Sam Kakoty

As noted yesterday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2019 (otherwise known as ILTACON) is happening this week and eDiscovery Daily will once again be covering the show and, this year, CloudNine will exhibiting at the show and participating in a major way.  There’s still time to check out the show at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in sunny Orlando area with a number of sessions available and as many as 191 exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

CloudNine will be exhibiting again at booth #624 and we have several exciting new features and enhancements to showcase at this year’s show (that we announced last week here).

Sessions of interest in the main conference tracks today include (all times ET):

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

Data Privacy – Everyone’s Getting In On It – Privacy From Europe to California and Beyond: HIPAA, DFS, GDPR…data privacy regulations keep evolving.  The implementation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is next on the horizon.  Other states and the federal government are also considering similar laws.

How will your existing procedures need to be revised in order to comply with the latest regulations?  What lessons learned from other data privacy requirements can be applied as you navigate the ever changing landscape?

Takeaways:

• What do I have to do to prepare for the future?
• What has been effective in the past that will help in the future?

Speakers include: Lauren Doerries, Information Governance Business Process Manager Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, L.L.P.; Tsutomu Johnson, CEO, PB Lab Parsons Behle & Latimer; Michelle Merola, Partner Hodgson Russ LLP.

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM:

Information Governance Roundtable – Security Edition: Join Information Governance professionals for a round table discussion on Information Governance strategies and trends.  The small group question and discussion format encourages participation from all attendees to take detailed dives into IG strategies.

Takeaways:

• Identify trends fellow Information Governance professionals encounter
• Share and learn strategies for tackling Information Governance goals

Speakers include: Al Pica, Senior Manager of Information Governance Ropes & Gray; Kathleen Jimenez, Information Governance Manager White & Case LLP; Jessica Marlette, Information Governance Counsel White & Case LLP.

Machine Learning and AI in Action (AI Series, Session 2): Demystify Machine Learning and AI by walking through a real-world example of a working model.  We will walk through all the steps – from prototyping to production – of developing a machine learning algorithms. We’ll look at data cleaning, model building/evaluation, and deployment. Explore how you take your new model and apply it/integrate it into applications.

Takeaways:

• Learn how to bring solutions to market fast
• Learn what it takes to build a successful machine learning model
• Learn the importance of data quality

Speakers include: Svetlana Grigoryeva, Manager, Application Development Shearman & Sterling, LLP; Shawn Hainsworth, Senior Architect/Developer & Programmer Cooley LLP; Dan Harsell, Senior VP, Technology Intapp.

So, what do you think?  Are you planning to attend ILTACON this year?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2019 (known as ILTACON) kicked off yesterday with several networking events, and begins in earnest today with the first day of sessions.  As always, eDiscovery Daily will once again be covering the show.  Over the next four days, we will provide a description each day of some of the sessions related to eDiscovery to give you a sense of the topics being covered.

CloudNine will be exhibiting again at booth #624 and we have several exciting new features and enhancements to showcase at this year’s show (that we announced last week here).

If you’re in the Orlando area, come check out the show at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort – there are a number of sessions available and as many as 191 exhibitors providing information on their products and services.  Sessions of interest in the main conference tracks today include (all times ET):

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM:

Outsource the App, But You Can’t Outsource Your Responsibility: As cloud-based solutions gain momentum with both law firms and corporate law departments, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is becoming more prevalent for software delivery and licensing model, gone are the ways of heavy in-house IT development for software.  As the industry moves toward outsourcing these cloud-based, SaaS-based solutions, one can’t help but wonder who ultimately has the responsibility of making sure everything is “ok”?  With news of data breaches happening more often than we want to hear, who ultimately has responsibility for data privacy and security? Who is ultimately responsible for making sure data preservation and collection is conducted with the utmost quality and precision?  Lastly, are there advantages or disadvantages from both technology and process perspective that cloud-based and SaaS-based solution edges out the traditional install-on-our-server mentality?

Takeaways:

• Learn how the move of applications to the cloud changed collection and preservation

Speakers include: Tim Hood, Senior Advisor Redgrave LLP; Brent Holmes, eDiscovery Program Director & Head of Legal Technology Siemens Corporation; Canaan Himmelbaum, Global Director Consilio.

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM:

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency & Smart Contracts; Disputes & Investigations Best Practices: As the viability and range of blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions become more evident, and as adoption ramps up, business and legal professionals should begin thinking about their potential uses, as well as how to effectively manage related disputes, investigations, and litigation. Providing definitions for innovations like blockchain, Smart Contracts and cryptocurrencies, this session will review past and present cases related to this emergent technology. Likewise, we’ll discuss current applications and their challenges and opportunities. From understanding the judicial system to dealing with discovery requests, we’ll explain investigative techniques and capabilities of cryptocurrencies and why this is not the normal investigation/discovery process.

Speakers include: Steven McNew, Senior Managing Director, Blockchain, Information Governance, Privacy & Security FTI Consulting.

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM:

Pitch Your Litigation Support Challenges: Submit your most difficult Litigation Support Challenges to our panel of experts and they’ll resolve them magically before your very eyes utilizing years of expertise and problem-solving skills.  At least they’ll try.  Either way, it should be entertaining and informative.

Speakers include: Thomas Morrissey, Sr. Director – Legal Ops & eDiscovery Purdue Pharma L.P.; Stephen Dooley, Acting Director of Electronic Discovery and Litigation Support Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Duane Lites, Director, Litigation Support Jackson Walker L.L.P.; Chris Haley, Director of Legal Technology Troutman Sanders LLP; Catherine McPherson, Litigation Management Consultant Bartlit Beck LLP.

And, of course, you don’t want to miss the Exhibit Hall Opening Reception – A Whole New World of Possibilities-A Journey through Classic TV – from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET.  Come join us at booth #624 and see what Classic TV show we decided to commemorate!

So, what do you think?  Are you planning to attend ILTACON this year?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Editor’s Note: Tom O’Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of computerized litigation support systems.  He has also been a great addition to our webinar program, participating with me on several recent webinars.  Tom has also written several terrific informational overview series for CloudNine, including his most recent one, Thinking Like a Millennial: How Millennials are Changing Discovery.  Now, Tom has written another terrific overview regarding the state of legal technology conferences titled What is the Future of the Legal Technology Conference? that we’re happy to share on the eDiscovery Daily blog.  Enjoy! – Doug

Tom’s overview is split into three parts, so we’ll cover each part separately.  Part one was Monday, part two was Wednesday, here is the third and final part.

My Observations Regarding Legal Tech Conferences

Are we left, then, with no true educational conferences?  Not entirely, as the Georgetown Law Advanced EDiscovery Institute offers a great value of 2 days of intense educational sessions every fall, albeit in one narrow field only and Prex makes a similar strong educational showing . But by and large, bar associations have taken up a large part of the slack, mostly at local or regional level.

The leader in that category is the ABA TechShow. Now in it’s 34th year and held in Chicago every year since 1989, TechShow has always had an emphasis on assisting attendees learn technology skills. In the same category are state and local bar association shows such as the Louisiana Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference, the Wisconsin Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference or the Illinois Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference, all of which offer a similar focus on skills necessary for the competent practice of law.

There is, however, another category of conference which has become increasingly predominant as traditional conferences fall off.  These are user conferences, which fall into two distinct types, general user group meetings and product specific user meetings.

The undisputed leader of the first category is ILTACON, the annual technology conference for members of the International Legal Technology Association. This 4-day conference (which is also open to non-members) once concentrated on large firms but now brings together legal technologists from small to large sized law firms, corporate and government law departments, academia and the G100 firms. Although it too has begun to drift more and more into the area of vendor speakers (this year’s conference has a Litigation Support Day with three organizers, one of whom is from legal technology giant Relativity and is also serving as Moderator for the day’s activities), I think it is no stretch to say that the 140 + sessions at this conference offer a deep dive into every facet of legal technology that is unparalleled in the conference world.

Other user groups like Sedona, CLOC, LMA and most especially the unfortunately often overlooked AALL, offer educational conferences primarily to members and remain true to the educational paradigm, while the area of user groups for specific products has both exploded and expanded to provide general educational sessions beyond the scope of just their own product information. Chief among these are the Clio Cloud Conference, Infusion by Exterro and the long standing Ipro Tech Show.  But, the one that stands head and shoulders above the others is Relativity Fest.

Offered every year in Chicago, Relativity Fest has thousands of attendees from 29 countries, participating in 17 workshops and over 180 sessions with more than 300 speakers.  The content covers everything from hands on training and certification in the Relativity product line but also numerous sessions on basic legal subjects with 19 subject qualifying for CLE credit at the 2018 conference. Much of the credit for that latter category goes to David Horrigan, Relativity Discovery Counsel and Legal Education Director, who does yeoman’s work overseeing the non-product specific sessions including an annual Judges Panels that is on my must attend list every year.

So, are big tech shows dead?  Well, I’d say as consistent sources of educational content, they are trending down.  Certainly, they are still a factor but exhibitor attendance is down and as we saw in New York this year, more vendors will focus on offsite activities in which they can completely control content. The trend seems to be for those with products or services to sell attending and networking but not exhibiting. The shows more specifically focused on users, specific practice areas or even user groups will continue to grow. I also predict that live streaming for both speakers and attendees, such as the U of Florida has done for several years now, will grow in prominence.

The big struggle will be to get the decisions about what is important to develop in the hands of the consumers: that is the attendees.  In his column noted in the previous part, Bob Ambrogi referenced legal scholar and economist Gillian K. Hadfield who argues for how to reinvent law for a global economy in her book, Rules for A Flat World.

Her recommendations? First, “Don’t leave it to the lawyers.” She recommends rather that the conversation needs to include those who are “paying the price of inadequate, complex, and costly legal infrastructure.”

In other words, let’s get the clients involved in deciding what is most important at a tech show. The product users, the people who argue the motions (there are some litigators still left out there, right?), the folks who process the data and review the documents.  They vote with their wallets and attendance figures will tell us who the winners are.

Is anyone listening?

So, what do you think?  Do you attend legal tech conferences and do you think attendance has proven valuable to you over the years?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Editor’s Note: Tom O’Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of computerized litigation support systems.  He has also been a great addition to our webinar program, participating with me on several recent webinars.  Tom has also written several terrific informational overview series for CloudNine, including his most recent one, Thinking Like a Millennial: How Millennials are Changing Discovery.  Now, Tom has written another terrific overview regarding the state of legal technology conferences titled What is the Future of the Legal Technology Conference? that we’re happy to share on the eDiscovery Daily blog.  Enjoy! – Doug

Tom’s overview is split into three parts, so we’ll cover each part separately.  Part one was Monday, here is the second part.

Legal Tech Conference Observations from Other Commentators

As I mentioned, a number of renowned legal commentators about the state of legal technology conferences all year. Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell took on the question in one their regular podcast earlier this year entitled The Future of Legal Tech Conferences. They had several interesting observations, including Tom’s comments that the entire notion of how we “consume” information has led to our notion of a conference changing with a differentiation between educational conferences vs those that emphasize the nuts and bolts of the practice of law. To that point, Dennis noted that conference attendees today expect something they can personally relate to rather than mere academic discussions.

Another respected commentator in the field, Bob Ambrogi, weighed in back in February with a column he entitled, Legal Tech For The Legal Elite: Observations Of Two Conferences.  Bob took a look at two conferences he just attended, Legalweek, or what he called “the conference formerly known as Legaltech” and Inspire.Legal, a new “unconference”. He was left, as he put it “… wondering how legal tech and innovation became the domain of the legal elite, and how true change will come about in law without more voices at the table.”

As Bob elaborated, these conferences were “… predominately by, for, and about the roughly 10 percent of the legal industry dominated by the world’s largest law firms and corporations.” The result is a roster of speakers that “… came mostly from large law firms … or from large corporations …  or from major vendors that provide products and services to large firms and large corporations, most prominently in the area of eDiscovery. “

He noted the glaring absences of “… the roughly 90 percent of lawyers who practice outside the large firm/large corporation ecosystem.” as well as “… those the legal system is failing ….” what he described as “… the lower economic levels of the market [which] are being underserved or not served at all.”

And while it is true that some shows with a strong vendor presence still maintain an educational integrity that is to be commended, shows such as the annual U of Florida Law E-Discovery Conference and perennial regional conferences by Todays General Counsel and the Masters Conference, the fact is that at least in the field of eDiscovery, the offerings are grim.

As prominent eDiscovery expert and prolific writer Craig Ball wrote in a column in May of this year:

“Look at the agenda of any major e-discovery conference (a few survivors litter the field).  Count the hours devoted to practical e-discovery skills that support the finding and turning over of relevant evidence.  Now, count the hours devoted to telling lawyers how to limit discovery, challenge discovery, assert proportionality, protect privacy, enforce data security, manage data breaches, delegate discovery to vendors, cut costs or cede their roles to robots.  Again, not trivial topics, but out-of-proportion to the ever-greater need for lawyer competency in information technology and electronic evidence.”

We’ll publish Part 3 – My Observations Regarding Legal Tech Conferences – on Friday.

So, what do you think?  Do you attend legal tech conferences and do you think attendance has proven valuable to you over the years?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Hard to believe, but we’re less than a week away from ILTACON 2019, being held this year at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in sunny (and hot and humid) Orlando!  Yep, we were in NYC in winter for Legaltech and now we’ll be in Orlando in summer for ILTACON!  Maybe one year, we could flip that?  Just sayin’.  The conference kicks off with some networking activities on Sunday and starts in earnest with sessions Monday through Thursday.  As usual, some of those sessions look interesting (especially for litigation support professionals), so let’s take a look at some of the more promising sessions to attend next week.

The Exhibit Hall will also be open for four days, starting with the annual opening reception: A Whole New World of Possibilities-A Journey through Classic TV.  CloudNine will be exhibiting again at this year’s show at booth #624.  I don’t want to give away how we will commemorate the opening reception, except to say that we will be “boldly going” there.  :o)  We’ll also be showcasing several new developments with our products and should be announcing as soon as today what those will be.  If you are attending ILTACON this year and would like to schedule a meeting with us, it’s not too late to go to this page to request a demo and indicate that you want to meet at ILTACON 2019!

Notable sessions for this year’s conference:

Monday

Pitch Your Litigation Support Challenges, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM ET: This year’s show has plenty of good stuff for litigation support professionals and it starts with this session where you can “[s]ubmit your most difficult Litigation Support Challenges to our panel of experts and they’ll resolve them magically before your very eyes utilizing years of expertise and problem-solving skills.”  Or “[a]t least they’ll try.”  With experienced professionals like Thomas Morrissey, Stephen Dooley, Duane Lites, Chris Haley and Catherine McPherson, it should be an informative and entertaining session.

Tuesday

Data Privacy – Everyone’s Getting In On It – Privacy From Europe to California and Beyond, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM ET: There’s certainly no more timely topic than data privacy and this session plans to discuss what you have to do to prepare for the future, including what has been effective in the past.  So, if you’re concerned about data privacy, this would be a good session to check out.

Machine Learning and AI in Action (AI Series, Session 2), 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM ET: This session promises to “Demystify Machine Learning and AI by walking through a real-world example of a working model…from prototyping to production”.  If it really does that, then who wouldn’t want to check that out?

Wednesday

Litigation Support Day, 9:00 AM – 4:15 PM ET: Yep, that’s right – a whole day devoted to topics related to litigation support.  It’s ILTACON’s “new concept in educational programming”, featuring “a DAY of SPARK (Short, Provocative, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Knowledgeable) talks by leaders in the industry”.  It’s organized by David Hasman of Bricker & Eckler, David Horrigan of Relativity, and Philip Weldon of Fried Frank and the day’s sessions will be moderated by David Horrigan.  The program will feature presentations on everything from cloud transformation to career development and job interview techniques and end with a keynote presentation by Justice Tanya Kennedy, New York State Supreme Court, New York County.  Check out the list of speakers for the day’s event:

Joy Heath Rush, Wendy L. King, Craig Carpenter, David Horrigan, Craig Ball, Dera J. Nevin, Jared Coseglia, David Greetham, Mary Mack, Patrick Joseph Burke, Chris Haley, Scott Milner, Nicole MacCallum, Sara Skeens, Steven Berrent, Ari Kaplan, David Bryant Isbell, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Robinson, Meagan Sauve, Antonia Karlan, Kelly Friedman, Bryant Lee, Tanya R. Kennedy, Marcin Wojtczak, Kenya Dixon, Rosemary Kuperberg, Amanda Fennell, Mike Gamson.

And me!  I will be discussing Legal trends with David and we will be discussing some of the most interesting and notable cases so far this year (around 9:30am).  For those who attend, I’m planning a special blog post to save you a lot of note taking.

Thursday

10 Litigation Support Tips in 60 Minutes, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM ET: Sensing a theme yet?  Not only will they discuss several useful tips, they also promise to provide a handout of those tips in the session.

Choosing a Predictive Coding Approach – “Predictive Coding For Dummies”, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET: OK, I know, I’m in this one too (as moderator), but that’s not the only reason I’m recommending it.  For starters, it’s the only session geared specifically to predictive coding at this year’s conference.  Also, don’t be fooled by the “for Dummies” title, we plan to tailor the discussion to the experience level of the attendees and are planning to discuss some interesting aspects of using predictive coding, including how to make a case for it and how to get started.  With panelists like Doug Matthews (Partner Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP), Catherine A. Casey (Chief Innovation Officer DISCO) Lia Majid (CEO and Founder, Acorn Legal Solutions) and Julian Ackert (Managing Director iDiscovery Solutions, Inc.), you’d be a “dummy” to miss it!

I will provide a complete list of eDiscovery, litigation support, information governance and cybersecurity sessions during each day of the conference next week.  Stay tuned!

So, what do you think?  Do you plan to attend ILTACON this year?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.