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Information Governance

Thursday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday, Monday and Tuesday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2016 (otherwise known as ILTACON) is happening this week and eDiscovery Daily will be reporting this week about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  This is the last day to check out the show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center if you’re in the Washington/Baltimore area with a number of sessions available and over 195(!) exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

Perform a “find” on today’s ILTACON conference schedule for “discovery”, “litigation support” or “information governance” and you’ll get at least 3 sessions with hits.  So, there is plenty to talk about!  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM:

The Intersection Between Records Information Management & Info Governance: While the scope of information governance is broad (business units/practice areas, legal, IT, privacy and security), it is nearly impossible to have an effective information governance program without strong records and information management (RIM). Join us for a discussion on the scope of information governance, the key contributions to expect from the different parts of the law firm and how a robust records management program supports the overall goals of information governance.

Speakers include: Tera Ladner, Director, Information Governance Aflac, Inc.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM:

How Future Technology Will Affect Litigation Support: A panel of e-discovery industry leaders and visionaries will discuss what future technologies will have an effect on litigation support and e-discovery. Find out what these leaders think will happen in the next few years and what you need to be ready for with the coming changes in technology.

Speakers include: Stephen Dooley, Assistant Director of Electronic Discovery and Litigation Support Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Craig Ball, ESI Special Master and Attorney Craig D. Ball, P.C.; Jay Leib, Founder and CEO NexLP; Sheila Mackay, Vice President Xerox Legal Business Services; Dave Copps, Founder & CEO Brainspace; Brendan Hall, Vice President, Business Development Xerox Legal Business Services.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

A Road Map To Gathering and Analyzing Client Discovery Data Across Matters, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM ET: Business intelligence was introduced to the corporate sector 20 years ago, and it is now being incorporated into legal technology. Corporations have used this time to gather and analyze data. They have built data warehouses to link sales data to weather data to bolster on-call staff for the drive-thru window when rain is forecast. In the legal profession, we are starting to use business intelligence to analyze contractor review speeds and related work product. That’s just the beginning! A panel will explore how legal departments are using business intelligence across matters to reuse work product such as privilege calls, relevance and specific coding calls — all on the same documents and previously reviewed!

Speakers include: Jon Canty, Manager Sandline Discovery LLC; Tom O’Connor, Senior EDiscovery Consultant Advanced Discovery; Richard Dilgren, National Director, Data Science & Strategy FRONTEO; Kate Head, Client Executive Advanced Discovery.

So, what do you think?  Did you attend ILTACON this year?  What did you think of the conference?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Wednesday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday and Monday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2016 (otherwise known as ILTACON) is happening this week and eDiscovery Daily will be reporting this week about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  There’s still time to check out the show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center if you’re in the Washington/Baltimore area with a number of sessions available and over 195(!) exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

Perform a “find” on today’s ILTACON conference schedule for “discovery”, “litigation support” or “information governance” and you’ll get at least 3 sessions with hits.  So, there is plenty to talk about!  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM:

Refining Your E-Discovery Reporting: With roughly 10 billion different metrics available around the e-discovery process, how do we cut through the noise and produce relevant reporting?  During this workshop, we’ll walk through a realistic scenario and ask the audience to participate in a choose-your-own adventure style interactive experience and then foster discussion amongst our panelists as to what they would choose at each decision point and why.  This will be a collaborative learning experience that will teach you to think through a situation and choose the right reporting at the correct time to make the best legal and business decisions possible.

Speakers include: Scott M. Cohen, Director of E-Discovery Support Services Winston & Strawn LLP; Daniel S. Meyers, President, Consulting & Information Governance Transperfect Legal Solutions; Scott B Reents, Senior Attorney Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP; David B Smith, Chief, eDiscovery Planning & Logistics U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission; James Sherer, Counsel Baker & Hostetler LLP.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

When Project Management and E-Discovery Management Collide: When project management collides with litigation support management, the balancing act of dividing roles and resources can be complex. When does it make sense to adopt legal project management (LPM) tools or engage with legal project managers? Do these efforts add value to the client? We’ll explore the pros and cons of LPM and give practical suggestions all law firms should consider.

Speakers include: Florinda Baldridge, Global Director of Practice Support Norton Rose Fulbright; Mary Pat Poteet, Managing Consultant; Lidia Lumovic, Global Project Manager Baker & McKenzie; David Bryant Isbell, Director, Global Practice Support Baker & McKenzie; Rebecca Benavides, Director, Legal Project Management Norton Rose Fulbright.

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM:

The Future of Law Firms in the E-Discovery Space: A Client’s Perspective: With the rise of legal service providers and more clients taking work in-house, the value chain in the e-discovery world has been somewhat disrupted. To combat this, we need to delve into clients’ long-term strategies for managing electronic discovery. Who is responsible for various tasks today? What is the plan for the future? How might these strategies effect how we work and how we’re staffed? How are firms and vendors responding to the new models? Let’s get the client’s perspective!

Speakers include: Eric Lieber, Director of Legal Operations & Litigation Support Toyota Motor Sales; Joan Washburn, Director of Litigation and eDiscovery Services Holland & Knight LLP; Thomas Biegacki, Business Development Executive Integreon; EJ Bastien, Lead eDiscovery Program Manager Microsoft Corporation.

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

Today is the last day to participate in the quarterly eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey being conducted by Complex Discovery and ACEDS!  It’s a simple nine question survey that literally takes about a minute to complete.  The more respondents there are, the more useful the results will be!  Click here to take the survey yourself.  Don’t forget!

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.

Tuesday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2016 (otherwise known as ILTACON) is happening this week and eDiscovery Daily will be reporting this week about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  There’s still time to check out the show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center if you’re in the Washington/Baltimore area with a number of sessions available and over 195(!) exhibitors providing information on their products and services.

Perform a “find” on today’s ILTACON conference schedule for “discovery”, “litigation support” or “information governance” and you’ll get at least 3 sessions with hits.  So, there is plenty to talk about!  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM:

Understanding Client Systems for Better Collaboration During Litigation: A panel of in-house e-discovery leaders and outside technology consultants will share challenges they have faced when preserving and collecting data from corporate technology systems during litigation. Learn what in-house leaders wish their outside counsel knew about the technology their companies use and gain a better understanding of common technology systems that need to be considered during litigation data preservation and collection.

Speakers include: Glenn O’Brien, E-Discovery Manager Liberty Mutual Insurance Company; John Thompson, Sr. Manager – Litigation Support/Legal Operations Sanofi; John Goff, Manager of Information & Electronic Records PulteGroup; Mike Alsup, Chairman Gimmal LLC; Johnny Lee, Principal – Forensic Advisory Services.

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM:

Preparing an ROI for eDiscovery Services: A Litigation Technology Operations Workshop: In this hands-on, interactive workshop, participants will create a simulated return on investment (ROI) analysis for e-discovery services. This collaborative exercise will highlight several different approaches to a project and expose clues to reaching your firm’s ROI goals.

Speakers include: Mary Pat Poteet, Managing Consultant; Sheila Mackay, Vice President Xerox Legal Business Services; Bret Libigs, Enterprise Accounts Relativity by kCura.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

The Lean, Mean E-Discovery Machine: Project Management in Litigation Support: Everyone talks about project management (PM), but do litigation and practice support technologists truly know why and how it is beneficial in e-discovery? Do specific deliverables and quality check points matter, or is project management an ad hoc exercise? Three high-level e-discovery strategists will examine aspects of the business side of e-discovery, such as estimating and budgeting, and offer insight into how to measure your PM maturity, the success of your e-discovery projects, and the specific processes and workflows that have yielded successful outcomes. Learn what works — and what doesn’t — when implementing a project management program while striving to manage change in e-discovery.

Speakers include: Michael Quartararo, Director of Litigation Support Services Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP; Dera Jardine Nevin, Director of eDiscovery Proskauer Rose LLP; Daryl Shetterly, Director, DRS Operations Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

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

Time is running out to participate in the quarterly eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey being conducted by Complex Discovery and ACEDS!  It’s a simple nine question survey that literally takes about a minute to complete.  The more respondents there are, the more useful the results will be!  Click here to take the survey yourself.  Deadline is August 31.  Don’t forget!

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.

Welcome to ILTACON 2016: eDiscovery Trends

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2016 (known as ILTACON) kicked off yesterday with several networking events, and begins in earnest today with the first day of sessions.  eDiscovery Daily will be reporting this week about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show.  Over the next four days, 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 Washington/Baltimore area, come check out the show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center – there are a number of sessions available and over 195(!) exhibitors providing information on their products and services.  Perform a “find” on today’s ILTACON conference schedule for “discovery”, “litigation support” or “information governance” and you’ll get at least 4 sessions with hits.  So, there is plenty to talk about!  Sessions in the main conference tracks include:

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM:

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Amendments and Their Effect on Litigation Support Strategies: Significant amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective on December 1, 2015. How have courts interpreted and applied these new changes? Do the amendments provide the basis for corporations to change their approaches to the preservation, collection, review and production of electronically stored information? If so, have they actually changed? What opportunities do the amended rules provide for litigation support departments to educate and consult with clients and drive their e-discovery strategies? Join a panel of experts to learn more about these recent developments.

Speakers include: Eric Lieber, Director of Legal Operations & Litigation Support Toyota Motor Sales; Honorable Andrew J Peck, US Magistrate Judge of New York and Rodney Holaday, Partner Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP.

Information Governance: Regulating Data Privacy Within and Beyond Borders: What are the recent changes to the EU data protection rules, and how do they affect your firm? Large and small, all firms need to know what the changes mean for their business and their clients.

Speakers include: Johan T. Widjaja, Assistant Director Information Governance Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, L.L.P.; John Christian Montana, Principal Montana & Associates; Chris Gallagher, Senior Vice President, National Discovery Solutions & LPO Services Special Counsel.

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM:

Information Governance Best Practices: Building More Than a Great Wall (Corporate Legal Day): ILTA corporate law department members have identified the top aspects of having an integrated information governance (IG) program. The program should value business information as company assets; employ physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect and manage information assets; educate and train personnel; and use metrics to measure and improve performance. Why do so many organizations not have an IG program? It all comes down to perceived cost, and we’re here to squelch the rumors.

Registration is exclusive to ILTA law department and legal operations staff. You must register for either the full ILTACON 2016 event or the ILTACON 2016 Monday Day Pass AND the free Corporate Legal Day.

Speakers include: Kevin Behan, Director, eDiscovery Health Care Service Corporation; Theodore Spurlock, Technology Manager PNC Bank Legal Department; Mike Ferrara, Senior Manager Duff & Phelps, LLC; Ronke Ekwensi, VP Information Mgmt & Policy; Information Governance; Data Privacy; E-Discovery Baxalta Corporation.

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET:

Security and Information Governance: Together in Perfect Harmony, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET: Information governance and security shouldn’t be conflicting goals. You can satisfy the goals of your clients, general counsel, knowledge managers and technologists by aligning your information governance and security policies so they complement one another and advance your firm’s strategic goals. Security policies can reinforce information governance imperatives, and good information governance should be part of your security assessments. Join us as we examine the benefits of harmonizing these two disciplines, best practices and how to identify opportunities within your organization.

Speakers include: James A. Merrifield, Records & Information Governance Manager Robinson & Cole LLP; Leigh Isaacs, Director, Records & Information Governance White & Case LLP; Terry Coan, Senior Director HBR Consulting LLC.

And, of course, you don’t want to miss the Exhibit Hall Opening Reception from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET, where booths will be decorated as different countries. As always, this is a great opportunity to visit with exhibitors and tour the Exhibit Hall in a relaxed setting and hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be served.

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

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

I Wouldn’t Con You, But ILTACON is Just a Week Away: eDiscovery Trends

Believe it or not, it’s almost time for another ILTACON!  ILTACON is the annual conference for the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA).  This year, it is being held in the shadow of Washington, DC in Alexandria, VA at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.  And, once again, eDiscovery Daily will be covering the show!  If you’re in the DC area next week, you may want to check out a few of these sessions regarding eDiscovery and Information Governance.

Technically, ILTACON opens in 6 days with the annual golf tournament, orientation and opening reception happening on Sunday.  Oh, and every day starts with Yoga and Zumba at 6:30am!  However, the Keynote and Educational Sessions start a week from today, on Monday, the 29th.  Here are a few sessions to check out:

Monday, 08/29/2016:

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Amendments and Their Effect on Litigation Support Strategies, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET: Significant amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective on December 1, 2015. How have courts interpreted and applied these new changes? Do the amendments provide the basis for corporations to change their approaches to the preservation, collection, review and production of electronically stored information? If so, have they actually changed? What opportunities do the amended rules provide for litigation support departments to educate and consult with clients and drive their e-discovery strategies? Join a panel of experts to learn more about these recent developments.  Speakers include: Eric Lieber, Director of Legal Operations & Litigation Support Toyota Motor Sales; Honorable Andrew J Peck, US Magistrate Judge of New York and Rodney Holaday, Partner Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP.

Security and Information Governance: Together in Perfect Harmony, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET: Information governance and security shouldn’t be conflicting goals. You can satisfy the goals of your clients, general counsel, knowledge managers and technologists by aligning your information governance and security policies so they complement one another and advance your firm’s strategic goals. Security policies can reinforce information governance imperatives, and good information governance should be part of your security assessments. Join us as we examine the benefits of harmonizing these two disciplines, best practices and how to identify opportunities within your organization.  Speakers include: James A. Merrifield, Records & Information Governance Manager Robinson & Cole LLP; Leigh Isaacs, Director, Records & Information Governance White & Case LLP; Terry Coan, Senior Director HBR Consulting LLC.

And, of course, you don’t want to miss the Exhibit Hall Opening Reception from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET, where booths will be decorated as different countries. As always, this is a great opportunity to visit with exhibitors and tour the Exhibit Hall in a relaxed setting and hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be served.

Tuesday, 08/30/2016:

Preparing an ROI for eDiscovery Services: A Litigation Technology Operations Workshop, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET: In this hands-on, interactive workshop, participants will create a simulated return on investment (ROI) analysis for e-discovery services. This collaborative exercise will highlight several different approaches to a project and expose clues to reaching your firm’s ROI goals.  Speakers include: Mary Pat Poteet, Managing Consultant; Sheila Mackay, Vice President Xerox Legal Business Services; Bret Libigs, Enterprise Accounts Relativity by kCura.

The Lean, Mean E-Discovery Machine: Project Management in Litigation Support, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM ET: Everyone talks about project management (PM), but do litigation and practice support technologists truly know why and how it is beneficial in e-discovery? Do specific deliverables and quality check points matter, or is project management an ad hoc exercise? Three high-level e-discovery strategists will examine aspects of the business side of e-discovery, such as estimating and budgeting, and offer insight into how to measure your PM maturity, the success of your e-discovery projects, and the specific processes and workflows that have yielded successful outcomes. Learn what works — and what doesn’t — when implementing a project management program while striving to manage change in e-discovery.  Speakers include: Michael Quartararo, Director of Litigation Support Services Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP; Dera Jardine Nevin, Director of eDiscovery Proskauer Rose LLP; Daryl Shetterly, Director, DRS Operations Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

Wednesday, 08/31/2016:

The Future of Law Firms in the E-Discovery Space: A Client’s Perspective, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM ET: With the rise of legal service providers and more clients taking work in-house, the value chain in the e-discovery world has been somewhat disrupted. To combat this, we need to delve into clients’ long-term strategies for managing electronic discovery. Who is responsible for various tasks today? What is the plan for the future? How might these strategies effect how we work and how we’re staffed? How are firms and vendors responding to the new models? Let’s get the client’s perspective!  Speakers include: Eric Lieber, Director of Legal Operations & Litigation Support Toyota Motor Sales; Joan Washburn, Director of Litigation and eDiscovery Services Holland & Knight LLP; Thomas Biegacki, Business Development Executive Integreon; EJ Bastien, Lead eDiscovery Program Manager Microsoft Corporation.

Thursday, 09/01/2016:

How Future Technology Will Affect Litigation Support, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET: A panel of e-discovery industry leaders and visionaries will discuss what future technologies will have an effect on litigation support and e-discovery. Find out what these leaders think will happen in the next few years and what you need to be ready for with the coming changes in technology.  Speakers include: Stephen Dooley, Assistant Director of Electronic Discovery and Litigation Support Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Craig Ball, ESI Special Master and Attorney Craig D. Ball, P.C.; Jay Leib, Founder and CEO NexLP; Sheila Mackay, Vice President Xerox Legal Business Services; Dave Copps, Founder & CEO Brainspace; Brendan Hall, Vice President, Business Development Xerox Legal Business Services.

Click here for more information on registering for the conference.  Hope to see you there!

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

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Here’s One Group of People Who May Not Be a Fan of Big Data Analytics: eDiscovery Trends

Most of us love the idea of big data analytics and how it can ultimately benefit us, not just in the litigation process, but in business and life overall.  But, there may be one group of people who may not be as big a fan of big data analytics as the rest of us: criminals who are being sentenced at least partly on the basis of predictive data analysis regarding the likelihood that they will be a repeat offender.

This article in the ABA Journal (Legality of using predictive data to determine sentences challenged in Wisconsin Supreme Court case, written by Sony Kassam), discusses the case of 34-year-old Eric Loomis, who was arrested in Wisconsin in February 2013 for driving a car that had been used in a shooting.  He ultimately pled guilty to eluding an officer and no contest to operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent. Loomis, a registered sex offender, was then sentenced to six years in prison because a score on a test noted he was a “high risk” to the community.

During his appeal in April, Loomis challenged the use of the test’s score, saying it violated his right to due process of law because he was unable to review the algorithm and raise questions about it.

As described in The New York Times, the algorithm used is known as COMPAS (Correctional Offender  Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions).  Compas is an algorithm developed by a private company, Northpointe Inc., that calculates the likelihood of someone committing another crime and suggests what kind of supervision a defendant should receive in prison. The algorithm results come from a survey of the defendant and information about his or her past conduct.  Company officials at Northpointe say the algorithm’s results are backed by research, but they are “proprietary”. While Northpointe does acknowledge that men, women and juveniles all receive different assessments, the factors considered and the weight given to each are kept secret.

The secrecy and the use of different scales for men and women are at the heart of Loomis’ appeal, which an appellate court has referred to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which could rule on the appeal in the coming days or weeks.

Other states also use algorithms, including Utah and Virginia, the latter of which has used algorithms for more than a decade.  According to The New York Times, at least one previous prison sentence involving Compas was appealed in Wisconsin and upheld.  And, algorithms have also been used to predict potential crime hot spots: Police in Chicago have used data to identify people who are likely to shoot or get shot and authorities in Kansas City, Mo. have used data to identify possible criminals.  We’re one step closer to pre-crime, folks.

So, what do you think?  Should algorithms that have a significant effect on people’s lives be secret?  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.

At Litigation Time, the Cost of Data Storage May Not Be As Low As You Think: eDiscovery Best Practices

One of my favorite all-time graphics that we’ve posted on the blog (from one of our very first posts) is this ad from the early 1980s for a 10 MB disk drive – for $3,398!  That’s MB (megabytes), not GB (gigabytes) or TB (terabytes).  These days, the cost per GB for data storage is pennies on the dollar, which is a big reason why the total amount of data being captured and stored by industry doubles every 1.2 years.  But, at litigation time, all that data can cost you – big.

When I checked on prices for external hard drives back in 2010 (not network drives, which are still more expensive), prices for a 2 TB external drive at Best Buy were as low as $140 (roughly 7 cents per GB).  Now, they’re as low as $81.99 (roughly 4.1 cents per GB).  And, these days, you can go bigger – a 5 TB drive for as low as $129.99 (roughly 2.6 cents per GB).  I promise that I don’t have a side job at Best Buy and am not trying to sell you hard drives (even from the back of a van).

No wonder organizations are storing more and more data and managing Big Data in organizations has become such a challenge!

Because organizations are storing so much data (and in more diverse places than ever before), information governance within those organizations has become vitally important in keeping that data as manageable as possible.  And, when litigation or regulatory requests hit, the ability to quickly search and cull potentially responsive data is more important than ever.

Back in 2010, I illustrated how each additional GB that has to be reviewed can cost as much as $16,650 (even with fairly inexpensive contract reviewers).  And, that doesn’t even take into consideration the costs to identify, preserve, collect, and produce each additional GB.  Of course, that was before Da Silva Moore and several other cases that ushered in the era of technology assisted review (even though more cases are still not using it than are using it).  Regardless, that statistic illustrates how the cost of data storage may not be as low as you think at litigation time – each GB could cost hundreds or even thousands to manage (even in the era of eDiscovery automation and falling prices for eDiscovery software and services).

Equating the early 1980’s ad above to GB, that equates to about $330,000 per GB!  But, if you go all the way back to 1950, the cost of a 5 MB drive from IBM was $50,000, which equates to about $10 million per GB!  Check out this interactive chart of hard drive prices from 1950-2010, courtesy of That Data Dude (yes, that really is the name of the site) where you can click on different years and see how the price per GB has dropped over the years.  It’s way cool!

So, what do you think?  Do you track GB metrics for your cases?  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.

What Happens in the Internet Each Minute in 2016? You Have No Idea: eDiscovery Trends

There’s a Don Henley song titled New York Minute where “In a New York minute…Everything can change”.  In an Internet minute in 2016, data can explode throughout the world.

I love infographics and not just because they make my job easier because I don’t have to write as much.  :o)  The graphic above (copyright by Excelacom, thanks to Stephen’s Lighthouse for the tip) gives you a sense of what happens within the internet in a typical minute.  And, this just covers the most popular apps and mechanisms for communicating and sharing information – there’s a lot more happening each minute that isn’t covered here.

In this era of Big Data, if you’re responsible for information governance in your organization, statistics like those shown above might cause you to lose some sleep.  Sorry about that.  But, they do help convey the increasing challenge of managing all of the data within an organization.  Maybe these are good numbers to reference when you’re pushing for that raise?  You’re welcome.  :o)

So, what do you think?  How have the challenges of Big Data affected your organization?  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.

Even a “Luddite” Can Learn the Ins and Outs of Data Backups with this Guide: eDiscovery Best Practices

You have to love an instructional guide that begins with a picture of Milton Waddams (the sad sack employee obsessing over his red stapler in the movie Office Space) and ends with a nice consolidated list of ten practice tips for backups in discovery.

Leave it to Craig Ball to provide that and more in the Luddite Lawyer’s Guide to Backup Systems, which Craig introduces in his Ball in Your Court blog here.  As Craig notes in his blog, this guide is an update from a primer that he wrote back in 2009 for the Georgetown E-Discovery Institute.  He has updated it to reflect the state-of-art in backup techniques and media and also added some “nifty” new stuff and graphics to illustrate concepts such as the difference between a differential and an incremental backup.  Craig even puts a “Jargon Watch” on the first page to list the terms he will define during the course of the guide.

Within this 20 page guide, Craig covers topics such as the Good and Bad of Backups, the differences between Duplication, Replication and Backup, the Major Elements of Backup Systems and the types of Backup Media and characteristics of each.  Craig illustrates how restoration to tape (despite popular opinion to the contrary) could actually be the most cost-effective way of recovering ESI in a case.  And, Craig discusses the emergence of the use of the Cloud for backups (which should come as no surprise to many of you).  He concludes with his Ten Practice Tips for Backups in Civil Discovery, which is a concise, one-page reference guide to keep handy when considering backups as part of your information governance and discovery processes.

Whether you’re a Luddite lawyer or one who is more apt to embrace technology, this guide is sure to provide an essential understanding of how backups are created and used and how they can be used during the discovery process.  Backups may be the Milton Waddams of the eDiscovery world, but they’re still important – remember that, at the end of the movie, Milton was the one relaxing on the beach with all of the money.  :o)

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

Image © Twentieth Century Fox

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.

New Survey Shows Biggest Concerns of Legal Professionals Regarding Cloud and Shadow IT: eDiscovery Trends

A big topic during LegalTech New York (LTNY) last month were the issues and concerns associated with information governance (IG) as it applies to the use of “Shadow IT” applications, including those that are cloud-based.  A new survey, actually conducted during LTNY, was released earlier this week that sheds light on those concerns of legal technology professionals.

According to the survey conducted by Consilio and announced this week, the pervasive use of cloud-based applications in the workplace is creating challenges for companies to effectively manage the potential data security risks of Shadow IT.  A total of 148 responses were collected from law firms (54.73% of respondents), in-house legal departments (27.03%) and government-affiliated entities (18.24%) in attendance.  Here are some notable findings:

  • Biggest Perceived Risks of Cloud-Based Applications: When asked what they thought were the biggest risks of cloud-based applications, 64% of respondents cited inadvertent disclosure of sensitive data as the biggest risk of using cloud-based applications, followed by theft of intellectual property (39%), regulatory compliance failures (26%), inability to adequately identify relevant data for eDiscovery (25%), service outage (21%) and inadequate application of document retention (16%).
  • Concern about Potential Security: When asked how concerned they were with the potential security risk of cloud-based applications, 31.7% of respondents indicated that they were concerned, followed by very concerned (29.7%), moderately concerned (21.6%), slightly concerned (14.8%) and not at all concerned (2.0%).
  • Over Half of Respondents Usually Have Cloud-Based Data to Consider Collecting: 54.7% of respondents often or almost always use cloud-based applications to store company data affiliated with legal and investigatory matters on a regular basis.
  • Majority of Respondents See Cloud Migration as Important to IG: More than two-thirds (67%) of respondents regard the migration of company data to the cloud as important or very important to an organization’s information governance program.

It’s also worth noting that over a quarter (26.9%) of respondents reported that their organization rarely or never actively addresses security risks associated with Shadow IT, which is hardware or software used within an enterprise that is not supported or administrated by the organization’s IT department.  Almost half of legal technology professionals (45.2%) cited that their organization addresses these risks sometimes, while only a quarter (25.6%) committed to this process very often.

“The survey confirmed what we have already seen anecdotally for the last few years; many organizations are enabling Shadow IT to enter their daily business operations without enough concern about the risks of these platforms,” said John Loveland, managing director, Consilio. “If an organization is faced with litigation in the future, this cavalier approach can make eDiscovery exponentially more complicated and expensive, during a time when efficiency and accuracy are paramount.”

A copy of the infographic containing key findings from the survey can be found here.

So, what do you think?  How does your organization handle the use of “Shadow IT” applications?  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.