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Above all things, Adam Rouse is curious. It’s a word that gets used indiscriminately these days, but Rouse is the kind of person you think about when you’re trying to think of the right embodiment of the expression. The current senior counsel and director of eDiscovery operations at Walgreens spent nearly fifteen years as a technology architect and engineer prior to going to law school.
Since that shift, he’s built out master-level experience in eDiscovery, reshaped the function at Fortune 500 companies, become a founding member of the pioneer Legal Data Intelligence (an initiative focused on breaking down barriers across compliance, privacy, IT, legal operations, and eDiscovery), and is passing along the sum of his knowledge as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law.
Rouse says the curiosity that has driven him was, at least in part, the byproduct of coming from two generations of teachers on his mother’s side. The attorney jokes about never being able to get away with anything at school, the same one his mother taught at. He was raised to respect and honor the tradition of teaching, the value of education, and the pursuit of knowledge.
“Helping build LDI and, eventually, teaching myself, is just a reflection of people in my career who saw a spark in me and helped me grow that into a fire,” Rouse says. “They helped me expand my network; they helped introduce me to new ideas. Almost anyone I think of in the eDiscovery space has had people like that, and I think it’s a very special part of that industry.”
The attorney’s journey into eDiscovery was just a happenstance. His dual fluency in technology and law led a deputy CISO to enlist him for a project with Walgreens’ legal department. Rouse says his passion and area of focus were basically an accident, but the result has shaped his career.
This is Rouse’s second round at Walgreens, having been recruited by US Foods to build their eDiscovery function from scratch in 2020. The role was created with him in mind. The only problem was that when Rouse successfully took the function in-house, he felt like his work was done. Walgreens wanted him back, but he wanted to approach the job from a different angle.
“I wanted to come and drive change from the legal side of the organization, not the IT side,” Rouse explains. “Given the volume and scope of the projects we were working on, we needed to spin up our eDiscovery on the legal side of things. Thankfully, the team agreed.”
Returning to Walgreens wasn’t a rudimentary exercise; Rouse was tasked with completely revamping the existing eDiscovery program. His work would shift eDiscovery from an outsourced, vendor-dependent model to one that has saved Walgreens millions. Rouse championed the adoption of Relativity for data processing and review, negotiated better vendor agreements, and instituted workflows to process all data internally.
The senior counsel’s work with Relativity has been so pivotal that he was nominated to the company’s inaugural AI Visionary group and named a finalist for the AI Innovation Award in honor of his impact on AI adoption in the legal industry.
The lawyer’s work outside of his day job has been just as visionary.
Rouse is a founding member of Legal Data Intelligence (LDI). The initiative is focused on creating a common framework and language for data-driven legal practice. It’s not designed to replace existing legal frameworks like EDRM or CLOC. Instead, it operates at a macro level to provide scalable, repeatable solutions for managing massive legal data sets and responding to complex requests.
“I think the most innovative people in our industry are the ones who can effectively solve problems across disciplines,” the attorney says. “LDI helps clarify and validate transferable skills and make us more valuable to our organizations.”
And as for his teaching, Rouse says he was a TA for both his 2L and 3L years of law school. He just loves teaching. He’s tutored, he’s mentored, and now he says he gets the opportunity to help others succeed and pass along what he’s learned in his own career.
“I’m firmly rooted in my career and path now, and I think at this point that I want to advocate for this industry and help law students who might love this industry to learn more about it,” Rouse says.
Meanwhile, back at work, Rouse is also heavily involved in Walgreens’ legal internship program. As a mentor for summer associates, Rouse says the company has received fantastic reviews from interns, getting experience with AI tools and other standout experiences that are one-of-a-kind.
Walgreens is also a partner with Chicago Legal Prep Charter Academy, where Rouse and company help bring future law schools to students from underserved and poor communities in Chicago. It’s just another way to help give back, Rouse says. There are more curious minds who just need a hand to get moving on their own life journeys.
“Adam has an exceptional ability to cut through legal complexity and deliver solutions that drive real business impact for Walgreens. His keen strategic mind and pragmatic counsel have consistently proven invaluable to both internal teams and external clients alike.”
–Ashish Prasad, VP and General Counsel
