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Industry Trends

Here is a “Mashup” of eDiscovery Market Estimates – eDiscovery Trends

Last Friday, we profiled one eDiscovery market estimate that predicts that the eDiscovery market will reach $15.65 billion by 2020.  Now, here’s a “mashup” of other estimates, courtesy of Rob Robinson.

Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery site is an excellent resource for discovery and general legal technology articles which we’ve profiled several times before, including last year when we profiled his compilation of various eDiscovery market estimates for 2012 to 2017. Now, he’s updated the estimates to provide An eDiscovery Market Size Mashup for 2013 to 2018.

Like last year, the compilation is “[t]aken from a combination of public market sizing estimations as shared in leading electronic discovery publications, posts and discussions over time, the following eDiscovery Market Size Mashup shares general market sizing estimates for both the software and service areas of the electronic discovery market for the years between 2013 and 2018.”

Here are some highlights (based on the estimated from the compiled sources):

  • The eDiscovery Software and Services market is expected to grow an estimated 15.51% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) per year from 2013 to 2018 from $5.36 billion to $11.02 billion per year.  Services comprise approximately 72% of the market and software comprises approximately 28%.
  • The eDiscovery Software market is expected to grow an estimated 17.15% annual growth per year from 2013 to 2018 from $1.5 billion to $3.31 billion per year.  Software currently comprises 28% of the market, which will rise to 30% by 2018.  Also by 2018, 80% of the eDiscovery software market will be “off-premise” – which includes cloud-based and other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)/Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)/Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions.
  • The eDiscovery Services market is expected to grow an estimated 14.87% annual growth per year from 2013 to 2018 from $3.86 billion to $7.72 billion per year.  Like last year, the breakdown of the services market is as follows: 73% review, 19% processing and 8% collection.

Here are the sources that Rob states were used in compiling the “mashup”:

  • Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software.” Jie Zhang, Debra Logan, Garth Landers. June 19, 2014.
  • IDC “Wordwide eDiscovery Software 2014-2018 Forecast.” Sean Pike. May 2014.
  • The Radicati Group. “eDiscovery Market, 2013-2017.” Sara Radicati. August 2013.
  • Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software.” Debra Logan, Alan Dayley, Sheila Childs. June 10, 2013.
  • The Radicati Group. “eDiscovery Market, 2012-2016.” Sara Radicati, Todd Yamasaki.  October 2012.
  • Transparency Market Research. “World e-Discovery Software & Service Market Study.” August 2012 (their new report just came out before Rob published his latest “mashup”).
  • Rand Institute For Civil Justice. “Where the Money Goes:  Understanding Litigant Expenditures for Producing Electronic Discovery.” Nicolas Pace and Laura Zakaras. April 2012.
  • IDC “MarketScape: Worldwide Standalone Early Case Assessment Applications Vendor Analysis.” Vivian Tero. September 19, 2011.
  • Industry Observer Estimations (Multiple Observers)

As always, you’ll want to check out the story (including the cool, informative graphs), which you can do by clicking here.

So, what do you think?  Do you agree with these industry growth projections?  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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

eDiscovery Market Predicted to Reach $15.65 Billion by 2020 – eDiscovery Trends

Is the eDiscovery industry still growing?  According to one research firm, the answer is a resounding yes.

According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research (eDiscovery Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 – 2020), the global eDiscovery market is forecast to reach $15.65 billion by 2020. The growth of eDiscovery market is driven by increasing volume of ESI (electronically stored information) every year in organizations and need to manage this huge data volume for civil litigation purpose. Emergence of social media such as Instagram, Linkedin and Facebook across the organizations is resulting in increasing demand for eDiscovery solutions that can be used for social media electronic discovery.

As noted in their press release, the Global eDiscovery market was valued at $5.56 billion in 2013 and is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.5% from 2014 to 2020. That’s a 281 percent total rise from 2013 to 2020!  The press release states that “Rising use of eDiscovery solutions in government and regulatory agencies is driving the growth of eDiscovery market. In government agencies, investigators and compliance officers use eDiscovery solutions to manage the increasing regulatory audits and investigations. Furthermore, legal and IT departments in large organizations have increased the usage of eDiscovery solutions. Organizations are deploying eDiscovery solutions for efficient information governance and internal investigations. In addition, emergence of social media in organizations is fueling the growth of eDiscovery market. However, high cost associated with services such as collection, processing and review is hindering the growth of eDiscovery market.”

Which end-use sector is the largest currently?  That would be government and regulatory agencies which accounted for 51.1% of the eDiscovery market revenue share in 2013. According to the report, this segment is “expected to dominate the eDiscovery market over the forecast period due to increasing civil litigations and regulatory audits.  In addition, governments of various countries such as Japan and South Africa are taking initiatives to implement eDiscovery process in their agencies and organizations. For example, in 2013, South African government introduced POPI (The Protection of Personal Information) legislation to promote deployment of eDiscovery solutions across all size of organizations to address issues related to investigation of electronic information and risks associated with it.”

“Geographically, North America is expected to remain the largest segment for eDiscovery market due to the growth in demand for eDiscovery software and services in offices to meet regulatory compliances. North America is anticipated to dominate this market throughout the forecast period due to the increasing use of eDiscovery solutions, especially across enterprises and law firms for early case assessment.”

Their report from two years ago (spanning 2010 to 2017) indicated that the global eDiscovery market was worth $3.6 billion in 2010 and was expected to reach $9.9 billion by 2017, growing at a CAGR of 15.4% during that time (virtually identical to the 15.5% CAGR they forecast in their latest report.

Their report also discusses topics such as pricing trends, competitor analysis, growth drivers, opportunities and inhibitors and provides company profiles of several big players in the industry.  The 86 page report is available in a single user license for $4,795 up to a corporate license for $10,795.

So, what do you think?  Do you agree with their forecast?  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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

eDiscovery Throwback Thursdays – Circa 1978, We Lived in a World of Paper
 

Back before desktops, laptops and tablets, the business world meant paper.  Lots of paper. And that meant that litigation preparation activities revolved around paper.  Paper documents. Paper logs for tracking activity. Paper coding forms for recording document information. Paper reports.  Our supplies for litigation support activities were pens, pencils, pads of paper, staplers, staple removers, rubber fingers, white-out, post-it notes, boxes, manila file folders, and yes, even Band-Aids (paper cuts were a common work-place ‘injury’).

Although it was a very different world, some things were the same.  In fact, if you look at the EDRM graphic, every phase on the chart also applied to paper.  It was the way things worked back then, if you took the word “Electronic” out of the title and simply called it “Discovery Reference Model”.  Here’s a summary of how the phases of the EDRM applied, prior to the early 1980s:

  • Information Governance:  Businesses managed information and paper.  Employees maintained paper files in filing cabinets in their offices.  Important documents and those of common interest were stored in departmental central files (typically a common area with rows of filing cabinets or shelves of files, maintained by a secretary).  Old documents were boxed up and sent to warehouse facilities for long-term storage.  Indices of the files in those boxes were maintained on paper logs.  Many businesses had document retention policies in place, which included schedules for when documents were to be shredded.
  • Identification:  Responsive documents needed to be located, so that meant identifying custodians, central filing systems and warehouse facilities that were likely to house responsive materials.
  • Preservation:  Potentially responsive paper documents needed to be preserved…  which meant ‘stop shredding’.
  • Collection:  Paper documents were collected.
  • Processing:  Usually, ‘processing’ meant photocopying potentially responsive documents.
  • Review:  Documents were reviewed for responsiveness and privilege.
  • Analysis:  Document content was analyzed, documents were categorized around witnesses and issues, and hot documents were identified.  Most attorneys created a physical binder for each witness, fact and issue in a case, and a single document might be photocopied a number of times, once for each binder into which it was filed.  In the late 1970’s, for some large, ‘bet your company’ cases, documents were coded and document information was loaded into a database. Building a database, however, was by no means commonplace in the late 1970’s.
  • Production:  Documents that were identified as responsive were turned over – in paper form – during discovery.
  • Presentation:  Paper documents were used as exhibits in hearings, depositions and at trial.

Next week, we’ll take a closer look at a typical document collection project circa 1978.

Please let us know if there are eDiscovery topics you’d like to see us cover in eDiscoveryDaily.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

eDiscovery History: Welcome to Throw-back Thursdays!
 

I was recently teaching a project management class at a large law firm, and a student mentioned that he was working on a case that involved a very old document collection, some of which only existed on microfiche. He asked me for advice on managing the conversion of those documents and incorporating them into his bigger-picture project. 

I watched as another student turned to her laptop and started typing.  She was quite young and looked a bit confused, or maybe inquisitive, I suspected she was Googling “microfiche”.  I was right.  And it made me chuckle.  I asked for a show of hands… she was not the only one in the room who didn’t know what microfiche was. Since I, of course, could quite handily speak on the subject, it got me thinking about just how long I’ve been working in this field, and about how much things have changed. 

I wondered if it would be useful for some of the younger folks in eDiscovery to understand the history… to know how original litigation support databases were built, to know how they were used, and to know a little bit about the older technology that was employed.  Except for the rare case where legacy methods are an issue, I concluded that it’s probably not particularly helpful… but it might be interesting, and it might be fun to look back. So, we’re starting a “Throw-back Thursday” blog series, where we’ll go back in time and I’ll tell you a bit about how things used to be.

In this series, we’ll talk about the ‘litigation support’ culture and industry in the old days, about the technology that was used, about the processes for building databases, how databases were searched, how documents were retrieved, and the evolution of the process between those old days and now. So tune-in next week for discussion of the litigation support industry, circa 1980 (and even a little before that).

Please let us know if there are eDiscovery topics you’d like to see us cover in eDiscoveryDaily.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

EDRM Introduces Search Intent Framework – eDiscovery Trends
 

It seems that just about every month EDRM publishes a new standard or guideline for eDiscovery best practices.  On Monday, they announced the release of a new Search Intent Framework.

As their press release states: “The new framework was developed to define and document various types of search intent that are part of the EDRM.  Within the EDRM, ‘search” is used broadly in many contexts: to assess or scope a matter, acquire specific documents or discrete information or classify preselected documents; these have minimal legal impact. For other EDRM searches, the legal impact is high, such as in asserting comprehensiveness and accuracy. Enterprise search, early data assessment, e-discovery processing search functions, review system search functions and even concept analysis or document clustering tools are all described as ‘search’ in the context of the EDRM, with little recognition that poor accuracy in one context is more consequential than in others.”

So, why the need for a search intent framework?  “The intent of any search is what determines the appropriate technology, process or workflow that should be implemented and the level of scrutiny to be applied in determining “reasonable” success. The EDRM Search Intent Framework was developed to define and document the different classes and subclasses of search intent that comprise the EDRM.”

With regard to classes of search intent, the EDRM Search Intent Framework (available here) describes three classes:

  • Exploratory Class: Used to confirm whether or not a specific document, reference, or discrete piece of information exists, as well as to gain general knowledge about a document set in order to understand how to handle the data set.
  • Classification Class: Used to categorize individual documents or a set of documents as to their responsiveness, non-responsiveness, whether or not they flag a policy, and so forth.
  • Quality Control: Used to identify inconsistencies in a document set. Quality control testing is typically done during review and production to test that documents are properly coded and are appropriate to either be produced or not produced.

Each Class includes the Sub-Class, Intent, Implementation and Measure of Success associated with each Sub-Class within the Class.  The Framework provides a color coded legend to identify each phase of the EDRM, from Information Governance to Presentation and uses those color codes to identify which phases apply to each Sub-Class (for example, in the Exploratory Class, Identification, Preservation and Collection apply to the Assessment Sub-Class).  Each Sub-Class is flowcharted from the Sub-Class down to the Measure of Success resulting from the Sub-Class of search intent.  Detailed descriptions are also provided for each Sub-Class.

As the Framework states, “It is the intent of the search that should determine the appropriate technology, process, or workflow, that should be implemented, and the level of scrutiny to be applied in determining “reasonable” success.”  Apparently, all searches aren’t created the same!

From the link above, the Framework can be downloaded as a single page PDF – unfortunately, the page dimensions are 23.95 x 13.30 inches (a three page Framework might be easier to read, just sayin’).  But, the Framework does provide a clear depiction of the intent of each type of search from intent to implementation and measure of success.

So, what do you think? Could this new Framework help your search strategy?  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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

Farewell to IT-Lex – eDiscovery Trends

We enjoy the opportunity to be a daily resource for eDiscovery news and analysis.  There are several good resources for information about eDiscovery and legal technology, though very few of them provide new content daily.  One that has been essentially doing so for the past two years is IT-Lex.  Unfortunately, as of today IT-Lex has announced that they have discontinued operations.

A few days ago, IT-Lex announced the news on their site here:

“For the past two years, IT-Lex has been honored to advance the dialogue on all matters concerning technology law.  Since our upstart beginning as a simple blog that could easily be confused for a college student’s tumblr feed, IT-Lex has published well over 1,000 blog posts, hosted the Innovate Conference in October 2013, awarded thousands of dollars in scholarship money to law students, and, most recently, published the IT-Lex Journal.

Behind these successes, there have been sleepless nights, long weekends, and boundless effort from everyone involved in our not-for-profit endeavor.  As they say, “All good things must come to an end.”  After a great deal of thought and consideration, those of us at IT-Lex will be moving on to other endeavors.  IT-Lex will discontinue operations on July 1, 2014, but we will leave the articles on our site up as an archive for as long as possible.

It is our sincere hope that in some way, big or small, IT-Lex was able to help you, your practice, and the legal profession through entertaining educational materials, networking opportunities, or even simply giving you a good laugh in the middle of your workday through one of our more light-hearted posts.

On behalf of Lexington (our robot mascot), and all of us at IT-Lex, it has been a heck of a ride . . .  thank you for coming along with us.”

Samir Mathur and Adam Losey were kind enough to allow me to write a guest post once (Lessons Learned from eDiscovery Thought Leaders, from our thought leader interview series of 2013) and Adam was kind enough to participate in our thought leader interview series the past two years (here is his two part interview from 2013 and also his 2014 interview).  Their efforts have resulted in high quality legal education content for lawyers and law students alike, as well as assistance for law students and all within a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  Nice!

Alas, as they said “all good things must come to an end”.  I’ll miss their articles, though as noted above, IT-Lex will leave their past articles up on their site as long as possible.  I encourage you to check them out – they’re enjoyable to read and very informative.

So, what do you think? From what resources do you get useful eDiscovery information?  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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

Wednesday LTWC 2014 Sessions – eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday, LegalTech West Coast 2014 (LTWC) is happening this week and eDiscoveryDaily is reporting about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  There’s still time to check out the show if you’re in the Los Angeles area with a number of sessions (both paid and free) available and at least 50 exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

Perform a “find” on today’s LTNY conference schedule for “discovery” or “information governance” and you’ll get 25 hits.  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

10:30 AM – 11:45 AM:

Information Governance: More Than Defensible Disposition

Litigation readiness. E-discovery. Defensible disposition. Attorneys, paralegals and technology experts all benefit from their organization’s having efficient and effective processes for responding to litigation. A well-conceived information governance program that takes into account the organization’s business, technology and legal perspectives provides the foundation for these processes. This session explores how an effective information governance program can ensure that obsolete, redundant or transitory information no longer needed for operational, legal/regulatory, or historical purposes can be disposed, thereby improving timely and efficient access to relevant information during litigation.

Moderator: John Isaza, Partner, Rimon, P.C.

1:00 PM – 2:15 PM:

The Three R’s: Risk, Readiness, and Revenue!

Organizations are increasingly dependent on their electronic information for mission-critical decisions and transactions. Managing and mitigating the risks that are associated with information governance practices requires on-going monitoring and oversight. While law firms are increasingly called on to help clients address litigation and legal holds needs, this is only part of the picture.  Although Litigation Readiness prepares clients for potential litigation, new research, to be discussed in this session, shows that litigation readiness services provide a host of opportunities for the staff of law firms to help firm clients leverage the value of data beyond discovery.  These activities can potentially save organizations money, prepare them for litigation, and help law firm clients and even the law firms themselves find potential new revenue streams.

Speakers are: Bennett B. Borden, Partner and Chair, Information Governance and eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP; Martin Tuip, Executive Director of Information Governance Solutions, ARMA International; Frank Lambert, Senior Consultant, Information Governance Solutions LLC, Theresa Shoch, Principal, UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc.  Moderator: John Isaza, Partner, Rimon, P.C.

Reducing Discovery Expenses: How to Accelerate the Discovery Process and Save Money

The cost related to discovery continues to draw the eye of lawyers and clients alike.  This session explores how technology and related analytical tools and processes can be applied to mitigate expenses.   Discussion points include:

  • The economics of eDiscovery
  • How software can reduce eDiscovery costs by maximizing the number of searches within a set timeframe, enabling litigation departments to refine searches, reduce data volume and lower costs
  • Cost savings and other benefits to legal teams and IT departments, during and beyond the eDiscovery process

Speakers are: Christopher Acosta, Director of Practice Support, Nossaman LLP; Claire Hass, Discovery Counsel, Google; Martyn Wiltshire, Director of Strategic IT Initiatives, SanDisk.  Moderator: David Cohen, Partner and Practice Group Leader, Global Records & E-Discovery Group, Reed Smith LLP.

2:45 PM – 4:00 PM:

You Owe it to Yourself: Professional Development in IG

A strategic approach to information governance is not only a best practice for any organization, but it is now a necessity.  The RIM and IG professional needs to be able to address issues on an organization-wide basis and to proactively solicit input from all the “vested interests” within the organization. This session reviews these “vested” perspectives and couples them with relevant professional development tools, certifications and accreditations to get you up-to-speed on managing your own information governance challenges in order to effectively advise clients.

Speakers are: Frank Lambert, Senior Consultant, Information Governance Solutions LLC, Theresa Shoch, Principal, UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc.  Moderator: John Isaza, Partner, Rimon, P.C.

In addition to these, there are other eDiscovery-related sessions today.  For a complete description for all sessions today, click here.

So, what do you think?  Did you attend LTWC 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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

Welcome to LegalTech West Coast 2014! – eDiscovery Trends
 

Today is the start of LegalTech® West Coast 2014 (LTWC) and eDiscoveryDaily is reporting about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  We will provide a description each day of some of the sessions related to eDiscovery to give you a sense of the topics being covered.  If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out the show – there are a number of sessions (both paid and free) available and at least 50 exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

Perform a “find” on today’s LTNY conference schedule for “discovery” or “information governance” and you’ll get 12 hits.  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

10:30 AM – 11:45 AM:

Using Mobile Technology in Electronic Data Discovery

  • Examining the benefits of mobile e-discovery
  • Addressing security challenges in conducting EDD from mobile devices
  • Combatting issues and concerns posed by BYOD practices
  • Complying with court orders and avoiding sanctions International Privacy and its Impact on e-Discovery

Speakers are: Ronie M. Schmelz, Partner, Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP; Dionne Rainey, Partner, Hunton & Williams LLP; Richard Rushing, Chief Information Security Officer, Motorola Mobility; Petra K. LaFountain, Sr.eDiscovery Advisor, Baker & McKenzie, LLP.  Moderator: Hunter W. McMahon, JD, Director of Discovery & Technology, Driven Inc.

Leveraging Data and Analytics to Optimize Information Governance

  • Exploring  how analytical technologies and TAR tools improve efficiency and compliance
  • Using predictive coding for records retention and classifying unstructured data
  • Applying best practices from using predictive coding in e-Discovery to your IG initiatives

Speakers are: David Cohen, Partner and Practice Group Leader, Global Records & E-Discovery Group, Reed Smith LLP; Gordon J. Calhoun, Partner, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP.  Moderator: Bennett B. Borden, Partner and Chair, Information Governance and eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

12:45 PM – 1:45 PM:

Beyond Predictive Coding: Incorporating New Technologies into Your E-Discovery Program

  • Computational linguistics
  • Data mining
  • Language translation
  • Other “future” techniques

Speakers are: Bennett B. Borden, Partner and Chair, Information Governance and eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP; Jeffrey Fowler, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers; Thomas Barnett, Special Counsel, eDiscovery and Data Science, Paul Hastings.  Moderator: Amy Jane Longo, Senior Trial Counsel, Division of Enforcement U.S. Securities & Exchange.

The Convergence of Data Privacy, Data Security, E-Discovery and Information Governance for Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures

Exploring the business, regulatory and legal risks associated with poor Data Privacy, Data Security, E-Discovery and Information Governance practices in the context of business deals including:

  • Data Privacy: data transfer, anonymization, tokenization and aggregation concerns
  • Data Security: access rights, transfer restrictions, tokenization and BYOD
  • E-Discovery: legal holds, reasonable anticipation of litigation and deal-related issues
  • Information Governance: policy and schedule harmonization, “dark and dusty” data and documents and information of inherent value

Examining high-level due diligence “best practices” in these areas which address the issues and also provide:

  • Appropriate strategic plans to support these practices
  • Specific costs associated with those plans, in turn supported by vendor and service provider bids for related services

Speakers are: James Sherer, Counsel, Baker & Hostetler LLP; Eugenio Ortiz, Quantitative Financial Analyst, GMO; James Wolf, Senior Technical Director, H5.

2:15 PM – 3:30 PM:

Innovative Solutions that Facilitate Discovery in Government Investigations

  • Understanding the role of electronic evidence in government investigations
  • Tackling the challenges presented by data generated via social media, instant messaging and other emerging digital channels
  • Analyzing the key success factors for using predictive coding in government investigations.

Speakers are: John E. Davis, Executive Director and Counsel, Global eDiscovery, UBS AG; Casey Flaherty, Corporate Counsel, Kia Motors; Alex Ponce de Leon, Sr. Counsel, Litigation Group, Intel Corporation.  Speaker and Moderator: Patrick L. Oot, Co-Founder, Electronic Discovery Institute, Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P..

In addition to these, there are other eDiscovery-related sessions today.  For a complete description for all sessions today, click here.

So, what do you think?  Are you planning to attend LTWC 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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

Revised Federal Rule Amendments One Step Closer – eDiscovery Trends

As noted by a recent article in Law Technology News, a revised package of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) is one step closer to being adopted.

The article Standing Committee OKs Federal Discovery Amendments, written by Thomas Allman, notes that last month, the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Standing Committee”) approved proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including the 2010 Civil Litigation Conference, held at Duke University’s law school, sponsored and organized by the advisory committee (a.k.a., the “Duke Rules Package”), addressing Rules 1, 4, 16, 26, 30, 31, 33, and 34 and a rewritten version of Rule 37(e), addressing preservation.

The amendments include significant changes from the original proposals, reflecting feedback from three public hearings that drew more than 120 witnesses and 2,356 written comments.  Many of those comments were focused on controversial Rule 37(e) – discussed on this blog here.

As the article notes, “[t]he next stop is a review by the Judicial Conference in September. If approved, the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to review and vote on whether to send the amendments to Congress. If that occurs before May 2015, the individual rules will become effective in December 2015, unless Congress disapproves.”

Here is a link to the agenda and the text of the rules as adopted that was published in the Standing Committee’s meeting Agenda Book.

Click here, here, here, here and here for previous posts on this blog regarding the proposed rules changes.

So, what do you think?  Will the rules amendments pass this time?  Should they?  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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.

Want My Production? Here’s my Database! – eDiscovery Trends

A couple of weeks ago, we covered a case where the US Government was ordered to continue providing access to an eDiscovery database to a defendant in a criminal case.  That case shed light on a growing trend in the industry that I have also observed personally – “producing” documents to opposing counsel by providing access to the documents via a hosted eDiscovery solution.

In Craig Ball’s Lawyer’s Guide to Forms of Production (that we recently covered here), Craig identified hosted production as one of the options for forms of production that can be requested.  However, as Craig notes, “More commonly, hosted data and online review tools are used internally by a producing party’s counsel to search the data for privileged and responsive items rather than as a means to afford access to the requesting party. The items identified are then duplicated onto transfer media (e.g., optical disks or a hard drive) and produced in one or more of the formats described above.”

That is certainly true, though more parties in litigation are choosing to provide access to the online database as a means of production (“production without production” as Craig calls it).  While I don’t have any statistics to point to, that has at least been my recent experience as platform manager for OnDemand®, CloudNine Discovery’s own hosted eDiscovery platform.

Typically, there are two options for producing documents by providing online access: 1) provide access to the existing database, or 2) create a new database of produced documents.  Here are the pros and cons of each:

  • Existing Database: Many parties provide access to portions of their existing eDiscovery database.  This reduces costs because the data is already hosted and may be a way for both parties to share hosting costs.  In those instances, security becomes paramount.  As attorneys need to exclude access to non-responsive or privileged documents and other work product, the eDiscovery application needs to provide the ability to limit the documents that users can see as well as limit the fields that users can see.  In addition, it’s important to have a well-documented plan for the database administrator to follow to ensure that the correct rights are assigned.  If not, inadvertent disclosures of documents or data fields used during review and production can occur.
  • New Database: While it may cost more to create a new database of produced documents (essentially doubling the storage of those documents into a new database), it is much easier to secure privileged information and attorney work product because those documents and data fields simply aren’t there, essentially eliminating the possibility of an inadvertent disclosure due to incorrect rights assignments.  In these cases, the receiving party often agrees to bear the costs of hosting their portion of the data.

In both cases, the advantages to the receiving party include access to the same produced documents in the same format in which they were reviewed using the same search and analytical tools that the producing party used to produce the documents, putting both parties on equal footing.

So, what do you think?  Have you been part of a hosted production?  If so, how did it go?  Were you on the producing or receiving 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 Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery 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.