform used by hundreds of users to analyze terabytes of data across thousands of cases* Design standardized user and administrator workflows for discovery processes across the EDRM phases and build tailored software interfaces to support them* Coordinate updates, feature deployment, and standards implementation for a national team of consultants, analysts, end users and vendors* Evaluate, implement, and internally market new technologies * Manage day to day relationships with third party host and software developer* Spearhead major initiatives related to data management and artificial intelligence* Work with end users to gather feedback and constantly improve systems * Measure vendor performance based on key performance indicators * Work with end users to identify opportunities to implement features that enhance user experience and efficiency * Build and maintain custom Relativity applications and dynamic objectsWork across teams to coordinate efforts between network engineering, risk management, and database administration * Lead large scale data migrations between firms and database platforms

Education

• University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

  Juris Doctor

  2003 — 2006

• University of Missouri Trulaske College of Business

  B.S.B.A., Finance, Economics

  1999 — 2003