Electronic Discovery

The annual appearance of the dancing light bulb can only mean one thing – it’s time for another thought leader series!  Over our nearly 6 1/2 years of our existence, eDiscovery Daily has published several thought leader interviews from various thought leaders throughout the eDiscovery community, including an annual series of interviews at LegalTech New York (LTNY), aka LegalWeek.  For the seventh(!) consecutive year, we’re pleased to introduce the schedule for this year’s series, which will begin Wednesday, February 15.

Here are the interviews that we will be publishing over the next few weeks:

Wednesday, February 15: Brad Jenkins, CEO of CloudNine™.  Brad has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, as well as 15 years leading customer focused companies in the litigation technology arena. Brad has authored many articles on litigation support issues, and has spoken before national audiences on document management practices and solutions.

Friday, February 17: David Horrigan, E-Discovery Counsel and Legal Content Director, kCura.  An attorney, law school guest lecturer, e-discovery industry analyst, and award-winning journalist, David has served as counsel at the Entertainment Software Association, reporter and assistant editor at The National Law Journal, and analyst and counsel at 451 Research. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Legaltech News and the Data Law Board of Advisors at the Yeshiva University Cardozo Law School. David holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Florida, and he studied international law at Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands.

Monday, February 20: Mary Mack, Executive Director of the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists (ACEDS).  E-discovery luminary and recipient of the Masters Conference Educator of the Year 2016, Mary provides ACEDS and its membership more than a decade of strong credibility and sound leadership within the e-discovery community. Mary is the author of A Process of Illumination: The Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery, considered by many to be the first popular book on e-discovery. She is the co-editor of the Thomson Reuters West treatise, eDiscovery for Corporate Counsel.

Wednesday, February 22: George Socha, Managing Director, Forensic Technology Services, BDO.  Co-founder of EDRM, George is a Managing Director in BDO Consulting’s Forensic Technology Services practice. Named an “E-Discovery Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, he assists corporate, law firm, and government clients with all facets of electronic discovery, including information governance, domestically and globally. Prior to joining BDO, George spent 16 years as a litigation attorney in private practice before starting his own consulting firm focused on e-discovery issues in 2003. He received his law degree from Cornell Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Friday, February 24: Jason R. Baron, Of Counsel, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Part 1 and Part 2.  Jason is a member of Drinker Biddle’s Information Governance and eDiscovery practice and co-chair of the Information Governance Initiative.  An internationally recognized speaker and author on the preservation of electronic documents, Jason previously served as the first Director of Litigation for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and as trial lawyer and senior counsel at the Department of Justice.  He also was a founding co-coordinator of the National Institute of Standards and Technology TREC Legal Track, a multi-year international information retrieval project devoted to evaluating search issues in a legal context.  He served as editor of the recently published ABA book, Perspectives on Predictive Coding and Other Advanced Search Methods for the Legal Practitioner.

Monday, February 27: Craig Ball, Law Offices of Craig D. Ball, P.C., Part 1 and Part 2.  A frequent court appointed special master in electronic evidence, Craig is a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs throughout the United States, having delivered almost 2,000 presentations and papers.  Craig’s articles on forensic technology and electronic discovery frequently appear in the national media and he teaches E-Discovery and Digital Evidence at the University of Texas School of Law.  He currently blogs on eDiscovery topics at ballinyourcourt.com.

Once again, thanks to everyone for their time in participating in these interviews!  Once we publish all of them, we will link to each of them from this post.

Want to look back at previous years’ interviews?  Here are links to our 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012 interview series.

So, what do you think?  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.

It must be our week for surveys.  Yesterday, we covered the Complex Discovery Winter 2017 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey results.  Here’s another set of surveys that look at critical trends for AmLaw 200 law firms and Fortune 500 corporations.

In the past several days, The Cowen Group (TCG) has released two surveys: The AmLaw 200 eDiscovery Critical Trends Report and the Corporate eDiscovery Critical Trends Report.  Here are the top 5 takeaways identified by David Cowen for each report:

AmLaw 200 eDiscovery Critical Trends Report: 75 of the AmLaw 200 participated in this survey

1. Top Three eDiscovery, Data or Information Governance Pain Points: 1) Variety of data sources (46%), 2) Institutional resistance to change (41%), 3) Volume of data growth (39%).
2. In the next six months, 78% of respondents anticipate their eDiscovery/Litigation Support workload will increase.
3. 38% of respondents expect their litigation support/eDiscovery group or department to increase in size in the next six months.
4. In the next 6 to 12 months, 91% of respondents would like to increase their usage of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics.
5. The top five technology investment priorities are: 1) Review technology (42%), 2) Project management workflow software (41%), 3) Predictive analytics (36%), 4) Matter management (33%), 5) Knowledge management (29%).

Corporate eDiscovery Critical Trends Report: 44 of the Fortune 500 participated in this survey.

1. In the next six months, 7% of respondents anticipate their eDiscovery/Litigation Support workload will increase.
2. 77% of respondents expect to increase their use of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence in the next 6 to 12 months but many lack the internal resources to execute.
3. 43% of the F-500 will increase their use of strategic partners and vendors in response to the increase in eDiscovery workload and complexity of tools and technology in 2017.
4. 85% of corporate counsel will not be adding staff- thus relying more on strategic partners and service providers.
5. The top four technology investment priorities are: 1) Project management workflow software (40%), 2) Knowledge management (34%), 3) tie Review technology and Legal Hold (each at 31%).

For more information or to request a full copy of the AmLaw 200 and/or Corporate Discovery reports, click on the appropriate links above.

The Cowen Group stays busy!  Here is a link to their 2016 eDiscovery and Litigation Support Salary Report we covered back in November.

So, what do you think?  Do any of these numbers surprise you?  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.

The results are in from the Complex Discovery Winter 2017 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey, which has just concluded and (as was the case for the 2016 Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall surveys) the results are published on Rob Robinson’s terrific Complex Discovery site.  How confident are individuals working in the eDiscovery ecosystem in the business of eDiscovery?  Let’s see.

As always, Rob provides a complete breakdown of the latest survey results, which you can check out here.  So, to avoid redundancy, I will primarily focus on trends over the past four surveys to see how the responses have varied from quarter to quarter and (for the first time since this is the second year of the quarterly survey) will take a look at a year over year comparison to the Winter 2016 survey.

The Winter 2017 Survey response period was initiated on January 20, and continued until registration of 100 responses on February 6. Rob notes that this limiting of responders to 100 individuals is new with the Winter 2017 survey and is designed to create linearity in the number of responses for each quarterly survey (it also gets rid of those pesky decimal points in the results). This quarter the 100 responses were received at the fastest rate in the history of the survey.  So, in the future, if you want your voice heard, respond early!

Percentage of Provider Respondents Rising Back Up: Of the types of respondents, 56 out of 100 were either Software and/or Services Provider (40%) or Consultancy (16%) for a total of 56% of respondents as some sort of outsourced provider (over half of total respondents – I’m counting law firm respondents as consumers even though they can also be providers as well).  Law firm respondents comprised a majority of the remaining respondents with 33%.  No other type of respondents was over 4%.  Here’s a graphical representation of the trend over the past four quarters:

When comparing this year’s Winter survey to last year’s survey, it is clear that (despite the rise in percentage of provider respondents this time), the survey is still more diverse than before, especially with regard to the percentage of law firm respondents:

Not Quite Half of Respondents Consider Business to Be Good: Less than half (49%, to be exact) of respondents rated the current general business conditions for eDiscovery in their segment to be good, with 9% rating business conditions as bad.  Last quarter, those numbers were 56.6% and 6.2% respectively, so this quarter reflects less bullish than last quarter.  Will that trend continue?  We’ll see.  Here is the trend for the last four quarterly surveys.

When comparing against last year’s Winter survey, the difference is even more pronounced with nearly a 10% decrease of respondents rating current general business conditions for eDiscovery in their segment to be good.

Almost Everyone Still Expects eDiscovery Business Conditions to be as Good or Better Six Months From Now: Almost all respondents (96%) expect business conditions will be in their segment to be the same or better six months from now (slightly above last quarter’s 94.7%), but the percentage expecting business to be better fell to an all-time low of 40%.  Revenue (at combined 90% for the same or better) and profit (combined 86%) dropped from last quarter.  Here is the profits trend for the last four quarterly surveys.

When compared against last year’s Winter survey, the distribution for profits six months from now was less bullish with a 6% decrease of respondents expecting higher profits and a 4% increase of respondents expecting lower profits.

Increasing Volumes of Data and Budgetary Constraints Are Most Impactful to eDiscovery Business: Increasing Volumes of Data and Budgetary Constraints were tied for the top of the most impactful factors to the business of eDiscovery over the next six months at 26% each (perhaps budgeting is more notable during the winter?).  Increasing Types of Data (17%) stayed at third, followed by Data Security (15%), with Lack of Personnel and Inadequate Technology (both at 8%) bringing up the rear.  The graph below illustrates the distribution across the most recent four quarterly surveys.

A year ago, Budgetary Constraints was voted as the most impactful to eDiscovery business, so maybe there is something to the time of year theory with regard to budget considerations.

Still a Fairly Even Split Among the Roles: Last time, the “rank and file” dominated the responses with 73.5% of total responses.  This time, Executive Leadership respondents rose back up (to 38%), though Operational Management was the leader (at 39%) and Tactical Execution dropped a bit (down to 23%).  Here’s the breakdown of the last four quarters.

The survey is certainly more distributed than last year, where Executive Leadership was a clear majority of the responses.  Does that mean that the “rank and file” are less bullish than Execs?  Or does it mean that eDiscovery professionals in general are less bullish than before?  Hmmm…

Again, Rob has published the results on his site here, which shows responses to additional questions not referenced here.  Check it out.

So, what do you think?  What’s your state of confidence in the business of eDiscovery?  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.

Another LegalTech New York (LTNY) – or “LegalWeek” as they now like to call the event – is in the books.  What did attendees at the conference think about this year’s show?  Let’s take a look.

I reached out to several attendees (some of whom I met with during the show) to get their thoughts and impressions of this year’s show, how it differed from past shows (if at all) and if they had suggestions for improvements.  As a few pointed out in responding, these are their personal opinions and observations regarding the show, not those of their employer or clients.  Here is what they had to say:

George Socha, Managing Director at BDO: “Cybersecurity concerns are driving IG investments, many of which will draw on e-discovery tools, techniques and expertise.”

Shawn Gaines, Director of Marketing Communications at kCura: “As always, Legaltech was an awesome place to meet up with the rest of the legal technology community, leading to great meetings and one-on-one conversations.  Traffic in the exhibit hall started strong, but seemed to fade earlier than usual, perhaps due to what seemed like a smaller set of exhibitors.  The quality of the people there, however, still can’t be beat—and there aren’t too many other opportunities like this to bring together people from all ends of the industry.”

Rob Robinson, Author of the Complex Discovery blog: “Having participated in some way in Legaltech since 2006, it is always fascinating to see how many authors and reporters parachute into the information stream of Legaltech in early January and then add their icing to the cake of content being shared by industry experts. This reporting serves the purpose of highlighting topics but many times falls short of the investigative and educational journalism that could benefit industry professionals. Instead of just providing a mouthpiece and distribution network for the comments of individuals and companies that pay for access, it would be incredibly refreshing and beneficial to see these authors and reporters also focus on how technologies can benefit end users…Cost recovery may be a sound financial business model for ALM, but charging attendees a fee to learn more about exhibitors who have already paid for the opportunity to share their information and offerings with attendees seemed overreaching. As an event’s success is directly related to the quality and quantity of its attendees, it might be beneficial for ALM to deeply consider the impact of future access cost changes on not only finances but on perception.”

Greg Buckles, eDiscovery Consultant & Evangelist – The EDJ Group Inc.: Orange is the new black – again.  Automation and efficiency everywhere, but do the end customers really care?  Does fast track processing directly to Relativity just convert your technology to a commodity?  LTNY losing traction? Booths down, crowd down and most briefing suites in adjacent hotels?

Michele Lange, Director of Thought Leadership at KrolLDiscovery: “Habitual LTNY attendees were happy to report that the stalwart event remained largely unchanged as part of the greater Legalweek experience, with many attendees welcoming the additional, high-quality keynotes occurring throughout the week. Attendees also commented on the reduction in time in the educational sessions – from 75 to 60 minutes – to better align with CLE requirements.  Panelists (many of which were newcomers to the LTNY speaking stage) were more succinct in their remarks, resulting in better, more focused discussions this year.”

Andrew Haslam, eDisclosure Project Manager at Squire Patton Boggs: “For the fourth year in a row, the number of exhibitors was down, what was stretched across three areas, could easily have fitted into 2. There used to be a whole section of training organisations, nary a one this time around. Without the central show, all the fringe activities will struggle to justify themselves, to reuse the Ernest Hemmingway’s quote from Andrew McAfee’s wonderful day 1 Keynote, ‘How did you go bankrupt?’ ‘Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.’ Are we seeing ALM tipping into a sudden decline? Was this the reason for charging people an admittance fee, or was it a far nobler desire to keep out the ‘mouchers’.  Let’s see what next year brings.”

Drew Macaulay, Managing Director at Consilio: “My impression of LegalTech this year was that it was definitely quieter in the exhibit halls, but still busy in the educational tracks, particularly those that related to regulatory investigations and cross border discovery challenges and best practices. In particular, there was a lot of interest in the potential impact of the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force in May 2018 and has broad implications for law firms, corporations and eDiscovery firms alike.”

Bill Piwonka, Chief Marketing Officer at Exterro: “Legal Week this year was in tune with the trends we’ve been seeing, namely that while people in the industry are becoming more e-discovery proficient, there is still much to be learned. With the FRCP amendments, new technologies, ever-growing data volumes and types, and a large number of organizations moving to the cloud, the latest knowledge on how to stay in front of these changes is more vital than ever. LegalWeek 2017 was instrumental in providing that knowledge, and more, for all who attended.”

David Horrigan, e-Discovery Counsel and Legal Content Director at kCura: “This year, ALM expanded the show from Legaltech to Legalweek, bringing more legal issues into a larger overall event.  I think many speakers did a great job in showing how technology relates to all areas of the law.  For instance, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky was one who did an outstanding job of bringing other areas of the law into the rest of the program.  Many sessions did an excellent job of really hitting home how technology and the law aren’t just for programmers and legal teams—they affect everyday life.”

Craig Ball, Noted eDiscovery Thought Leader and Author of Ball in Your Court blog: “Though I enjoyed LTNY 2017 as much as any before (and for me it’s been two decades of LTNY), this year’s show seemed a shadow of its former self.  Traffic was down, and the plenary keynotes saw a fraction of their customary attendance.  Consolidation among e-discovery vendors was striking in terms of its impact on the show floor.  Maybe not an entirely bad thing as e-discovery had all but taken over the show.  I witnessed these things but expect that ALM will report that LTNY was still bigger and better and HUGER by every measure.  As they say in New York, Mazeltov!”

“I thought the decision to charge for floor and plenary admission was not implemented wisely.  I’d charge a modest amount online to register but credit it back when attendees showed up.  Considering how much vendors pay to be onsite, the admission charge felt…tacky.”

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As for my own thoughts, it seems to me that more and more of the activities are outside the conference as attendees take the opportunity provided by the biggest legal technology show of the year to arrange meetings to further business relationships.  While that’s great for doing business, it’s not as great for the show itself as many of the attendees find it difficult to find time to actually attend sessions or visit the exhibit hall.  Many of the people I spoke with during the show had yet to attend the show itself.

Personally, I always try to find time to attend at least a few sessions and the ones I attended this year were first rate, as always.  My particular favorite was the keynote on Day 2 (February 1) of the conference regarding effects of the December 2015 Rules amendments discussed by several judges and attorneys reflecting both the defense and plaintiff viewpoints.  As for the Exhibit Hall, I spent some time in the Hall and spoke with several of the exhibitors, who noted that attendance in the Exhibit Hall seemed diminished compared to previous years (especially after the first day).  It will be interesting to see if exhibitors raise concerns over the decision to charge for Exhibits only passes and the potential impact it has on attendance in the Hall.

So, what do you think?  Did you attend this year’s LegalTech?  If so, what did you think of 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. 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.