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Industry Trends

DESI Got Your Input, and Here It Is: eDiscovery Trends

Back in January, we discussed the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (DESI, not to be confused with Desi Arnaz, pictured above) workshop and its call for papers describing research or practice for the DESI VI workshop that was held last week at the University of San Diego as part of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (ICAIL 2015). Now, links to those papers are available on their web site.

The DESI VI workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore innovation and the development of best practices for application of search, classification, language processing, data management, visualization, and related techniques to institutional and organizational records in eDiscovery, information governance, public records access, and other legal settings. Ideally, the aim of the DESI workshop series has been to foster a continuing dialogue leading to the adoption of further best practice guidelines or standards in using machine learning, most notably in the eDiscovery space. Organizing committee members include Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Douglas W. Oard of the University of Maryland.

The workshop included keynote addresses by Bennett Borden and Jeremy Pickens, a session regarding Topics in Information Governance moderated by Jason R. Baron, presentations of some of the “refereed” papers and other moderated discussions. Sounds like a very informative day!

As for the papers themselves, here is a list from the site with links to each paper:

Refereed Papers

Position Papers

If you’re interested in discovery of ESI, Information Governance and artificial intelligence, these papers are for you! Kudos to all of the authors who submitted them. Over the next few weeks, we plan to dive deeper into at least a few of them.

So, what do you think? Did you attend DESI VI? 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 Job Title that May Catch On – Chief Data Scientist: eDiscovery Trends

With big data becoming bigger than ever, the ability for organizations to apply effective data analytics within information governance and electronic discovery disciplines has become more important than ever. With that in mind, one law firm has created a new role that might catch on with other firms and corporations – the role of Chief Data Scientist.

The article from Legaltech News (Drinker Biddle Names Borden Chief Data Scientist, by Chris DiMarco) notes that Drinker Biddle & Reath has named Bennett Borden the firm’s first chief data scientist (CDS). As the author notes, in this role, Borden will oversee the implementation of technologies and services that apply use of data analytics and other cutting edge tools to the practice of law and will be tasked with developing the firm’s data analytics strategy. The move positions Drinker Biddle as one of the first firms – possibly in the world – to carve out a leadership position overseeing data analytics, with the impetus for the new role coming from the firm’s longstanding views on the importance of governing information.

Borden, who is also co-founder of the Information Governance Initiative (IGI), was quoted in the article, stating, “Our perspective is that information governance is a coordinating discipline around all the different facets of the creation use and disposition of information. And so data analytics is one more part of a large IG framework.”

Borden’s selection as the firm’s chief data scientist comes on the heels of him receiving a Master of Science degree in business analytics from New York University.

“Because of where analytics is going, especially in the business arena, I was interested in getting additional training,” Borden said. “My entire career has focused on using advanced analytics on large volumes of information to find something of value. Much of my work has focused on using advanced data analytics across many of our practices, not only for discovery, but also for compliance and investigations.”

According to Borden, he is among the first to hold the title of CDS at a major firm. Will this start a trend? Maybe so. Congrats, Bennett!

So, what do you think? Do you think other firms and organizations will create a Chief Data Scientist position? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image © exploringdatascience.com

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.

Gartner Report Estimates eDiscovery Software Market was $1.8 Billion in 2014: eDiscovery Trends

The eDiscovery marketplace grew in 2014 with total software revenue reaching $1.8 billion worldwide, according to Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software report, released last week.

In the Market Overview section of the report, Gartner estimated that the enterprise e-discovery software marketplace was $1.8 billion in total software revenue worldwide in 2014, an increase of 10.6% from 2013, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 12%.

The report also identified several key trends impacting eDiscovery, including:

  • Increased migration to Office 365 by organizations;
  • Increased dialogue on how to preserve social and Web data, as well as data related to the Internet of Things (IoT);
  • Focus on agile and less expensive approaches to eDiscovery as opposed to traditional project-based approaches;
  • Trends continuing towards simplified pricing structures;
  • Increased deployment of eDiscovery software via SaaS models; and
  • Continued shake-up of the market, with Microsoft’s acquisition of Equivio, continued expansion of existing vendors and penetration into the market by startups.

As usual, the Gartner report also surveyed the landscape of eDiscovery vendors that met inclusion criteria, including at least $20 million in revenue, 50 or more clients, and ownership of the intellectual property and copyright to their software. This year’s report includes 20 vendors that meet these conditions (down from 22 vendors last year), and uses Gartner’s “magic quadrant” to rank them as leaders, visionaries, challengers, or niche players based on an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses. To be included in this report, a vendor also had to sell enterprise software licenses, a software appliance or SaaS conforming to Gartner’s definition of SaaS. Two new vendors were added to the quadrant this year while four were dropped (Gartner also identified four additional “vendors to watch”).

The report is available for purchase here on Gartner’s site, though, it can be obtained for free from several of the vendors named in the report.

So, what do you think? Are you surprised by any of the trends affecting the eDiscovery market? 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.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s Latest Survey Shows Majority of Companies use TAR, Collect from Mobile Devices: eDiscovery Trends

According to Norton Rose Fulbright’s Litigation Trends Annual Survey for 2015 released last week, companies in the United States continue to deal with, and spend more on litigation. From an eDiscovery standpoint, the survey showed that more than half of respondents preserve and collect data from employee mobile devices and use technology assisted review, and a clear majority of respondents still rely on self-preservation to fulfill preservation obligations for at least some cases.

Here are some interesting statistics from the report:

RESPONDENT PROFILE

Here is a profile of the respondents in the survey.

  • There were 803 total corporate counsel participants from 26 countries, 82% of which were either General Counsel (46%), Associate/Deputy/Assistant GC (26%) or Head of Litigation (10%). 52% of respondents were from the US.
  • Nearly two-thirds (65%) of the companies surveyed, were billion dollar companies with $1 billion or more in gross revenue. 41% of the billion dollar companies have revenues of $5 billion or more.
  • The respondents were fairly evenly distributed among industries, with Technology and Innovation (29%), Financial Institutions (28%) and Energy (20%) the top three industries participating.

LITIGATION TRENDS

The report provided some interesting findings with regard to the number and distribution of cases as well as corporate litigation budgets.

Litigation Case Counts and Distribution

  • 42% of all respondents indicated that more than 5 lawsuits/proceedings were commenced against them last year, in the US, that number was 55%. 13% of all respondents indicated that more than 50(!) lawsuits/proceedings were commenced against them last year, in the US, that number was 18%. The number of lawsuits filed against US respondents’ companies in the past 12 months was very stable, with no significant change since 2010.
  • 26% of all respondents indicated that they had one or more lawsuits with more than $20 million at issue, for larger organizations, that number was 40%.
  • Respondents were given a list of more than 20 categories of pending litigation their companies faced over the past 12 months, and asked to select the top three to five. Contracts (38%) and Labor/Employment (37%) matters received, by far, the most selections from respondents.
  • 25% of all respondents expect the number of legal disputes for their company to increase over the next 12 months.

Litigation Budgets

  • Among all survey respondents, the median litigation budget (excluding costs of settlement and judgments) is $1.2 million annually, while the mean litigation budget annually is $11.6 million.
  • In the US, 69% of organizations spend $1 million or more on litigation and 25% spend $10 million or more.
  • 32% of larger companies with $1 billion or more in revenue spent $10 million or more on litigation.

EDISCOVERY TRENDS

The report showed a majority of respondents preserve and collect data from employee mobile devices and use technology assisted review, and a clear majority of respondents still rely on self-preservation to fulfill preservation obligations for at least some cases. Heck, over a third of respondents even have cross-border discovery.

Cross-Border Discovery

  • 35% of respondents have conducted cross-border discovery within the last 12 months, with that number jumping to 54% for companies with $5 billion or more of annual revenue.

Mobile Device Preservation and Collection

  • 53% of overall respondents had to preserve and/or collect data from a mobile device, with 62% of US respondents doing so. 16% of all respondents reported having to preserve and/or collect data from a mobile device in 100% of their matters.

Self-Preservation

  • Overall, 74% of respondents rely on individuals preserving their own data (i.e., self-preservation) in at least some of their cases, with 29% relying on self-preservation in 100% of their cases.
  • When not relying on self-preservation, 62% of respondents say they depend on IT to collect data sources, with 22% relying on discovery vendors.

Technology Assisted Review

  • More than half (57%) of all respondents are using technology assisted review for at least some of their matters.
  • 79% of larger companies surveyed use technology assisted review, up from 43% two years ago.
  • Of those companies utilizing technology assisted review, 19% use it in all of their matters and 42% use it for half or more of their matters.

There are plenty more interesting stats and trends in the report, which is free(!). To download your own copy of the report, click here. To see how this year’s report compares with our coverage from two years ago, click here.

So, what do you think? Do any of those trends 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.

Are You as “E-Savvy” as You Need to Be in Your “E-Disclosure” Process?: eDiscovery Best Practices

Craig Ball’s Ball in Your Court blog is always an excellent read, even when he writes it “across the pond” over in London. His latest post discusses how “fighting the last war” will eventually cost you when you come across an “e-savvy” opponent.

In Craig’s post, Girding for the E-Savvy Opponent, he mentions that he is presenting the keynote topic opening the Information Governance & eDiscovery Summit conference in London and how, while he was there, they were celebrating the 70th anniversary of VE day. I’ve heard him say before that “Generals are always prepared to fight the last war”, which he analogizes to technology and “e-disclosure” (which is what they call eDiscovery across the pond). Imagine if we were still trying use mounted cavalry to fight against armored tanks? It would be a disaster. As he notes, “In e-disclosure, we still fight the last war, smug in the belief that our opponents will never be e-savvy enough to defeat us.”

Craig notes that “Our old war ways have served so long that we are slow to recognize a growing vulnerability. To date, our opponents have proved unsophisticated, uncreative and un-tenacious.” He observes how our tech-challenged opponents “make it easy” and that he has “more than once heard an opponent defend costly, cumbersome procedures that produce what I didn’t seek and didn’t want with the irrefutable justification of, ‘we did what we always do.’”

But, that won’t always be the case. Craig predicts that “our once tech challenged opponents will someday evolve into Juris Doctor Electronicus.” When those tech challenged opponents evolve into e-savvy opponents, you can expect that they will (among other things): “demand competent search”, “insist on native production”, “compel transparency of scope and process”, “shrewdly use sampling to expose failure” and “demand competence, but not overreach”. With regard to that last point, Craig observes that “E-savvy counsel succeeds not by overreaching but by insisting on mere competence – competent scope, competent processes and competent forms of production. Good, not just good enough.”

Defenses against the e-savvy lawyer may include “the Luddite judge who applies the standards of his or her former law practice to modern evidence” or a strategy “to embed outmoded practices in the rules and to immunize incompetence against sanctions”. But, those won’t work forever. With virtually all evidence today “born electronically”, best practices for handling such evidence cannot be ignored forever. Someday, you will have to face e-savvy opponents on a regular basis, will you be ready?

As usual, Craig has numerous insightful observations in his post, I’ve referenced several of them here, but don’t want to fully steal his thunder, so I recommend you check out his post here.

So, what do you think? Is your organization still “fighting the last war” or are they prepared to deal with an “e-savvy” opponent? 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.

Cyber Liability Insurance Policies are Becoming More Popular for Law Firms: eDiscovery Trends

Last Friday, we discussed a report in The New York Times that discussed the unwillingness of most big US law firms to discuss or even acknowledge data breaches. But, despite the unwillingness to disclose breach information, more and more law firms are apparently purchasing or considering the purchase of cyber liability insurance to protect against potential data breaches.

An article in ABA Journal from earlier this month (Cyber liability insurance is an increasingly popular, almost necessary choice for law firms, by David L. Hudson, Jr.) reported the increasing trend.

“We’ve seen a noticeable increase in the number of firms who have purchased separate cyber policies over the past 24 months,” said Chris Andrews, vice president of professional liability at AIG. “We’re probably not yet at the point where we can say it’s a common purchase, but it’s certainly trending in that direction. Many firms are consulting their clients on privacy and regulatory issues, and at the same time those clients are now asking questions as to how firms use, store and protect information. Given this heightened level of awareness, it makes sense that firms are now looking inward to make sure their own house is in order and cyber coverage is part of the solution.”

Given the fact that many law firms hold sensitive data for their clients, such as personal injury firms which take credit card payments from clients and firms handling medical-malpractice cases who could have personal health information (which is particularly valuable), those firms are prime targets for hackers.

“Law firms today are responsible for massive amounts of electronic and nonelectronic information,” said AIG’s Andrews. “Depending on a firm’s areas of practice, this information can range from personally identifiable information to protected health information to confidential corporate information, such as intellectual property, contracts, and details on mergers and acquisitions. This information represents significant liability exposure in the event of a security failure. Even if the failure doesn’t lead to an actual lawsuit, a firm may still need to deal with costs associated with notification, possible regulatory investigations, fines and penalties, forensic expenses, public relations expenses and more.”

Cyber risk policies were introduced in the 1990s but have experienced a dramatic growth in recent years, according to Washington, D.C.-based attorney Thomas H. Bentz Jr., head of Holland & Knight’s team on directors and officers and management liability insurance. “Corporate America has seen a huge increase in the purchase of cyber policies in the last three to five years. Law firms have been slower to follow,” Bentz says. “In my experience, it is still not common for law firms to purchase cyber liability coverage. I expect that this will change in the next several years as the potential exposure becomes clearer and the coverage more certain.”

Cyber liability insurance can coverage can include data breaches and privacy crisis management, as well as multimedia, extortion, and network security liability. Like, with any insurance policies, it’s important to understand the parameters of the policy and also what you can do to not only reduce the risk of a breach, but also the cost for the policy premium. For example, it’s important to understand security controls you can put into place that will reduce the premium, will you get a reduction for each year you do not file a claim and if you do file a claim, how will that affect your premiums.

So, what do you think? Does your organization have, or is considering, a cyber liability insurance policy? 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. 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.

Has the Law Firm Holding Your Data Ever Suffered a Breach? You May Never Know.: eDiscovery Trends

In February, we discussed a report about data breach trends in 2014 and how those trends compared to data breaches in 2013. That report provided breach trends for several industries, including the healthcare industry, which suffered the most breaches last year (possibly because stolen health records are apparently worth big money). But, according to a recent report, you won’t see any trends for law firms because the legal profession almost never publicly discloses a breach.

According to a recent article in The New York Times (Citigroup Report Chides Law Firms for Silence on Hackings, written by Matthew Goldstein), the “unwillingness of most big United States law firms to discuss or even acknowledge breaches has frustrated law enforcement and corporate clients for several years.” This information was according to a recent internal report from Citigroup’s cyberintelligence center that warned bank employees of the threat of attacks on the networks and websites of big law firms.

“Due to the reluctance of most law firms to publicly discuss cyberintrusions and the lack of data breach reporting requirements in general in the legal industry, it is not possible to determine whether cyberattacks against law firms are on the rise,” according to the report, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times and discussed in Goldstein’s article.

Issued in February, the report (according to Goldstein’s article) included several observations, such as:

  • It is “reasonable to expect law firms to be targets of attacks by foreign governments and hackers because they are repositories for confidential data on corporate deals and business strategies”;
  • Bank employees “should be mindful that digital security at many law firms, despite improvements, generally remains below the standards for other industries”;
  • Law firms are at “high risk for cyberintrusions” and would “continue to be targeted by malicious actors looking to steal information on highly sensitive matters such as mergers and acquisitions and patent applications.”

According to the article, the bank’s security team also “highlighted several ways hackers had intruded on law firms, by directly breaching their systems, attacking their websites or using their names in so-called phishing efforts to trick people into disclosing personal information”. As a result, Wall Street banks are putting pressure on law firms to do more to prevent the theft of information and are also demanding more documentation from them about online security measures before approving them for assignments.

The report mentioned a handful of law firms who had suffered reported hacks, which apparently led to Citigroup’s distancing itself from the report and stop distributing it.

“The analysis relied on and cited previously published reports. We have apologized to several of the parties mentioned for not giving them an opportunity to respond prior to its publication in light of the sensitive nature of the events described,” said Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a Citigroup spokeswoman.

While law firms apparently aren’t publicly disclosing breaches, they are apparently choosing cyber liability insurance at an increased rate. We will discuss that on Monday.

Thanks to Sharon Nelson and her always excellent Ride the Lightning blog for the tip – her post regarding the story is here.

So, what do you think? How much information do you know about your outside counsel’s security measures? 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. 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, The Impact of the Zubulake Case is Still Huge: eDiscovery History

It’s hard to believe, but ten years ago this past Monday, the verdict was rendered in the Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC case. Let’s take a look back at the case and see what Laura Zubulake is doing today.

The Zubulake case is certainly still the most famous case from an eDiscovery standpoint – if you work in this industry, you’re probably already fully aware of the key decisions issued by Southern District of New York Judge Shira Sheindlin and their huge impact on discovery of electronic data. If you’re not fully aware, you should be. Three years ago, we took a look back at the case and its landmark decisions here.

Today, the eDiscovery industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and still growing at a double-digit rate per year, according to estimates. Part of that is due to the explosion of big data, but obligations for managing discovery of that data was, in part, shaped by the Zubulake opinions. A recent blog post by Robert Half Legal lists “eDiscovery professional” as a legal career that didn’t even exist ten years ago. That seems to be more than a coincidence.

In 2012, Laura published a book titled Zubulake’s e-Discovery: The Untold Story of my Quest for Justice, previously discussed on this blog here, here and here. The book provides the “backstory” that goes beyond the precedent-setting opinions of the case, detailing her experiences through the events leading up to the case, as well as over three years of litigation. Our colleague, Jane Gennarelli, also collaborated with Laura on a nine part case study regarding the Zubulake case that we covered on our blog in 2013.

So, where is Laura Zubulake today?

Today, Laura is a licensed salesperson with Sotheby’s International Realty in their Southampton, NY office.

Looking back on the case, Laura remembers April 6, 2005, the date of the jury verdict, as a day of personal vindication and justice. “Never did I imagine that the Zubulake opinions would be relevant ten years later”, she said. “I never envisioned the opinions transforming the practice of law, influencing amendments to the FRCP, and becoming the subject of law school lectures. And, never did I dream that my case would provide the foundation for a multi-billion dollar e-discovery industry that created thousands of jobs and also provided the foundation for Information Governance”.

While real estate has become Laura’s “day job” she still keeps up with and speaks about developments and trends in eDiscovery and Information Governance. “I can especially relate to current debates about servers, email retention policies, email preservation practices, and whether deleted emails can be restored or not”, she said. “And, lately, I’ve been following the breaking news about the email practices of politicians at the highest level and allegations of gender discrimination in Silicon Valley with particular interest.”

Overall, Laura is satisfied that her quest for fairness and efforts to right a perceived wrong made a difference, even ten years later.

So, what do you think? What do you think the impact of the Zubulake case has been for 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.

Managing Email Signature Logos During Review: eDiscovery Best Practices

Yesterday, we discussed how corporate logo graphic files in email signatures can add complexity when managing those emails in eDiscovery, as these logos, repeated over and over again, can add up to a significant percentage of your collection on a file count basis. Today, we are going to discuss a couple of ways that I have worked with clients to manage those files during the review process.

These corporate logos cause several eDiscovery complications such as slowing page refreshes in review tools and wasting reviewer time and making review even more tedious. I’ll focus on those particular issues below.

It should be noted that, as VP of Professional Services at CloudNine, my (recent) experience in assisting clients has primarily been using CloudNine’s review platform, so, with all due respect to those “technically astute vendor colleagues” that Craig Ball referred to in his excellent post last week, I’ll be discussing how I have handled the situation with logos in Outlook emails at CloudNine (shameless plug warning!).

Processing Embedded Graphics within Emails

I think it’s safe to say as a general rule, when it comes to processing of Outlook format emails (whether those originated from EDB, OST, PST or MSG files), most eDiscovery processing applications (including LAW and CloudNine’s processing application, Discovery Client) treat embedded graphic files as attachments to the email and those are loaded into most review platforms as attachments linked to the parent email. So, a “family” that consists of an email with two attached PDF files and a corporate logo graphic file would actually have four “family” members with the corporate logo graphic file (assuming that there is just one) as one of the four “family” members.

This basically adds an extra “document” to each email with a logo that is included in the review population (more than one per email if there are additional logo graphics for links to the organization’s social media sites). These files don’t require any thought during review, but they still have to be clicked through and marked as reviewed during a manual review process. This adds time and tedium to an already tedious process. If those files could be excluded from the review population, reviewers could focus on more substantive files in the collection.

In Discovery Client, an MD5 hash value is computed for each individual file, including each email attachment (including embedded graphics). So, if the same GIF file is used over and over again for a corporate logo, it would have the same MD5 hash value in each case. CloudNine provides a Quick Search function that enables you to retrieve all documents in the collection with the same value as the current document. So, if you’re currently viewing a corporate logo file, it’s easy to retrieve all documents with the same MD5 hash value, apply a tag to those documents and then use the tag to exclude them from review. I’ve worked with clients to do this before to enable them to shorten the review process while establishing more reliable metrics for the remaining documents being reviewed.

It should be noted that doing so doesn’t preclude you from assigning responsiveness settings from the rest of the “family” to the corporate logo later if you plan to produce those corporate logos as separate attachments to opposing counsel.

Viewing Emails with Embedded Logos

Embedded logos and other graphics files can slow down the retrieval of emails for viewing in some document viewers, depending on how they render those graphics. By default, Outlook emails are already formatted in HTML and CloudNine provides an HTML view option that enables the user to view the email without the embedded graphics. As a result, the email retrieves more quickly, so, in many cases, where the graphics don’t add value, the HTML view option will speed up the review process (users can still view the full native file with embedded graphics as needed). In working with clients, I’ve recommended the HTML view tab as the default view in CloudNine as a way of speeding retrieval of files for review, which helps speed up the overall review process.

So, what do you think? Do you find that corporate logo graphics files are adding complexity to your own eDiscovery processes? If so, how do you address the issue? 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.

Email Signature Logos are a Sign That Discovery Will be More Complicated: eDiscovery Best Practices

Many, if not most of us, use some sort of graphic in our email signature at work that represents our corporate logo and many organizations have created a standard email signature for their employees to use when corresponding with others. It’s another subtle way of promoting brand recognition. But, those logos can add complexity when managing those emails in eDiscovery.

Craig Ball, in his excellent blog Ball in your Court, takes up the issue in his latest post (ESI Observations on a Pretty Good Friday), where he analyzes about 500GB of email containers associated with matters in which he has served as ESI Special Master. As he observes:

“Just three-fifths of the way through the data, I see 1,371,516 messages have been processed, and these messages have thrown off 1,262,552 GIF images. The great majority of these images will prove to be logos in the signature blocks of the messages, and account for 29% of the item count extracted from the data set so far.

Most of the GIF logos I see in this data are just 2.2KB; so, despite their numerousity, they account for only about ten percent of the volume of single messages (extracted MSGs) sans attachments.” (emphasis added)

As a consultant who has dealt with the corporate logo graphic issue many times in projects with my clients, I thought I would do my own quick analysis to see how some of our projects compare. As I have observed that logos are often in JPEG and PNG file formats as well, I compared the counts of email messages to GIF, JPG and PNG files in three recent different sized projects in CloudNine’s review platform, which provides a handy file type breakdown in its Analytics module.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Small project: Emails – 13,487; GIF/JPG/PNG – 10,492; 77.8% of emails.
  • Medium project: Emails – 98,818; GIF/JPG/PNG – 66,205; 67.0% of emails.
  • Large project: Emails – 443,350; GIF/JPG/PNG – 414,242; 93.4% of emails.

While clearly not all of these are corporate logo graphics (many are other embedded graphics, attached pictures, etc.), you do get the idea that these logos, repeated over and over again, can add up to a significant percentage of your collection on at least a file count basis.

Craig notes the eDiscovery complications these logos cause, including: adding data volumes throughout discovery, slowing page refreshes in review tools, wasting reviewer time and making review even more tedious as well as unnecessarily driving up the number of documents that have color and complicating identification of evidentiary documents where color needs to be preserved for its potential evidentiary value. He also notes that his “technically astute vendor colleagues may counter that there are programmatic methods to minimize the static and friction of corporate logos”, that “probably only a weirdo like me frets about corpulent GIF logos” and notes that “your corporate conceit isn’t ‘free.’”

Without a doubt, organizations don’t think about eDiscovery when crafting their corporate email signature standards and, as much as I can understand Craig’s question as to whether these color logos are worth it, I doubt that they’re going away any time soon. At CloudNine, our own email signature standards include our logo on new emails as we can’t resist any opportunity to show the “nine clouds” (eight white, one blue – the ninth cloud, get it?) in our admitted attempt to build brand recognition any way we can (at least our reply email signature standard is logo free). Try fighting the marketing guys on that.

Nonetheless, as certainly a “weirdo” who also likes to think of myself as a “technically astute vendor colleague”, I have dealt with these logos time and time again in client projects. So, tomorrow, we’ll talk about a couple of those techniques we have used to minimize the effect on our client projects.

So, what do you think? Do you find that corporate logo graphics files are adding complexity to your own eDiscovery processes? 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. 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.