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LitigationWorld Quick Start Guide to Mastering eDiscovery – eDiscovery Best Practices

With the Super Bowl coming up in a few days, it seems appropriate to relay a story about the man for whom the trophy to the winning team is named…

During his first year with the Green Bay Packers, legendary coach Vince Lombardi pulled his team together for a stern lecture after his team lost five games in a row.  He scolded them saying “You forgot every basic fundamental about this game.  We are going to have to start all over again, from scratch!”  Then, he picked up a football and said “Gentlemen, the basics.  This is a football!”  To which one of his players responded “Hold on a minute, Coach!  You’re going too fast!”

Sometimes, it seems like we’re “going too fast” when trying to explain eDiscovery to attorneys.  At least it seems that there are a lot of attorneys that don’t understand the simplest basics.  Now, a brand new guide is hoping to help change that.  Earlier this month, TechnoLawyer published LitigationWorld Quick Start Guide to Mastering Ediscovery, written by Tom O’Connor, who is a nationally recognized consultant in legal technology (and past thought leader interviewee on this blog).

After illustrating just how big the knowledge gap can be, how a lack of eDiscovery knowledge can prove disastrous (via the opinion In re Fannie Mae Securities (D.C. Cir. Jan. 6, 2009)) and the ethical duties for lawyers to understand technology, Tom’s Quick Start Guide dives into the “This is a football!” basics of how computers work and why you should care.  It discusses the bits and bytes (literally) of how computers store data that is discoverable and how “deleted” electronically stored information (ESI) is actually often recoverable.  Remember Oliver North and the Iran-Contra affair?  His deleted email was recovered and he was convicted of perjury…way back in 1989.  These are not groundbreaking new concepts, but they are important if you’re going to be responsible for handling data in discovery.

With some basic technical concepts covered, the guide covers the evolution of eDiscovery with the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), similar amendments adopted by many of the states and, of course, the groundbreaking Zubulake v. UBS Warburg case.  To tie back to the computer fundamentals, Tom asks and answers an important question: “How can you apply current and future rules to ensure your clients preserve all potentially relevant ESI unless you know how it’s stored? You can’t so that’s why you need to understand the basic technological underpinnings of data storage.”

Tom then goes on to cover various forms of production and the advantages and disadvantages of each – his reference to TIFF images as “petrified” is the best adjective I’ve heard yet to describe them – and covers other basic (but important) concepts, such as collection, processing and load files.  He concludes by discussing the importance of learning to “speak geek” about storage technologies and sets the path for you to travel to “true eDiscovery mastery”.

The document is relatively short and sweet, at just 17 pages after the title page and is an easy read, yet contains numerous links to outside resources for those who want to dive deeper.  He references a number of resources and courses available from a variety of eDiscovery pioneers, including Ralph Losey, Craig Ball and Michael Arkfeld.  There is no shortage of resources in this guide for those who want to learn more about eDiscovery.

The free guide is available for download at TechnoLawyer here (you have to be a member of TechnoLawyer to get it, but membership is free, which also gives you access to numerous other resources available on the site).

As Tom notes via a quote from Craig Ball (from this very blog, no less), “Understanding information technology is a necessity for litigators. That’s where the evidence lives.”  As Tom notes, “We all must adapt to this new paradigm of working in the digital world.”  Let’s hope that adaptation occurs sooner rather than later.

So, what do you think?  Do you understand the basic technical concepts you need to as a lawyer?   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.

Six eDiscovery Predictions for 2014, Part Two – eDiscovery Trends

It’s that time of year, where people make predictions for the coming year for all sorts of things, including electronic discovery trends for the coming year.  Friday, we covered my first three eDiscovery predictions for 2014.  Here are the remaining three predictions.

Prediction 4: Data security will be more of an emphasis than ever, yet we will continue to see more data breach stories than ever.

According to the 2013 survey entitled Security Snapshots: Threats and Opportunities that was conducted by the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center (available to members here), “Fully 70% of large firm respondents reported that they didn’t know if their firm had experienced a security breach”.  15% of survey respondents had experienced a security breach.

With notable security breaches happening at major corporations like Target, who recently provided an update to their holiday data breach issue that “the stolen information includes names, mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses for up to 70 million individuals”, and at our own Federal government, data security is becoming a major priority for everybody.

Law firms are no different.  As The American Lawyer’s 18th annual survey of law technology noted, eighty-six percent of respondents – technology directors and CTOs from 87 Am Law 200 firms – say they are more concerned about security threats now than they were two years ago.  To address the threat, law firms will have to be prepared to beef up their security infrastructure, either internally or via virtual resources.

Prediction 5: Small to medium sized law firms will need to leverage virtual resources more than ever to compete.

Speaking of virtual resources, it is becoming more difficult for law firms, especially small to medium sized firms, to keep up and compete.  Many small to mid-sized firms lack the project management expertise, the core competency, the infrastructure and the personnel in house to provide the full range of services that clients are demanding, especially for litigation support and discovery services.

Not only that, but maybe it’s not such a good idea for firms to handle all of their litigation support work in house?  “Why should you own and operate a nonlegal e-discovery business within your walls under the guise of a litigation support department?”  Collection, forensic analysis, processing, database creation and other related tasks are highly technical, nonlegal tasks that are the core competency of eDiscovery vendors, not law firms.  Through the use of virtual resources on a continual basis, “you can leverage your mass buying power and negotiate a low rate for all of your clients”.

Those aren’t my words, they’re the words of eDiscovery thought leader Ralph Losey (a little over a year ago) talking about his own firm, Jackson Lewis, and their decision to outsource their litigation support work.  If a firm like Jackson Lewis decides it’s best to make use of dedicated virtual resources, maybe it makes sense for your firm?  Regardless, I expect that more firms will be forced to outsource and leverage virtual resources to compete with the big firms and the small to medium sized firms that already outsource.

Prediction 6: Educating attorneys on eDiscovery best practices will continue to be a slow, painful process.

When we started eDiscovery Daily three years ago, some of my friends questioned whether there would be enough topics to justify a daily blog about eDiscovery.  Not only have there been enough topics, we’ve had to choose which topics to cover regularly.  There is plenty of information out there regarding eDiscovery trends and best practices, not just from this blog, but numerous other sources as well.

And, there are numerous industry thought leaders who have spent considerable efforts to educate attorneys on eDiscovery basic concepts and best practices.  People like Craig Ball, Ralph Losey, George Socha and Tom Gelbmann, Tom O’Connor and others have spearheaded initiatives to help attorneys (and law students aspiring to become attorneys) to understand eDiscovery better (here is a link to last year’s thought leader interviews if you want to check out their thoughts about education).

Unfortunately, many of the attorneys that I talk to still understand very little about eDiscovery.  Most of those don’t think there is a need to learn about it – often, they’ll tell me that they “don’t have big enough cases” to need to know about it.  I’ve heard other industry professionals discuss similar experiences about the attorneys they meet.  So, while we’ve done a lot in the industry to educate lawyers about eDiscovery, it appears we still have a long way to go.

So, what do you think?  Do you have any eDiscovery predictions for 2014?  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.

The Categories Are… – eDiscovery Trends

Alex Trebek has been uttering the phrase “the categories are” for years on the popular game show Jeopardy®. But, do you know how to take advantage of the “Categories” feature on this blog?

As a daily blog that has been around for over 3 years, eDiscoveryDaily has published 820 posts to date (we should hit our 1,000 post milestone sometime next summer!). We’ve covered eDiscovery trends, key case law decisions and best practices, among other things. We have yet to remove any posts that we’ve published from our site – as a result, we have developed quite a knowledge base resource about eDiscovery topics. Even though I’ve written most of the posts on this blog, I find myself using it from time to time, because, honestly, my brain can only retain so much… 🙂

One of the useful features that our site provides is the Library section. You should see it on the left sidebar underneath the Subscription section. There are two sub-sections that can be useful, Categories and Monthly Archives. As the name implies, Monthly Archives provides an entry for each month’s set of posts – all the way back to the launch of the blog in September 2010. It’s a great way to catch up on topics if you’ve missed them.

As for the Categories sub-section, you may have noticed at the bottom of each post under the Disclaimer, there is a “Filed under” section to show the categories that the post is filed under. Most posts relate to at least a couple of categories (for example, this one relates to Electronic Discovery and Industry Trends; not surprisingly, almost every post relates to electronic discovery because, after all, this is an eDiscovery blog).

The Categories drop down in the Library section enables you to see the classification categories that we use and select a category of interest. So, if you’re interested in viewing the posts related to Case Law (260 of them to date, including yesterday’s post), simply select ‘Case Law’ from the drop down and the site will display a listing of post summaries, starting with the most recent post.

Do you have an interest in activities within the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) or want to know more about Information Governance? Want to know more about Federal eDiscovery Rules or State eDiscovery Rules? Would you like to review cases where Sanctions have been applied, or at least considered? One simple click is all it takes to get there.

Feel free to not only read each daily post, but also to use this blog as a knowledge base resource. If it’s a significant eDiscovery trend, key case law decision or best practice over the past 3+ years, we probably have it here.

So, what do you think? Are there additional categories that you’d like to see us track? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image © 2013 – Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

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.

Moneycase: Should Your Law Practice Be Run Like a Baseball Team? — eDiscovery Trends

Remember the movie Moneyball (adapted from the book of the same name) about Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s use of computer-generated analytics to pick his players to successfully assemble a baseball team that advanced to the baseball playoffs while spending a fraction of the budget as other teams?  Can law firms learn from that example?

According to Angela Hunt in a recent article in Law Technology News (Why Attorneys Love-Hate Data Analytics), maybe they can.  As she notes in her article, James Michalowicz, managing director of Huron Legal advises firms to use big data and performance metrics to minimize legal spending.

Like the old-time baseball experts in Moneyball that scoffed at the use of computer-analytics to pick baseball players, some attorneys question the benefits in the legal arena.  “As much as I think the use of analytics is now penetrating the sports world, I think it’s slower in the legal world,” Michalowicz told Law Technology News. Since a law firm’s value depends heavily on its legal knowledge base, installing a program that does all the heavy thinking can make attorneys feel like their hard-earned legal education is being undermined, explains Michalowicz. “There’s this emotional piece to it. Lawyers don’t want to rely on data. It’s a challenge to their pride.”

However, for large firms and corporations that deal with litigation regularly, Michalowicz recommends using strategic case analytics, a predictive technology that helps attorneys pick their battles.  As the article notes, “[b]y evaluating venue data and case histories within a jurisdiction, law firms and corporate legal departments can give unbiased advice on whether to litigate or settle.”

The past three years, at LegalTech New York (LTNY), we have conducted and published a Thought Leader Series of interviews with various thought leaders in the litigation and eDiscovery industry (here’s the link to this year’s set of interviews).  One of the interviews was with Don Philbin, President and Founder of Picture It Settled®, which is a predictive analytics tool for the settlement negotiation process.  To support this process, they collected data for about ten thousand cases – not just the outcomes, but also the incremental moves that people make in negotiation.  If Billy Beane were an attorney, he’d love it!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at other analytics mechanisms to improve efficiency in the litigation and discovery process.

So, what do you think?  Do you employ any data analytics in your discovery practice?   Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image © 2011 – Sony Pictures

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.

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping — eDiscovery Trends
 

A recent post in the Law Librarians Blog illustrates not only the different ways in which personal data can be captured, but also the continued growth of devices that might contain that data.

In He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, He Knows When You’re Awake…, the authors discuss potential tracking of mouse movements, current data tracking on smart TVs and even the possibility for data to be kept and tracked on…your toothbrush:

  • An October story from Ars Technica discusses how Facebook is working on a way to log cursor movements, beyond tracking where someone clicks on a page to determine an ad’s effectiveness.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook wants to pay attention to the areas a cursor lingers over, even without a click or other interaction.  And, if you’re using a mobile device, Facebook will still be noting when, for instance, “a user’s newsfeed is visible at a given moment on the screen of his or her mobile phone.”
  • Imagine if your toothbrush could keep track of your brushing habits?  According to ZDNet, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sees that happening.  “Everything is on the Net. And we will be connected in phenomenal new ways," said Benioff. Benioff highlighted how his toothbrush of the future will be connected. The new Philips toothbrush is Wi-Fi based and have GPS. "When I go into the dentist he won't ask if I brushed. He will say what's your login to your Philips account. There will be a whole new level of transparency with my dentist”.
  • One device that is already capturing your personal data is the smart TV, in some cases whether you want it or not.  A blogger in the U.K. has discovered that his LG smart TV sends details about his viewing habits back to LG servers.  Those habits also include the file names of items viewed from a connected USB stick.  There is a setting in the TV that purports to turn this behavior off (it’s on by default).  It doesn’t work as data is forwarded to LG no matter what the setting.  LG’s response to the disclosure was less than reassuring – “The advice we have been given is that unfortunately as you accepted the Terms and Conditions on your TV, your concerns would be best directed to the retailer,” the representatives wrote in a response to the blogger. “We understand you feel you should have been made aware of these T’s and C’s at the point of sale, and for obvious reasons LG are unable to pass comment on their actions.”

Nice.  Imagine a case where, in addition to hard drives and smart phones, data collectors need to perform collection on flatscreen TVs and toothbrushes?  If it sounds farfetched, remember that, several years ago, cell phones didn’t store data and texts didn’t even exist.

So, what do you think?  What is the most unusual device from which you’ve ever collected data?   Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

November Pop Quiz Answers! – eDiscovery Trends

Yesterday, we gave you a pop quiz for the topics we’ve covered in November. If you’re reading the blog each day, these questions should be easy! Let’s see how you did. Here are the answers.

 

1.  Which of the following is NOT an approach for collection as described by the published EDRM Collection Standards document?

 

A.    Forensic Image (Physical or Logical Target)

B.    Custom Content/Targeted Image

C.    Custom Content/Non-Targeted Image

D.    Non-Forensic Copy

 

2.  Which judge just published a Discovery Order for use in his District Court?

 

A.    Shira Scheindlin

B.    Lee Rosenthal

C.    Andrew Peck

D.    Paul Grimm

 

3.  Which US Senator recently voiced concerns about the proposed changes to the Federal Rules regarding discovery?

 

A.    Barbara Boxer

B.    Christopher Coons

C.    Dick Durbin

D.    Marco Rubio

 

4.  In what recent case was the plaintiff’s motion to compel denied because the defendant didn’t have “possession, custody, or control” of the evidence?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

5.  How big does the Radicati Group project the market for eDiscovery solutions will grow by 2017?

 

A.    $3.5 billion

B.    $3.6 billion

C.    $3.7 billion

D.    $3.8 billion

 

6.  What are “container files”?

 

A.    A redweld containing paper documents

B.    A file that stores one or more images

C.    A file that stores one or more files in a compressed form

D.    None of the above

 

7.  In which case is a party (and their counsel) facing sanctions for disclosure of confidential agreements?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

8.  Which file format yields, on average, the most pages per GB?

 

A.    Text files

B.    Email files

C.    Microsoft Word files

D.    Image files

 

9.  In which case was cost-shifting ruled inappropriate where data was kept in an accessible format?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

10. Which of the following is NOT a useful LinkedIn group for eDiscovery information?

 

A.    Electronic Discovery Professionals

B.    Association of Litigation Support Professionals

C.    The Discover Network

D.    All of the above are useful groups for eDiscovery information

 

 

How did you do?  Next month, you’ll get another chance with December topics.  As always, please let us know if you have questions or comments, or if there are specific topics you’d like to see covered.

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.

November Pop Quiz! – eDiscovery Trends

Did you think we forgot to quiz you about last month’s topics?  Thankfully, no!  Like we did for July, August and September/October (answers here, here and here, respectively), here is a pop quiz for the topics we covered in November.  If you’re reading the blog each day, these questions should be easy!  If not, we’ve provided a link to the post with the answer.  We’re that nice.  Test your knowledge!  Tomorrow, we’ll post the answers for those who don’t know and didn’t look them up.

 

1.  Which of the following is NOT an approach for collection as described by the published EDRM Collection Standards document?

 

A.    Forensic Image (Physical or Logical Target)

B.    Custom Content/Targeted Image

C.    Custom Content/Non-Targeted Image

D.    Non-Forensic Copy

 

2.  Which judge just published a Discovery Order for use in his District Court?

 

A.    Shira Scheindlin

B.    Lee Rosenthal

C.    Andrew Peck

D.    Paul Grimm

 

3.  Which US Senator recently voiced concerns about the proposed changes to the Federal Rules regarding discovery?

 

A.    Barbara Boxer

B.    Christopher Coons

C.    Dick Durbin

D.    Marco Rubio

 

4.  In what recent case was the plaintiff’s motion to compel denied because the defendant didn’t have “possession, custody, or control” of the evidence?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

5.  How big does the Radicati Group project the market for eDiscovery solutions will grow by 2017?

 

A.    $3.5 billion

B.    $3.6 billion

C.    $3.7 billion

D.    $3.8 billion

 

6.  What are “container files”?

 

A.    A redweld containing paper documents

B.    A file that stores one or more images

C.    A file that stores one or more files in a compressed form

D.    None of the above

 

7.  In which case is a party (and their counsel) facing sanctions for disclosure of confidential agreements?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

8.  Which file format yields, on average, the most pages per GB?

 

A.    Text files

B.    Email files

C.    Microsoft Word files

D.    Image files

 

9.  In which case was cost-shifting ruled inappropriate where data was kept in an accessible format?

 

A.    Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas v. Nemaha Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7

B.    Apple v. Samsung

C.    Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc.

D.    Novick v. AXA Network

 

10. Which of the following is NOT a useful LinkedIn group for eDiscovery information?

 

A.    Electronic Discovery Professionals

B.    Association of Litigation Support Professionals

C.    The Discover Network

D.    All of the above are useful groups for eDiscovery information

 

 

As always, please let us know if you have questions or comments, or if there are specific topics you’d like to see covered.

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.

Requesting Discovery in the Modern Age – eDiscovery Best Practices
 

Leave it to Craig Ball to break down requests for production of electronically stored information (ESI) in a simple and straightforward manner.

In his new article on Law Technology News (Modern E-Discovery Requests), he describes six “challenges” to “help litigators lose the boilerplate and write requests as sleek and modern as ESI itself”.

The article describes the challenges, and Craig provides some excellent examples to illustrate best practices.  Here are the challenges:

CHALLENGE 1: The definition of "document" must give way to an alternate term like "information."  Let’s face it, much of the information requested in discovery today doesn’t fit the traditional “document” format (e.g., videos, Facebook posts, texts, “tweets”, etc.).  As Craig notes, it’s not necessary to attempt to list them all and possibly miss one – the term “information” is sufficient.  Craig provides a simple example sentence here that conveys a concise, but effective way to request “information” in the request.

CHALLENGE 2: In practice, the catchalls "any and all" and "including, but not limited to" rarely serve to broaden the scope of a request, but they're lightning rods for objection.  Again, Craig provides examples verbiage that addresses the “any and all” coverage in the preface to obviate the need to cover it in each individual request.

CHALLENGE 3: When you define a term and either fail to use it or use an undefined variant, your request broadcasts your reliance on forms—it's easy to show you haven't customized your request to the case.  In other words, make sure that each request is customized and not boilerplate with regard to definition of terms.

CHALLENGE 4: Many requests fail to specify the forms sought for ESI production. Specifying "native format" isn't much better.  Specify forms of production sensibly and precisely. Don't assume that "native format" is clear or sufficient; instead, specify the formats sought for common file types.  Craig provides an excellent chart of the most common file types by file extension.

CHALLENGE 5: A well-crafted request should designate the medium of ESI production as well as the forms of production.  In other words, provide language that addresses the appropriate media for the size of production.  Again, Craig provides example wording that covers appropriate media for different sizes of productions.

CHALLENGE 6: Every electronic file has a complement of descriptive information called system metadata residing in the file table of the system or device storing the file. Different file types have different metadata… Develop a comprehensive production protocol tailored to the case and serve same with discovery. Short of that, specify the particular items of metadata and header fields you seek.  Once again, Craig provides an excellent example list of general fields to request, as well as those specific to email messages.

The examples that Craig provides are excellent illustrations of best practices for production requests and well worth checking out.  To view Craig’s article, click here.

So, what do you think?  How do you structure your production requests?   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.

Here’s a New eDiscovery Market Projection That’s Absolutely Rad(icati) – eDiscovery Trends

The Radicati Group, Inc. has just released its latest study, eDiscovery Market, 2013-2017, that offers an in-depth analysis of the worldwide market for eDiscovery software solutions.  According to their study, the market for eDiscovery solutions will grow from over $1.4 billion in 2013 to over $3.7 billion in 2017.  That’s a 164% total increase, representing an average annual growth rate of over 28% over the next four years!

As they note in their Executive Summary, the information in the report is primarily derived from three primary sources:

  • Their Worldwide Database which tracks user population, seat count, enterprise adoption and IT use from 1993 onwards.
  • Surveys conducted on an on-going basis in all market areas that they cover.
  • Market share, revenue, sales and customer demand information derived from vendor briefings.

The Radicati Group predicts that in the next 2-3 years “most corporations in the US will have deployed an eDiscovery solution (either on-premises, hosted, or hybrid). These solutions will of course be capable of interfacing with other eDiscovery solutions in use by outside legal firms, but they will serve as the first line of corporate response to litigation.”  They list five key drivers for deployment of eDiscovery solutions by corporate organizations, as follows:

  • Increasing Litigation
  • Growth in Compliance Requirements
  • Need for Proactive eDiscovery
  • Emergence of New Content Sources
  • Overabundance of Stored Data

Their specific eDiscovery software market revenue estimates by year are as follows (in millions):

  • 2013: $1,418
  • 2014: $1,773
  • 2015: $2,251
  • 2016: $2,904
  • 2017: $3,775

The Radicati Group also provides a brochure containing the Table of Contents for the report, which covers Market Analysis, which includes definition, segmentation, key drivers, eDiscovery solutions trends and pricing models for the market, as well as a review of key players in the eDiscovery software market.  Clearly, they simply copied the TOC to a new document to provide the brochure, as it is filled with “Error! Bookmark not defined” messages.  Nonetheless, the brochure does give a sense of what the report covers.

The cost for the report is $3,000 by company PO, or $2,500 by credit card.  You can buy it via the credit card route here.

Curious about other eDiscovery industry growth predictions and analysis?  Take a look at some of the ones we’ve recently covered – here, here and here.

So, what do you think?  How big do you think the eDiscovery software market will be by 2017?  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.

Opening Statement from Senator Coons on Proposed Rules Changes – eDiscovery Trends

Yesterday, we discussed the opening of a congressional hearing opened with at least one senator voicing concerns about whether the proposed changes to the Federal rules (drafted and approved for public comment) would be effective at curbing the skyrocketing costs of discovery.  Based on a couple of questions that I received about his comments, I located the Opening Statement for the hearing in question and thought it would be of interest.

As noted yesterday, Congress ultimately will review the changes before they go into effect near the end of 2015.   U.S. Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts, raised some interesting questions and concerns in his Opening Statement for the hearing to examine the proposed changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure proposed by the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules.  Among other observations, Senator Coons noted that:

“Five times since 1980, the Judicial Conference has tweaked civil discovery rules in an attempt to curb perceived abuses.  In 1980, a pretrial conference was added to reduce the burdens of discovery.  In 1983, proportionality was first added as a limitation on discovery.  In 1993, the rules were amended to add presumptive discovery limits.  In 2000, the scope of discovery was narrowed.  Finally, just a few years ago in 2006, the proportionality provision instituted in 1983 was revised in an attempt to reflect the increased burdens of electronic discovery.

Today, we are faced with yet another incremental restriction on discovery.  Why would we expect these changes to work where others have failed?  And if discovery cost is not a problem in the majority of cases, is it appropriate to narrow the scope of discovery across the board?”

He also raised the question of whether judges are doing what they can to manage proportionality with the current rules, wondering whether judges are overworked:

“Commentators are in general agreement that judges could do more under the Rules than they are doing currently to narrow issues for discovery and reduce the burdens on producing parties.  Why aren’t they doing so?  Are judges overworked?”

The text of Senator Coons’ Opening Statement is available from his web site here.

So, what do you think?  Will the new rules changes penalize plaintiffs in smaller cases?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

By the way, one of my favorite blogs in eDiscovery topics and cases is Josh Gilliland’s Bow Tie Law’s Blog.  Congratulations to Josh for his 400th post!

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.