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EDRM Has a Twist on its Fall Workshop (and a Webinar Today!): eDiscovery Trends

Around this time of year, EDRM members (like me) expect to convene for our semi-annual visit to St. Paul for the mid-year meeting.  This year, EDRM has a twist on the mid-year meeting, which they’re now calling the “fall workshop”.  There’s also a webinar today!

As noted on their site, this year’s EDRM Fall Meeting will be hosted at Relativity Fest in Chicago (held at The Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Illinois) instead of the usual soirée in St. Paul.  If you’re an EDRM member, you can join us next week on Monday, October 12 for our keynote and workgroup, and on Tuesday, October 13 for two educational sessions.

On Monday, the workgroup will be conducted from 11:00 am to 5:45 pm and will consist of project updates, planning for projects and initiatives for the next six months and work on those projects and initiatives (to the extent time permits).

On Tuesday, for the first time ever at a workshop meeting, EDRM will be holding two educational sessions featuring EDRM members and materials.  They are:

  • Using the eMSAT-1 to Evaluate Internal Processes and Maximize Review Proficiency: This panel will provide strategies for implementing the eMSAT-1, and using the results to improve efficiencies and profits. The session will also focus on how the eMSAT-1 results can be used to design protocols for processing, review and analysis that allow companies to maximize use of review software. Tuesday from 9:00-10:00am.
  • Strategies for Calculating: Using the EDRM’s Data Calculator and Other Budgeting Tools to Estimate Costs: This panel will focus on various ways to approach budgeting E-Discovery projects. The panelists will share ideas and best practices regarding budgeting. They will show how using tools like the EDRM’s recently released Data Calculator can help to make once daunting budgeting a breeze. Tuesday from 10:15-11:15am.

As an EDRM member, you can attend the EDRM activities with the EDRM Pass for $550 (which includes Relativity Fest’s Sunday night reception) or the Relativity Fest Pass for $1,150, which gives you access to the EDRM activities and ALL of the Relativity Fest activities too.

Speaking of EDRM, they also have a webinar today – “A Practical Approach to Your in-house eDiscovery Collections,” – from 1:00 to 2:00 pm Central, sponsored by Pinpoint Labs.  This webinar will include a demonstration of how internal corporate IT managers, security professionals, or litigation support personnel can create in-house E-Discovery collections using Pinpoint Labs Harvester software. Learn how to design an automated self-collection kit for remote custodians, or deploy Enterprise wide stealth jobs that target discoverable files and emails for attorney review.

To register for today’s webinar, click here.  If you can’t make it today, but want to catch the recording of the webinar (or other past EDRM webinars), click here to see our previous blog post about EDRM webinars.

Not an EDRM member?  Why the hell not?!?  :o)  Here’s information on the cost to join – depending on who you are, it might be free!

So, what do you think?  Are you going to the EDRM Fall workshop?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

Here’s a New Dataset Option, Thanks to EDRM: eDiscovery Trends

For several years, the Enron data set (converted to Outlook by the EDRM Data Set team back in November of 2010) has been the only viable set of public domain data available for testing and demonstration of eDiscovery processing and review applications.  Chances are, if you’ve seen a demo of an eDiscovery application in the last few years, it was using Enron data.  Now, the EDRM Data Set team has begun to offer some new dataset options.

Yesterday, EDRM announced the release of the first of its “Micro Datasets.”  As noted in the announcement, the datasets are designed for eDiscovery data testing and process validation. Software vendors, litigation support organizations, law firms and others may use these smaller sets to qualify support, test speed and accuracy in indexing and search, and conduct more forensically oriented analytics exercises throughout the eDiscovery workflow.

The initial offering is a 136.9 MB zip file containing the latest versions of everything from Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat files to image files and contains EDRM specific work product files and data from public websites. There are even some uncommon formats including .mbox email storage files and .gz archive files!  The EDRM Dataset group has scoured the internet and found usable freely available data at universities, government sites and elsewhere, a selection of which are included in the zip file.

The first EDRM Micro Dataset zip file is available now for download here.  While it’s an initial small set, EDRM has promised “advanced” data sets to come.  Those advanced data sets, to be released in the near future, will be available exclusively to EDRM members.  Members will be notified by email with instructions for file downloading.   Organizations interested in EDRM membership will find information at https://www.edrm.net/join/.  Now, there is more reason than ever to join!

So, what do you think?  Are you tired of using the Enron data set and look forward to alternatives?   If so, today is your lucky day!  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

Want to Avoid eDiscovery “Gotchas”? Attend this Session at ILTA: eDiscovery Best Practices

There is less than two weeks left before ILTACON 2015, the annual conference for the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.  eDiscovery Daily will be at the show and providing coverage before, during and after the show.  If you’re attending (or thinking of attending), here is one session that you should put on your list to check out.

The session 20 E-Discovery Warnings in 60 Minutes will be moderated by George Socha, EDRM co-founder and president of Socha Consulting and Michael Boggs, director of practice support at Holland & Hart.  George and Michael will moderate a fast-paced series of live stories from audience members, who will share examples from their own experiences of eDiscovery situations gone wrong, explain how the issue was ultimately resolved, and share their lessons learned.  As George noted in EDRM’s announcement regarding the session yesterday, “The session will offer 20 opportunities to learn from the mistakes of others – an educational and entertaining way to increase one’s own success rate.”

Several eDiscovery professionals will be presenting the eDiscovery situations gone wrong, including me.  I will be presenting two topics that are issues we have experienced with some of our clients at CloudNine and how we addressed them (hint: we’ve covered them on this blog before).  So, I hope to meet you there!

The session will take place on Tuesday, September 1, from 1:30 to 2:30 pm at the ILTACON 2015 conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (currently slated for Milano Ballroom I & II).

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

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.

EDRM Participant Profiles: eDiscovery Trends

When EDRM announced eDiscovery Daily as an Education partner back in March (we covered it here), EDRM agreed to publish our daily posts on the EDRM site and it has been great to publish our content via the leading standards organization for the eDiscovery market!  However, another part of our agreement was for eDiscovery Daily to provide exclusive content to EDRM, including articles sharing real-life examples of organizations using EDRM resources in their own eDiscovery workflows.  Now, our first participant profile is available on the EDRM site and we’re looking for other organizations to share their EDRM experiences!

These profiles are designed to illustrate how participants and their organizations contribute to the success of EDRM as well as how those organizations use EDRM resources in their own businesses.

Our first EDRM Participant Profile Interview is with Seth Magaw. Seth currently serves Ricoh Americas Corporation as Director of eDiscovery Client Services within Ricoh Legal. He is responsible for the development and implementation of service delivery for Ricoh’s electronic discovery hosting services and enhancing the organization’s overall standing in the litigation support industry.  During Seth’s ten years at Ricoh, he has handled many eDiscovery projects, including large forensic collections, ESI and hosting projects. Prior to his current role, Seth has also served Ricoh Legal as Regional Digital Support Project Manager and Digital Sales Analyst.

Ricoh is a global technology and services company and has been a powerful partner to the legal community for more than two decades, earning the trust of clients through experience, expertise and long-term relationships.

In my interview with Seth, he provided some excellent examples of Ricoh’s participation and contributions to EDRM resources and also discussed several of the instances where Ricoh has applied EDRM models and standards within its organization.  Hopefully, the interview with Seth (as well as additional interviews with other EDRM participants to come) will help educate eDiscovery professionals as to how they can use EDRM resources within their own organizations.

The link to Seth’s interview on the EDRM site is here.  I hope you will check it out.

If you are a participant of EDRM and would like to be profiled (or would like to recommend a current EDRM participant to be profiled), please contact George Socha (george@edrm.net), Tom Gelbmann (tom@edrm.net) or me (daustin@cloudnincloudnine.comm) to arrange a profile interview with me to be published on the EDRM site.  We would love for you to share your experiences with EDRM and its resources!

So, what do you think?  Are you an EDRM member and want your organization to be profiled?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

For a Successful Outcome to Your Discovery Project, Work Backwards: eDiscovery Best Practices

Based on a recent experience with a client, it seemed appropriate to revisit this topic. Plus, it’s always fun to play with the EDRM model. Notice anything different? 🙂

While the Electronic Discovery Reference Model from EDRM has become the standard model for the workflow of the process for handling electronically stored information (ESI) in discovery, it might be helpful to think about the EDRM model and work backwards, whether you’re the producing party or the receiving party.

Why work backwards?

You can’t have a successful outcome without envisioning the successful outcome that you want to achieve. The end of the discovery process includes the production and presentation stages, so it’s important to determine what you want to get out of those stages. Let’s look at them.

Presentation

Whether you’re a receiving party or a producing party, it’s important to think about what types of evidence you need to support your case when presenting at depositions and at trial – this is the type of information that needs to be included in your production requests at the beginning of the case as well as the type of information that you’ll need to preserve as a producing party.

Production

The format of the ESI produced is important to both sides in the case. For the receiving party, it’s important to get as much useful information included in the production as possible. This includes metadata and searchable text for the produced documents, typically with an index or load file to facilitate loading into a review application. The most useful form of production is native format files with all metadata preserved as used in the normal course of business.

For the producing party, it’s important to be efficient and minimize costs, so it’s important to agree to a production format that minimizes production costs. Converting files to an image based format (such as TIFF) adds costs, so producing in native format can be cost effective for the producing party as well. It’s also important to determine how to handle issues such as privilege logs and redaction of privileged or confidential information.

Addressing production format issues up front will maximize cost savings and enable each party to get what they want out of the production of ESI. If you don’t, you could be arguing in court like our case participants from yesterday’s post.

Processing-Review-Analysis

It also pays to make decisions early in the process that affect processing, review and analysis. How should exception files be handled? What do you do about files that are infected with malware? These are examples of issues that need to be decided up front to determine how processing will be handled.

As for review, the review tool being used may impact how quick and easy it is to get started, to load data and to use the tool, among other considerations. If it’s Friday at 5 and you have to review data over the weekend, is it easy to get started? As for analysis, surely you test search terms to determine their effectiveness before you agree on those terms with opposing counsel, right?

Preservation-Collection-Identification

Long before you have to conduct preservation and collection for a case, you need to establish procedures for implementing and monitoring litigation holds, as well as prepare a data map to identify where corporate information is stored for identification, preservation and collection purposes.

And, before a case even begins, you need an effective Information Governance program to minimize the amount of data that you might have to consider for responsiveness in the first place.

As you can see, at the beginning of a case (and even before), it’s important to think backwards within the EDRM model to ensure a successful discovery process. Decisions made at the beginning of the case affect the success of those latter stages, so working backwards can help ensure a successful outcome!

So, what do you think? What do you do at the beginning of a case to ensure success at the end?   Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

Ten Years Later, EDRM is Still Going Strong: eDiscovery Best Practices

It’s hard to believe, but ten years ago this month the leading standards organization for the eDiscovery market was launched. Launched in May 2005, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (now simply known as EDRM) was created to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market. This week, EDRM moved into its second decade with its annual Spring Workshop in St. Paul, MN.

At the first meeting in May 2005, there were 35 initial members, according to Tom Gelbmann of Gelbmann & Associates, co-founder of EDRM along with George Socha of Socha Consulting LLC. Check out the preliminary first draft of the EDRM diagram – it has evolved quite a bit to its current form today! Among the participants in that first meeting were a number of eDiscovery providers and, according to Gelbmann, they asked “Do you really expect us all to work together?” The answer was “yes”, and the question hasn’t been asked again. Today, there are over 370 members from 119 participating organizations including eDiscovery providers, law firms and corporations (as well as some individual participants).

As usual, in the first morning of the workshop, each team provided a status update of their accomplishments over the past year as well as current deliverables in progress. A few highlights:

  • Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM): Reed Irvin of Viewpointe provided the IGRM update, which included reiteration of the IGRM mission statement, a review of the evolution of the IGRM model (covered by us here, among other places), a review of group accomplishments over the past year (including this white paper, which is currently being updated) and discussion of the importance of information governance today.
  • Data Set: Eric Robi of Elluma Discovery provided the update for the Data Set team, which is working on several new data sets useful for testing that will include multiple levels of corrupted and encrypted files, as well as a set of email boxes containing fictitious content prepared to demonstrate a case and expects to announce a release as soon as next week.
  • Metrics: Tiana Van Dyk of Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer and other team members gave the update for the Metrics team, which is currently working on enhancements to the eDiscovery Maturity Self-Assessment Test (eMSAT-1) released last October, as well as continued efforts on new metrics calculators (last month, they rolled out a new EDRM Data Calculator to go with previously released calculators here, here, here and here).
  • Processing Standards: Greg Houston of kCura gave the update, which discussed the efforts to update the first release of the standards document that was rolled out in March.

As always, the meetings continued with breakout sessions for each of the teams, enabling them to further their progress toward deliverables for the coming year. Also, this year’s meeting included a session to discuss perspectives from EDRM’s growing corporate and government entity membership, with several ideas discussed regarding what EDRM can do to help to ease pain points for these organizations in information governance and eDiscovery, resulting in launching a new Corporate Project Team led by David Yerich of United Healthcare and Robert Stangler of Ameriprise Financial, with several initiatives planned. Corporate participation at the spring workshop was good with about 25% of the attendees representing corporate perspectives.

Having participated in EDRM since 2006 (and now an Education Partner), I can say that one of the most enjoyable aspects of attending the meetings is the networking with fellow industry professionals and EDRM provides several opportunities for that, with a cocktail reception the first (arrival) evening and a dinner after the first day’s sessions. Where else can you help to standardize the information governance and eDiscovery industries, while sharing stories (and a few laughs) with fellow industry professionals?

For more information about joining EDRM, click here for more reasons to join, here for answers to frequently asked questions and here for fees for participating (if you’re a corporation or government entity, it’s free!).

So, what do you think? Are you a member of EDRM? If not, why not? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

A New Calculator from EDRM and Other EDRM News: eDiscovery Trends

Does it seem appropriate for us to display a calculator on tax day? Yes, it does. 🙂

Over a year ago, we discussed budget calculators available from the Metrics section of the EDRM web site and reviewed the four calculators available at the time (here, here, here and here).

In the past couple of weeks, EDRM added a new calculator. Let’s take a look.

The EDRM Data Calculator is an Excel spreadsheet file that helps you better estimate how much data you may have in matters involving eDiscovery. The estimates are designed to help you and your organization to prepare budgets, manage workflows, and measure and improve your eDiscovery processes.

The EDRM Data Calculator consists of a Core Data Calculator and a Supplemental Data Calculator, as follows:

  • Core Data Calculator: Uses information you enter or select to prepare two sets of estimates. First, it calculates how much your data may increase in size because of steps taken to expand the data – steps such as unpacking compressed files. Second, the Core Data Calculator estimates how much the size of your data set will decrease as a result of processing steps such as the use of de-Nisting, de-duplication, search terms, and CAR (computer assisted review).
  • Supplemental Data Calculator: Uses additional information you enter to arrive at two additional sets of estimates about your data after it has been expanded and then reduced. First, it delivers four sets of estimates about three major data types: email files, structured data, and unstructured data. The sets are percentage expected (e.g., 15% of your data will be email files), estimated GBs (e.g., you will have 12 GB of email), estimated files/GB (e.g., you will have 500 files per GB), and total files (e.g., you will have 14,000 files). Second, the Supplemental Data Calculator delivers the same four sets of estimates for six subcategories of unstructured data: word processing files, spreadsheet files, presentation files, image files, PDF files, and other unstructured data.

The EDRM Data Calculator is clearly formatted and color coded to identify cells where data needs to be entered (yellow, for entries such as the number of starting GB) and cells where you select an option from a menu (gray, for entries such as selecting a process to reduce data). The spreadsheet also provides a “calculator” section for recording assumptions and a “report” section to show the results based on those assumptions. And, the calculator comes with intuitive step-by-step instructions (which are available as a nine page PDF file, with screen shots for illustration). Perhaps the spreadsheet could be better formatted for printing and it isn’t set to protect the calculated cells, so they could be inadvertently overwritten, but otherwise, it looks like a nice model for estimating data volumes.

You can get more information about the EDRM Data Calculator, as well as download the actual calculator and instructions here.

As for other EDRM news, it’s not too late to register for today’s free live EDRM and ACEDS Webinar, “The Social Media Quick Peek: Early Data Assessment.” To register, click here.

And, in less than a month, is the EDRM 2015 Spring Workshop at the Saint Paul Hotel in St. Paul, MN. This is the kickoff for the 2015-2016 EDRM year. The 2015 EDRM Spring Workshop is scheduled for May 5-6, with a reception on the evening of May 4. Click here for more information. If you’ve considered becoming an EDRM member, this is an excellent time to do so!

So, what do you think? How do you estimate your eDiscovery data? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.

A New Processing Standards Guide from EDRM: eDiscovery Best Practices

When dealing with electronic data, some attorneys think that since the files are already electronic, how hard can they be to load? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. To be useable in discovery, electronic files need to be processed and good processing requires a sound process. Leave it to EDRM to offer a new standards guide to establish a set of basic standards for processing various types of data for eDiscovery.

Let’s face it, at some point in nearly every eDiscovery life cycle, it is necessary to “process” data from an electronic storage device into a database so the data may be used in subsequent e-discovery steps. So, last Tuesday, EDRM released its new “software agnostic”* EDRM Data Processing Standards Guide, which is designed to help eDiscovery professionals ask the right questions and be knowledgeable about the tools available (*while the guide is meant to be software-agnostic, it does draw heavily on examples from kCura’s system, Relativity).

Written by experienced practitioners, the guide addresses considerations and concerns that arise when one processes data from an electronic storage device into an eDiscovery database and is intended to be a resource for anyone who would like to use the processing stage of eDiscovery to streamline review and improve analysis of information in the database. It covers everything from virus protection, container files, deduplication and de-NISTing to HASH values, time zone considerations, passwords and exception handling. It also identifies key metadata fields necessary for searching, sorting and production purposes and a basic glossary of terms. And, as processing has numerous potential permutations, the guide identifies some of the topics that aren’t yet covered in the “Potential Future Topics” section, such as language identification, EML files (Outlook Express) and processing Lotus Notes email.

The draft guide is available here and is open for public comment until tomorrow, March 17 (extra credit for submitting your comments in green ink – just kidding!), after which time input will be reviewed and considered for incorporation before the new guide is finalized. If you’re used to simply turning over your electronic files to a vendor for processing and want to know what that vendor is actually doing with them, it’s a good guide to help you understand the steps involved in making your data usable for review.

So, what do you think? Have you read the guide yet? If so, did you find it useful? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscoveryDaily 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Need Help on Handling Social Media, Cloud and Mobile Data Sources? Check Out this Conference: eDiscovery Trends

Last week, we announced that eDiscoveryDaily is a new Education partner of EDRM. University of Florida Levin College of Law is another EDRM Education partner and will be teaming up with EDRM to host the 3rd Annual UFLaw and EDRM Electronic Discovery Conference on Friday, March 27.

The conference is focusing its attention this year on litigation involving social media, the cloud, and mobile devices. Data from a multitude of social platforms and mobile devices (such as your automobile, Fitbit, iPhone, smart TV and even your thermostat) capture our movements, our moods, and the everyday moments of our lives. That data is stored everywhere – on our devices, at remote locations, and in the cloud. This critical information can make or break any litigation and investigation.

The event will take place in Holland Hall at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and will be streamed online as well. It runs from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Eastern time. George Socha, co-founder of EDRM and William Hamilton, Partner, Quarles & Brady are co-chairs and there are a number of knowledgeable presenters, including Craig Ball and Monica Bay. 6.5 general CLE credits are available for attendees. Here’s a link to the agenda.

The entire day-long conference is available online for $99, or in person for $199. EDRM members receive a discounted rate of $45 for online or $99 for in person attendance (select “Certified Conference Friends” at time of registration). The Conference is completely free to all employees of federal and state governmental agencies, judges and judicial staff, students, and academics. Click here to register.

So, what do you think? Do you feel that you have a handle on social media, the cloud, and mobile devices? If not, are you attending the conference? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscoveryDaily 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

George Socha of Socha Consulting LLC: eDiscovery Trends

This is the sixth of the 2015 LegalTech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series. eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year and generally asked each of them most of the following questions:

  1. What are your general observations about LTNY this year and how it fits into emerging trends? Do you think American Lawyer Media (ALM) should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year to minimize travel disruptions due to weather?
  2. Two or three years ago, the “next big thing” was probably technology assisted review; last year, it was probably information governance. What would you say this year’s “next big thing” is, or do you think we have one this year?
  3. Last year, most thought leaders agreed that, despite numerous resources in the industry, most attorneys still don’t know a lot about eDiscovery. Do you think anything has been done in the past year to improve the situation?
  4. What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

Today’s thought leader is George Socha. A litigator for 16 years, George is President of Socha Consulting LLC, offering services as an electronic discovery expert witness, special master and advisor to corporations, law firms and their clients, and legal vertical market software and service providers in the areas of electronic discovery and automated litigation support. George has also been co-author of the leading survey on the electronic discovery market, The Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey; in 2011, he and Tom Gelbmann converted the Survey into Apersee, an online system for selecting eDiscovery providers and their offerings. In 2005, he and Tom Gelbmann launched the Electronic Discovery Reference Model project to establish standards within the eDiscovery industry – today, the EDRM model has become a standard in the industry for the eDiscovery life cycle and there are nine active projects with over 300 members from 81 participating organizations. George has a J.D. for Cornell Law School and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

What are your general observations about LTNY this year and how it fits into emerging trends? Do you think American Lawyer Media (ALM) should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year to minimize travel disruptions due to weather?

{Interviewed the first morning of LTNY, so the focus of the question to George was more about his observations about the curriculum for the show and what to expect}.

It is a little early for general observations about LTNY – we haven’t even heard the opening keynote panel discussion – but here goes. Looking at the curriculum and talking with attendees, speakers and exhibitors, it appears we have reached a stage where a significant number of eDiscovery providers are turning their attention from the “traditional” eDiscovery market and are looking, instead, for new markets. First it was information governance, now the “flavor of the month” appears to be security. Some providers are, I suspect, looking for a larger pond, on with more for them to eat; others may feel that the eDiscovery pond is getting too crowded or, perhaps, beginning to dry out.

At the same time, a large portion of the legal industry continues to be ignored by the bulk of eDiscovery providers. Many providers deem most law firms to be too small to pursue. After all, which law firm do you think a provider is more likely to try to get work from, one with 5 lawyers, or one with 500? And with roughly 80% of the 57,000 or so law firms in the US having 5 lawyers or less, that leaves a lot of law firms who aren’t getting a lot of eDiscovery love. I suspect we will see this reflected in the content delivered at the educations session and in the focus of software and services on display in the exhibit hall.

As for whether ALM should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year to minimize travel disruptions due to weather… For me, one of the draws of LTNY is that I get to go somewhere warm in the beginning of February. But then, I live in Minnesota. I think LTNY has a lock on the place and time. Software providers plan major releases and updates with LTNY in mind. Providers of all stripes schedule their biggest announcements for the weeks before LTNY takes place. Consumers shopping for new providers and providers seeking new customers set up meetings for the entire week of LTNY, not just at the Hilton but at surrounding hotels as well. So, some other place, some other time, just because of the weather? I don’t think so.

Two or three years ago, the “next big thing” was probably technology assisted review; last year, it was probably information governance. What would you say this year’s “next big thing” is, or do you think we have one this year?

If I were to be glib, I would say that this year’s “next big thing” will be just one more “bright shiny object.” But that would not really be fair. We have had a “next big thing” happening for several years now. But it has not been TAR, or information governance, or ECA, or any of those. Rather, it has been the many incremental improvements made in the tools available to us, the processes we use, and the sophistication of the people using those tools to carry out those processes. While we are a long way from a mature industry and a mature market, nonetheless we have made huge advances.

Last year, most thought leaders agreed that, despite numerous resources in the industry, most attorneys still don’t know a lot about eDiscovery. Do you think anything has been done in the past year to improve the situation?

I agree with the assessment that most attorneys still don’t know a lot about eDiscovery. We have a long way to go. We make incremental improvements, but I off the top of my head I can’t think about any major advances in the past year.

What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

We’ve been making a number of changes and advancements with EDRM over the past year, especially the past few months. Look to see much more in terms of efforts to focus on standards and on practical tools and capabilities. Also, look to see much more from us in terms of collaborative activities, such as the recent partnering announcements with ACEDS as an Affinity partner and eDiscovery Daily as an Education partner. We’ve broadened our base of membership in terms of types of members considerably over the last year – we have a much larger number of corporate members than ever in the past and, for the first time, we have governmental members. I think that change in membership and the continued push toward the practical will lead to further positive changes with EDRM.

Here are links to some of EDRM’s other most recent announcements, including an updated statistical sampling guide, clarification to its Model Code of Conduct and release of the EDRM eDiscovery Maturity Self-Assessment Test (eMSAT-1).

Thanks, George, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.