- 12Nov2018
-
Mobile to the Mainstream
- 0 Comments
By Craig Ball Once you’ve preserved the contents of a mobile device, how do you extract responsive content in forms that are searchable and amenable to review? Most information items on mobile devices aren’t “documents” that can be printed to a static format for review. Instead, much mobile content is fielded data that must retain a measure of structural integrity for intelligibility.
- 15Oct2018
-
The GDPR: More a Collaboration Opportunity than a Data Hindrance?
- 0 Comments
By Zach Warren, LegalTech News Editor-in-Chief The GDPR was front and center at the “International e-Discovery and Data Protection” session of Relativity Fest 2018, where panelists said it can be an opportunity to bake privacy into the discovery workflow. It’s a radical concept, but stay with me here. Perhaps, in spite of the extremely large potential fines and the headaches it has caused IT teams worldwide,
- 06Sep2018
-
Why Now is the Perfect Time to Take Control of Your eDiscovery
- 0 Comments
By ZyLAB eDiscovery is one of those tasks nearly everyone is happy to hand off to someone – anyone – else. “It’s too complicated,” they say. “Too expensive! And too time-consuming!” Granted, all that used to be true. But if you haven’t looked at eDiscovery lately, you may have missed how it’s evolved.
- 04Sep2018
-
The Most Important eDiscovery Cases of 2018 (So Far)
- 0 Comments
By Casey Sullivan 2018 has been an unusually quiet year for eDiscovery cases. Usually by this point, we would have at least a few blockbuster cases, with big sanctions and big controversy to make a big deal over. While we have had a few big fines, the jurisprudence in eDiscovery seems to have settled down greatly since the enactment of the 2015 amendments to the discovery rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
- 11Jun2018
-
6 Keys to Consider When Evaluating eDiscovery Review Platforms
- 0 Comments
By Kelly Twigger Technology of review software is constantly evolving, and many platforms are moving to the cloud. Firms that have purchased behind-the-firewall solutions are re-evaluating their expenditures, and in-house departments are looking to leverage their own tools to reduce costs with outside counsel. Firms that have had Summation and Concordance in the past are reassessing their options.
- 16Mar2018
-
Need Help Finding eDiscovery and Legal Tech Software? Here’s Your Guide.
- 0 Comments
By Kelly Twigger One of the most difficult things about the explosion of legal technology is that it is a full-time job just to know what’s out there and how to find solutions that work for you and your firm or legal department. And we all have time for that on top of our other full-time jobs,
- 08Jan2018
-
A Quick Reference Guide to Understanding eDiscovery Pricing
- 0 Comments
By Kelly Twigger One of the biggest challenges in purchasing ediscovery services is trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison between providers, platforms, and services, including their pricing. It’s a feat that’s next to impossible. Buying ediscovery services is a lot like buying a car — when you walk away from the deal,
- 05Dec2017
-
Wait. No, Go. Wait. No, Go. Striking the Balance on when to Incur Costs For eDiscovery
- 0 Comments
By Kelly Twigger Ah, the mad scramble of ediscovery. You know what I’m talking about — where the client wants to wait and wait and wait on engaging in discovery until the last possible minute to avoid unnecessary costs, requiring everyone to run around crazy for days on end when the client realizes that deadlines are imminent.
- 18Dec2016
-
Key Takeaways from the Sedona Conference Commentary on Defense of E-Discovery Process
- 0 Comments
The Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1) has proposed a set of principles and practical guidance for the eDiscovery process in its recent publication, “Commentary on Defense of Process: Principles and Guidelines for Developing and Implementing a Sound E-Discovery Process” (available for download here). The Commentary seeks to address what parties can do to avoid,
- 16Nov2016
-
Five Discovery Trends to Watch in 2016
- 0 Comments
The most recent attempt to reduce scope and cost of discovery is reflected in the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that became effective December 1, 2015. While the new amendments meaningfully focus on reducing costs associated with high volumes of data, there are other emerging concerns which continue to push the boundaries of reasonableness,
- 18Oct2016
-
Cross-Matter and Vendor Message ID
- 0 Comments
At last week’s ILTACON in Washington, D.C., Beth Patterson, Chief Legal and Technology Services Officer for Allens in Sydney, asked a panel why e-discovery service providers couldn’t standardize hash values so as to support identification and deduplication across products and collections. If they did, you could use work from one matter in another.
- 18Oct2016
-
IT and Legal Walk into a Bar: Why Strong Interdepartmental Relationships are a Must in E-Discovery
- 0 Comments
The E in E-Discovery requires expertise in tech as well as law, and the most successful in-house legal teams bring those disciplines together. Legal professionals become more technology savvy. IT team members begin to understand the e-discovery process and how to help Legal preserve and collect the required data. But in order to reach the highest levels of efficiency,
- 20Sep2016
-
What is Contextual Diversity and Why Is It Important in TAR?
- 0 Comments
Contextual Diversity is an exploratory tool found only in the Insight Predict system that runs automatically as part of a technology-assisted review project. Many TAR systems concentrate exclusively on relevance feedback, that is, giving you the unreviewed documents predicted to be the most relevant. But Insight Predict’s Contextual Diversity system also adds in some exploratory documents to help make sure you’ve looked into all the corners of your document collection,
- 23Aug2016
-
E-Discovery Travel Guide Prepares Legal Teams for Adventure
- 0 Comments
The e-discovery process is definitely a trip. With each new matter comes new challenges, variables, data types, and key players—both inside and outside of your organization. And like a road trip, it can be a nightmare or a grand adventure. What it boils down to is the perfect mix of planning,
- 26Jul2016
-
Some Things Don’t Need to be Discovered. Protect Sensitive Data in Discovery.
- 0 Comments
Today’s corporate information systems are awash with highly sensitive data. Whether it’s personally identifiable information (“PII”), personal health information (“PHI”), financial and payment information, intellectual property and trade secrets, source code—the list goes on—sensitive information exists in virtually every collection of data. It’s found in expected locations, like organized, well-managed databases;
- 28Jun2016
-
Proportionality and Labeling ESI Productions
- 0 Comments
The new Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are bringing new voices to discuss eDiscovery. Magistrate Judge Nina Y. Wang issued a thoughtful opinion of the new Rules in Kissing Camels Surgery Ctr., LLC, v. Centura Health Corp. (D.Colo. Jan. 22, 2016, Civil Action No. 12-CV-03012-WJM-NYW) 2016 U.S. Dist.
- 28Jun2016
-
Embracing New Computer Forensics Paradigms
- 0 Comments
Computer forensics is a fast-changing industry. New mobile devices, increased use of the cloud to store data, and social media all present new challenges to collecting data. It’s not enough to limit a data collection to files and emails anymore. Smartphones, tablets, email, instant messaging platforms, traditional file shares, and more all need to be included in a collection.
- 25May2016
-
When Big Data and Litigation Collide
- 0 Comments
Let’s face it, today we’re living in a world of “big data” and bigger data. Like it or not, the world is now data driven, fueled by an ever-evolving variety of data sources. For the most part, we’ve become inured to it — “big data” is just part of the social vocabulary now.
- 19Apr2016
-
Why I Love Predictive Coding
- 0 Comments
Making document review fun with Mr. EDR and Predictive Coding 3.0 Many lawyers and technologists like predictive coding and recommend it to their colleagues. They have good reasons to do so. It has worked for them. It has allowed them to do e-discovery reviews in an effective, cost efficient manner. That is true for me,
- 22Mar2016
-
Turning on the Lights in a Dark (Data) Room
- 0 Comments
At breakneck speed, businesses and individuals are amassing huge volumes of disparate and obsolete data—data that has long gone “dark” within an organization. Dark data is the neglected data accumulated by an organization during regular business activities—the aging information, untouched archives, ancient web log files, old records of email correspondence. This data is intermingled with highly valuable and sometimes sensitive business information,
- 22Mar2016
-
Don’t Free Fall on the Duty to Preserve
- 0 Comments
The duty to preserve is a tricky beast. Determining when a party “knew or should have known that litigation was imminent” is often a free fall into analyzing the facts of when a party had notice of a lawsuit. There are times when it is very obvious that a party should have ejected and pulled the ripcord on not destroying any evidence.
- 23Feb2016
-
The Fourth Generation of eDiscovery Offerings is Upon Us
- 0 Comments
If you read this blog regularly, you know that we’re big admirers of Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery site, from his software and services “mashup” to his running 14-plus year list of mergers, acquisitions, and investments in the eDiscovery industry. Now, Rob provides a generational breakdown of eDiscovery technology offerings, giving organizations out there useful information to differentiate offerings in the eDiscovery marketplace.
- 19Jan2016
-
Print Screen for Social Media Evidence: Not Defensible and Also Very Expensive
- 0 Comments
As we often note on this blog, courts continue to routinely find that the testimony of an individual who merely printed a copy of a social media webpage is insufficient to authenticate social media evidence. Notable recent cases with such rulings include Linscheid v. Natus Medical Inc., 2015 WL 1470122, at *5-6 (N.D.
- 19Jan2016
-
Databases in Discovery
- 0 Comments
Five years ago, I wrote The Luddite Litigator’s Guide to Databases in E-Discovery to accompany a lecture on the subject at the 2010 Georgetown Advanced E-Discovery Institute. When I went looking for source material for the article, I was struck by how little there was. Databases hold most of what we seek in discovery;
- 22Dec2015
-
Altitude Woes: Avoiding the Dangers of BYOC in EDiscovery
- 0 Comments
In a recent article, my Kroll Ontrack colleague, Michele Lange, discussed the ominous presence of the Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) movement within corporations. As with all new technologies, the BYOC movement has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, by allowing employees to use personal cloud storage systems, there is an increase in efficiency,
- 22Dec2015
-
Proportionality in Asymmetrical Discovery
- 0 Comments
The Plaintiffs and Defendants in an SEC case highlight the importance of proportionality between asymmetrical parties. In such cases, one side has all of the electronically stored information for discovery requests; the other side does all the requesting. However, the smaller party can have an extremely high burden reviewing any produced ESI,
- 17Nov2015
-
Preparing for the eDiscovery Wave of the Internet of Things
- 0 Comments
Among the recent developments in the eDiscovery industry, one of the most anticipated trends is the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT has been in the news for a few years now. But for the eDiscovery world, 2014 marked the IoT’s emergence as a hot topic. This is due in large part to the increasing number of interconnected devices,
- 17Nov2015
-
Deduplication: Why Computers See Differences in Files that Look Alike to You
- 0 Comments
An employee of an e-discovery service provider asked me to help him explain to his boss why deduplication works well for native files but frequently fails when applied to TIFF images. The question intrigued me because it requires we dip our toes into the shallow end of cryptographic hashing and dispel a common misconception about electronic documents.
- 20Oct2015
-
Wearable Tech Data as Evidence in the Courtroom
- 0 Comments
When I first started writing about the importance of social media to lawyers in the mid-2000s, it was an uphill battle to convince lawyers that social media should matter to them. It wasn’t until social media began cropping up in cases a few years later, both as the medium for the commission of crimes and as evidence in courtrooms,
- 20Oct2015
-
Sorting Out the Real Cost and Value of E-Discovery Technology
- 0 Comments
There has been a bit of talk lately in the e-discovery echo chamber about fixed-price models for processing, hosting, review, and productions. The purported goal of this discussion was to create a stir and drum up business. Yet conspicuously absent from this entire discussion was talk of total cost, aka value.
- 22Sep2015
-
Addressing the Continuing Challenges of Mobile Devices
- 0 Comments
Organizations should develop a plan to tackle the data security, information retention, and e-discovery problems arising from mobile devices. The challenges associated with mobile device use continue to be splashed across the headlines. This year alone has seen various reports on mobile mishaps involving Samsung, Starbucks, the former U.S. Secretary of State,
- 22Sep2015
-
In Legal Search Exact Recall Can Never Be Known
- 0 Comments
In legal search you can never know exactly what recall level you have attained. You can only know a probable range of recall. For instance, you can never know that you have attained 80 percent recall, but you can know that you have attained between 70 percent and 90 percent recall.
- 18Aug2015
-
Is There a Right to Fail in E-Discovery?
- 0 Comments
Disagreements about scope and process in e-discovery shouldn’t split between plaintiffs’ and defendants’ interests. After all, everyone is a requesting and producing party, whether north or south of the “v.” Yet, the reality is that most defense counsel see themselves as producing parties, and most plaintiffs’ counsel identify with requesting parties.
- 18Aug2015
-
Judges Believe Social Media will Have Biggest Effect on eDiscovery Over the Next Two Years
- 0 Comments
The good folks at Exterro recently released a very interesting report titled “Federal Judges Survey, eDiscovery Best Practices and Trends.” The title includes a link to download the report, which I highly recommend reading as it is good to know what the judges who rule on eDiscovery all the time are thinking.
- 21Jul2015
-
Document Preservation: Know When to Hold `Em and Know When to Fold `Em
- 0 Comments
The cut-throat, high stakes environment of a nail-biting poker tournament is oddly similar to the world of document preservation in litigation, investigations, and regulatory events. Though the former tends to take place in a smoke-filled, lowly lit room and the latter on computers (with less smoke, but perhaps the same amount of nail-biting),
- 21Jul2015
-
Why Fight Over Producing Metadata?
- 0 Comments
A party fighting over not producing metadata is like bringing a protective order to produce a document without ink on the paper. Metadata is part of the native file. The “Data about Data” is captured during collection and processed for production. An active effort would have to be made to strip a native file of its metadata,
- 09Jun2015
-
The Internet of Everything: What it Means for Lawyers
- 0 Comments
What does the Internet of Everything mean for lawyers? Evidence – lots and lots of new sources of evidence. The continuing loss of privacy. A life that is so connected to the Internet that it will be hard to get through even a few minutes of our day without the Internet having an impact.
- 05May2015
-
New Cases Provide Guidance on Social Media eDiscovery
- 0 Comments
Social networks continue to be a particularly ripe source of relevant ESI in eDiscovery. With the continued proliferation of case law, key trends are emerging and providing guidance regarding the production and preservation of social media. One of those trends – the need to prepare and respond to narrowly tailored discovery requests – has been captured in several recent cases.
- 07Apr2015
-
Focus on the Merits to Find What is Relevant, Not Search Terms Alone
- 0 Comments
Responding to a discovery request marries the practice of law to search technology. Rule 26 conferences in federal court often have parties spending a significant amount of time exchanging “search terms” to determine the most effective discovery protocol for a case. I think focusing on “search terms” alone is the wrong focus.
- 10Mar2015
-
Reduce E-Discovery Storage Costs Through Nearlining
- 0 Comments
Nearline. If this term isn’t in your ediscovery vocabulary, it should be. Nearlining is a feature that allows litigation teams to quickly and easily set aside irrelevant documents and keep them separate from the active document roster in a discovery database. By moving noncritical data from active to nearline in a document review tool,
- 04Feb2015
-
Location, Location, Location
- 0 Comments
I’m peripatetic. My stuff lives in Austin but I’m in a different city every few days. Lately looking for a new place for my stuff to await my return, I’m reminded of the first three rules of real estate investing: 1. Location, 2. Location, and 3. Location. Location has long been crucial in trial,
- 19Jan2015
-
Don’t Argue “Human Error” For Not Searching ESI
- 0 Comments
It is dangerous for lawyers to argue information was not searched for years because of “human error.” That is right up there with saying, “Your Honor, we goofed. Are we cool?” As we learned from Judge Kevin Fox, no, we are not cool. The case involved claims for wrongful termination and fighting over audio recordings and emails for over five years.
- 19Jan2015
-
Five Questions You Should Ask About Big Data Security and E-discovery
- 0 Comments
In the era of big data, vetting and asking the right security questions can help your organization save money and have peace of mind when it comes to ediscovery. Below is a general overview of some of the most important questions you should be discussing with your outside law firms and ediscovery service providers.
- 19Jan2015
-
Predictive Coding, Seed Sets, and the Work Product Doctrine
- 0 Comments
The use of predictive coding has been both contagious and controversial since its use began in eDiscovery. On the one hand, predictive coding has found welcome recipients in clients, counsel, and the courts, all of whom are seeking to expedite the ESI search and review process. Nevertheless, there have been disagreements regarding various aspects of predictive coding.
- 01Nov2014
-
Dem Phones, Dem Phones, Dem iPhones
- 0 Comments
- 01Sep2014
-
State Court Judges’ Perspective on E-Discovery
- 0 Comments
- 01Aug2014
-
Native Files and Protective Orders
- 0 Comments
- 01Aug2014
-
The Importance of Cybersecurity in eDiscovery
- 0 Comments
- 01Jul2014
-
eDiscovery 2014: In with the New?
- 0 Comments