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Information Governance

Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP: eDiscovery Trends

This is the third of the 2016 LegalTech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.  Unlike previous years, some of the questions posed to each thought leader were tailored to their position in the industry, so we have dispensed with the standard questions we normally ask all thought leaders.

Today’s thought leader is Jason R. Baron.  An internationally recognized speaker and author on the preservation of electronic documents, Jason is a member of Drinker Biddle’s Information Governance and eDiscovery practice and also a member of the leadership team for the Information Governance Initiative.  Jason previously served as Director of Litigation for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and as trial lawyer and senior counsel at the Department of Justice.  He was a founding co-coordinator of the National Institute of Standards and Technology TREC Legal Track, a multi-year international information retrieval project devoted to evaluating search issues in a legal context.  He also founded the international DESI (Discovery of Electronically Stored Information) workshop series, bringing together lawyers and academics to discuss cutting-edge issues in eDiscovery.

What are your general observations about LTNY this year and how it fits into emerging trends?

It’s clear to me that there has been a maturing of the market for the kind of analytics software that some of us have been evangelizing about in the eDiscovery space for some time.  This year, it was noticeable that there weren’t 27 sessions devoted to technology assisted review in e-discovery cases!  However, in place of that narrower focus, there were any number of sessions on analytics and applying analytics to a broader segment of the legal space, which I applaud.

Also, I think there was an acknowledgement that, from the perspective of Information Governance, there is an analytics play to be had.  With bigger and bigger data sets, companies need to face the fact that both employees and customers generate huge amounts of data and they need to make sure that they understand and have visibility into that data.  So, the tools that evolved for purposes of eDiscovery are perfectly suitable – with tweaks – to cover a variety of legal purposes, and we’re seeing that play out at LegalTech.

At LTNY, you were one of the panelists on the Thursday keynote addressing issues such as private servers, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and other organization challenges for managing data by individual employees.  What do organizations, such as government entities and corporations, need to do manage personal data more effectively?

Well, I’m glad you asked me that.  The session that I had the privilege of speaking on (with Judge Scheindlin and Edward McMahon as fellow panelists and Professor Dan Capra moderating) was all about what I call “shadow IT,” which is a phenomenon that is closely related to but distinct from BYOD.   In the past decade or so, we all have been empowered to simply go to the Internet to use whatever variety of cool apps that are out there, like Google Docs and Dropbox, to facilitate communications and doing work and “parking” documents.  We go out and communicate routinely on Gmail and other forms of commercial services.  All of these activities, to the extent that they involve communications that relate to business or the work of governments, are what I consider to be “shadow IT” in nature because they are not controlled by a traditional IT department in a corporation or agency.

So, maybe a decade ago, if there was a Rule 34 request, you were pretty much assured that all of the relevant material could be gathered by a state-of-the-art IT custodian performing a collection effort against individual accounts on an official system.  That’s no longer absolutely the case.  Today, you need to ask follow-up questions as to where individuals are parking their documents and where are they communicating outside the “official” channel for doing so.

In government, there are very well known, long standing rules for what constitutes a Federal record, including email.  There is an expectation on the part of the public – and there should be an expectation on the part of government officials — that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records created about government business will be made available. (Indeed, at least some of those records will be preserved as permanent records in the National Archives of the United States.)  So, it is incumbent to make sure that one follows the rules — and the rules for government are different than what they are for the private sector.  A clear statute in place since 2014 says that anytime that you’re communicating about government business on a private commercial network, you need to either “cc” or forward that message within twenty days to an official record keeping system.  This isn’t the place to get into what regulations were prior to 2014 and how that plays out in terms of the political realm, but our panel did cover the general topic of the responsibility of the officials to make sure that their communications about government business are, in fact, captured in an official system somewhere.

Also, for some time, I have been a very big advocate of email archiving and capture technologies generally, so that we don’t lose history and don’t lose a broad swath of government records that are otherwise not going to be captured if you simply leave it to individuals themselves to take steps to preserve. 

The problem of shadow IT is one that is equally of concern in the private sector because high level corporate officials sometimes, in various verticals, are governed by strict email archiving requirements (e.g.,SEC and FINRA rules).  So senior people need to also be aware that, if they’re communicating about cover topics outside of the usual channels, they need to take additional steps to make sure that those are properly archived.

These issues are only emerging now and it’s probably only going to get “worse”!  In my view, the issues are going to be more complex in the future with more apps, more platforms, more devices and more opportunities for “end runs” around the traditional IT department.

In the case Nuvasive v. Madsen Medical, the Court recently vacated an adverse inference instruction sanction previously applied against the plaintiff because of the amendment to Rule 37(e).  Do you see that as a trend for other cases and do you expect that other parties that have been sanctioned will file motions to have their sanctions re-considered?

There are some subtle provisions as to when courts will or will not apply the new rules to existing cases.  But, beyond that, I have been watching with great interest the number of decisions that have been handed down that are applying the new provisions of Rule 37, and doing so in a way that suggests that courts will continue to be quite active in monitoring what is happening in discovery — imposing severe sanctions where appropriate and, when there isn’t the requisite level of intent, applying some sort of curative measures otherwise.  So, I think there may have been a greater level of judicial activity than was anticipated in the immediate period since December 1 when the rules changed.  It seems clear to most observers in the space that we’re going to have dozens and dozens of decisions in 2016 that apply the new rules, and we will get to see the patterns emerging pretty quickly.

What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

I think the exciting work of the Information Governance Initiative (IGI) continues to push smart conversations in the space about how corporations can get a handle on their data.  We had a very successful IGI summit, known as the Chief Information Governance Officers (CIGO) summit, in Chicago last year.  We’re going to have the second CIGO summit in May of this year again in Chicago and we’re looking forward to that.  We also have any number of activities that we’re planning to do in terms of retreats, dinners and boot camps, etc. I think IG is still an emerging discipline that should be of great interest to many corporate actors who don’t have a good handle on their existing workflows, policies and programs about data – whether it’s data breach or data reduction or data archiving or data analytics.  I feel very privileged to be part of a group of individuals at the IGI that are really doing some serious thinking about these types of topics.

I must say I was surprised by Monica Bay at LegalTech, who pulled me in at the last moment to be a judge at the second “Shark Tank” session held there —  where I felt a little like being on “America’s Got Talent” as one of three judges in the room looking at the individual entrepreneurs who were giving presentations.  But, as the session progressed (and as recorded by David Horrigan, who was tweeting the session in live stream fashion) it seemed very clear to me that maybe it’s time for me to retire!  I say so because of the profusion of disruptive technologies in the space, whether it has to do with smart contracts or dialing up lawyers over the web, it all heavily suggests that all of our current business models are going to be disrupted in due course and maybe very soon!  There are simply a lot of exciting technologies in the space for which the CodeX people are fostering a platform.  In the end I confess to being quite happy that Monica pulled me in, and I would urge your readership to pay attention to what CodeX is doing.  I believe there is a conference coming up (CodeX FutureLaw 2016) on May 20, which is focusing on how technology is changing the landscape of the legal profession and the impact of those changes.

Thanks, Jason, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, as always, 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. 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 and the Institute for Information Governance offer New Professional Education Series: eDiscovery Trends

As you know if you read this blog, EDRM is committed to education within the eDiscovery industry.  Now, a new partnership with the Institute for IG and IMERGE Consulting will provide education for those interested in learning more about information governance (IG) and electronic records management (ERM).

As EDRM announced yesterday, the purpose of the partnership is to offer education for e-discovery professionals who are seeking to build practical skills in IG and ERM. Participants will earn a certificate in Advanced IG or ERM. Live instructor-led sessions will be held March 22-24, 2016, at the University of San Diego, Kroc Center. Online sessions and on demand HD video content are also available. Course details and registration can be found on the EDRM website at http://www.edrm.net.

“EDRM introduced the Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) to help promote collaboration among the various stakeholders – business users, IT departments and legal, risk and regulatory departments, all of whom have interests and obligations in effective information governance,” said George Socha, co-founder of EDRM. “As the industry continues to mature, professional education that integrates the principles of effective information governance with the legal and risk management interests in e-discovery and regulatory compliance is more important than ever. The courses offered by the Institute for IG provide EDRM members a valuable opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills in the areas of IG and ERM.”

Robert Smallwood, the world’s leading IG author, blogger and trainer, is the primary instructor for the IG classes. Charmaine Brooks, CRM, a renowned records management expert, is the primary instructor for the ERM classes. George Socha will serve as an advisor and guest instructor.

EDRM members are eligible for special discounts.  So, if you’re interested in joining EDRM, there has never been a better time!  Organizations interested in EDRM membership will find information at https://www.edrm.net/join/.

So, what do you think?  Are you interested in learning more about information governance or electronic records management?  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.

Is Information Governance “Too Important to Be Left to Humans”?: eDiscovery Trends

According to a recent report by AIIM, there are “huge volumes of content in most organizations that are not under any form of information governance (IG), retention management, or eDiscovery”.  In their new report (Information Governance: too important to be left to humans), AIIM takes an in-depth look at the scale of IG issues, the drivers to bring it under control, the effectiveness of automated classification, and the impact on risks and costs.

The survey used to provide report results was taken using a web-based tool by 398 individual members of the AIIM community.  In the Executive Summary, AIIM provided key findings in a number of areas, including IG Drivers and Issues, IG Maturity, Storage and Data Reduction, Automating IG, Cloud, E-Discovery and Spend.  Here is a sample of some of the findings:

IG Drivers and Issues

  • In the light of recent leaks, hacks and email issues, IG is very high on the senior management agenda for 28% of organizations, and 53% have new IG initiatives. 57% of respondents say senior management are only interested when things go wrong;
  • 51% have had data-related incidents in the past 12 months, including 16% suffering a data breach – half from external hacking and half from staff. Staff negligence or bad practice is the most likely cause of data loss (20%).

IG Maturity

  • The volume of paper records is increasing in 33% of organizations, and decreasing in 39%. This net difference of 6% decreasing compares to 10% increasing in 2014. The largest organizations (5,000+ employees) are making most progress (21% net decreasing).
  • Information retention, access security and data protection are covered by most IG policies, but only 47% cover mobile access and mobile devices, including BYOD (39%). Only 36% have specific policies for cloud-based content sharing.

Storage Reduction and Data Retention

  • As well as replacing file-shares with ECM, 22% are considering a cloud model to reduce storage costs, and 25% are automating retention, deletion and data cleaning. 25% will just go on buying more discs.

Automating IG

  • 34% feel that automated classification is more consistent than humans, including 20% who feel it’s more accurate too. 48% prefer the idea of machine prompt with human review.

Cloud

  • Cost saving is the biggest driver for cloud (66%), then business resilience (49%). Easier cross-enterprise access and adoption is cited by 42%.

eDiscovery

  • 50% rely on manual search for eDiscovery across electronic and paper records. 14% have a dedicated eDiscovery application within or across systems.
  • 54% of the largest organizations will have multiple legal holds applied per year. But so will 11% of the smallest.

As the Introduction notes, even if day-forward policies are adopted to classify and tag the currently unclassified content, the volumes involved, and the change in staff attitudes needed, represent a huge hurdle to jump. Automated processes or prompted assistance are likely to provide the only enduring solutions. Tagging and classifying the existing content to add value and remove redundant, obsolete and trivial content (for which the clever acronym is “ROT”) would be quite impossible without automated agents working on rules-based algorithms that match the defined governance policies.

You can download the FREE Executive Summary with a more comprehensive list of key findings here.  If you’re an AIIM Professional Member, the entire report is free; if not, you can become a member for only $169 to access this report as well as other AIIM resources.

So, what do you think?  Is Information Governance “too important to be left to humans”?  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.

Not Surprisingly, The Big Data Market is Getting Really Big: eDiscovery Trends

A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) announced last week predicts BIG growth for the big data technology and services market through 2019.  Are you surprised by that?  Didn’t think so.  Here is a closer look.

The IDC study, Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services Forecast, 2015–2019, provides a revenue forecast of the Big Data technology and services market for the 2015–2019 period, predicting the big data technology and services market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.1% over the 2014-2019 forecast period with annual spending reaching $48.6 billion in 2019.  Additionally, a new IDC Special Study (Driven by Data, Fueled with Insights: Worldwide Big Data Forecast by Vertical Market, 2014-2019) examines spending on big data solutions in greater detail across 19 vertical industries and eight big data technologies.

“The ever-increasing appetite of businesses to embrace emerging big data-related software and infrastructure technologies while keeping the implementation costs low has led to the creation of a rich ecosystem of new and incumbent suppliers,” said Ashish Nadkarni , Program Director, Enterprise Servers and Storage and co-author of the report with Dan Vesset , Program Vice President, Business Analytics & Big Data. “At the same time, the market opportunity is spurring new investments and M&A activity as incumbent suppliers seek to maintain their relevance by developing comprehensive solutions and new go-to-market paths.”

All three major big data submarkets – infrastructure, software, and services – are expected to grow over the next five years. Infrastructure, which consists of computing, networking, storage infrastructure, and other datacenter infrastructure-like security – is predicted to grow at a 21.7% CAGR. Software, which consists of information management, discovery and analytics, and applications software – is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 26.2%. And services, which includes professional and support services for infrastructure and software, is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 22.7%. Infrastructure spending will account for roughly one half of all spending throughout the forecast period.

From a vertical industry perspective, the largest industries for big data spending include discrete manufacturing ($2.1 billion last year), banking ($1.8 billion last year), and process manufacturing ($1.5 billion last year). The industries with the fastest growth rates include securities and investment services (26% CAGR), banking (26% CAGR), and media (25% CAGR).  That’s not exactly doubling every 1.2 years, but it still reflects significant growth.

For more information or to purchase a copy of the study, click here.

So, what do you think?  How will the strong growth of the big data market affect how organizations manage eDiscovery?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

Can You Predict the Future?: eDiscovery Trends

If you can, great!  Send me an email and tell me what tomorrow’s blog post will be about.  :o)  If not, don’t worry (I can’t either).  But, thanks to Rob Robinson, you’ve at least got a head start in predicting when the eDiscovery events for next year will occur.

In the category of “why didn’t someone do this sooner”, Rob’s site, Complex Discovery, posted a short list of planned eDiscovery-related industry events for 2016.  As Rob notes, the list is non-comprehensive and is based on his research and tracking.  And, I’m sure it will be supplemented as more events are announced (for example, the EDRM annual and mid-year meetings haven’t been announced yet).

Nonetheless, Rob’s event list is a great resource for 2016 planning, showing the name, start and end dates and location of the event, along with a hyperlink to the URL site for the event (obviously, the curriculum for many of the events hasn’t been flushed out yet).  Still, it’s great to know dates for LegalTech New York (the first event on the list) through the ACEDS conference in April to the last events in October (such as the ACC Annual Meeting).  For those of us who are used to having to look up each event separately to determine which ones we will be able to attend, it’s great to have them listed all in one place and predict at least some of the future for next year.  Thanks, Rob!

So, what do you think?  Do you have one or more favorite eDiscovery events that you attend every 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 a Look at How and Where Legal Departments are Utilizing Data Analytics: eDiscovery Trends

Let’s face it, data analytics are everywhere.  It’s no longer just Netflix suggesting movie choices based on previously watched movies or Amazon suggesting your next purchase, all companies are using data analytics to drive their business processes in various departments, including their legal departments.  But how are in-house legal departments actually using data analytics capabilities?  Here’s a new study that offers some answers.

The Coalition of Technology Resources for Lawyers (CTRL), an industry education and research group committed to the development of practical and proactive guidance for lawyers as they attempt to leverage various technologies in practice, commissioned the Information Governance Initiative (IGI) to conduct a survey regarding in-house legal departments’ use of data analytics across six use cases.  Those use cases are: 1) eDiscovery/Other Investigations, 2) Legal Matter Management, Billing, & Budgeting, 3) Information Governance, 4) Outcome Analysis or Risk Assessment, 5) Contract Review and 6) Selection of Outside Counsel. Data Analytics in the Legal Community 2015-2016 Trends is the resulting report prepared by CTRL based on that study.

While the study doesn’t identify the number of participants, it does note that a majority of survey respondents were attorneys (around two-thirds), with most holding senior-level positions. Around one third of respondents were non-attorneys, including IT, analytics, and other professionals within or providing support for the inhouse legal team.

Perhaps not surprisingly, eDiscovery/Other Investigations was the use case with the highest percentage of utilization of data analytics – it was the only use case for which a majority of legal departments (56%) reported that they were using data analytics.  Legal departments reported that their top three uses for data analytics in this area were culling and early case assessment (at 72.4% of respondents using analytics for eDiscovery each) and relevancy review (71.1%) – these were the only uses with over 70% of respondents. In addition to that, 71% of legal departments indicated that their spending on analytics for eDiscovery would increase or stay the same next year.

As for Information Governance (IG), it was the third most common use case with almost one third of legal departments using analytics.  Respondents using data analytics for IG indicated that it was used for “facilitate defensible disposition” and “facilitate compliance with records policies or other requirements” the most (77.4% of respondents using analytics for IG each).

The free eight page report is available here.

So, what do you think?  Does your legal department use data analytics?  If so, for what?  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.

Information Governance Now Has its Own Conference: eDiscovery Trends

If you’re not “conferenced-out” by last week’s ILTACON (which we covered before, during and after the show), here is a brand new conference dedicated to Information Governance for you to check out.

InfoGovCon (going by the hashtag #InfoGovCon2015) is being hosted by the Information Governance Initiative (IGI) from September 29 to October 1 in Hartford, CT.  That’s less than three weeks away!

The sessions begin at 1:00pm on Tuesday, September 29 and continue through Thursday, October 1 at 12:30pm.  Most of the sessions are single track presentations and panels, with a handful of breakout sessions where there are two to four sessions to choose from during those times.  They have assembled an impressive list of speakers, including:

  • Aaron Crews, Senior Associate General Counsel & Global Head of eDiscovery at Walmart
  • Richard P. Kessler, Executive Director and Head of Group Information Governance, IT Contracting and Shared Services Legal at UBS
  • Jeffrey D. Bridges, Director of Information Governance at Boehringer Ingelheim USA
  • Jessica Harman, Records & Information Management Supervisor at Phillips 66
  • Jeff Kosseff, Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity Law at the United States Naval Academy
  • Russel M. Walters, Ph.D., Research Associate Director and a fellow at Johnson & Johnson

The sessions are also relatively short, with most sessions either 30 or 45 minutes max.  So, they will be covering a lot!  Here is a link to the agenda for the conference.  There’s also an exhibition area and “data art gallery”.  Interesting!

There will also be a reception and award ceremony the first evening and a breakfast and lunch the second day to socialize with your fellow IG junkies.  You can still nominate and vote for IG award winners here for IG Professional of the year, IG Evangelist of the year and other awards.  Voting will end on September 18.

The conference will be held at the Connecticut Convention Center.  Tickets for the entire conference are $399 per person, with group rates available for three or more attendees.  And, if you use the promo code IGI15 when registering, you can save $50!

It’s your chance to get in on the ground floor and say you were there at the beginning.  And, if you need any other reasons to attend (or convince your boss that you should attend), here are seven other reasons.

So, what do you think?  Are you a big proponent of Information Governance?  If so, are you attending #InfoGovCon2015?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

The Four V’s of Big Data: eDiscovery Trends

I love infographics!  A picture is truly worth a thousand words.  So, when I saw this infographic about big data, I felt I needed to share it.

Courtesy of IBM (which I found via the blog Stephen’s Lighthouse), The Four V’s of Big Data shows the Volume, Variety, Velocity and Veracity of big data and provides interesting tidbits, such as:

  • 40 zettabytes (43 trillion gigabytes) of data will be created by 2020, which is 300 times the data volume of 2005;
  • 6 billion people have cell phones (out of 7 billion people in the world);
  • By 2016, it is projected that there will be 18.9 billion network connections (almost 2.5 connections per person on earth);
  • 4 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month, 400 million tweets are sent per day and 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month;
  • Yet, 1 in 3 business leaders don’t trust the information they use to make decisions and poor data quality costs the US economy around $3.1 trillion per year.

As always, the volume and quality of data affects organizations from both an information governance and eDiscovery standpoint, so these fun facts can be useful in conveying the challenges those organizations face today in trying to manage it all and meet their obligations.  Did you like those fun facts?  Here are some more.

So, what do you think?  How is your organization coping with big 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. 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.

Thursday’s ILTACON Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday, Monday and Tuesday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2015 (now 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 if you’re in the Las Vegas area with a number of sessions available and over 190(!) 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:

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM:

Develop Talent and Prove the Value of Your Internal Litigation Support

Description: With more and more vendors touting all-inclusive services, litigation support managers and directors have to show the value their departments add to the discovery process. Come hear experts talk about their experiences developing talent and managing “up” to meet the vendor challenge.

Speakers are: Scott M. Cohen – Winston & Strawn LLP; Ross Gotler – Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Wale Elegbe – Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Denise Talbert – Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.

2:30 PM – 3:15 PM:

Past Performance and Future Success: What’s Next for E-Discovery?

Description: From the days of paper review to the advent of electronic scanning and to e-discovery as we now know it today, listen as industry veterans explore the evolution of our industry and share their experiences of adjusting to the times. They will explore the role of technology, adoption and expertise of the courts and government agencies, the role of the attorney, and much more!

Speakers are: Mary Pat Poteet – Project Leadership Associates, Inc.; Scott M. Cohen – Winston & Strawn LLP; Eric Lieber – Toyota Motor Sales; Beth Patterson, CLSP – Allens.

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM:

A Conversation with Judge Peck

Description: Audience members are sure to enjoy hearing respected jurist, Judge Andrew Peck, speak about various e-discovery topics.

Speakers are: Mary Pat Poteet – Project Leadership Associates, Inc.; Honorable Andrew J Peck.

For a complete summary listing of all sessions at the conference, click here.

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 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

As noted yesterday and Monday, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2015 (now 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 if you’re in the Las Vegas area with a number of sessions available and over 190(!) 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:

Building a Process Map for Culling Discovery Data

Description: The most costly stage of the discovery process is document review. To contain costs, litigation support teams must use analytics and leverage technology to reduce the amount of data that goes into review. During this hands-on workshop, attendees will develop a process for culling data based on a specific scenario with an “as is” process map. Each table will work as a team to determine the best technology, processes and people to improve efficiency in a defensible manner. Come learn how to think through and develop a process map related to e-discovery analytics!

Speakers are: Andrew P. Medeiros – Seyfarth Shaw LLP; Geoff Wilcox – UnitedLex.

Data-Driven: Leveraging Data for More Effective Risk Management and Information Governance

Description: Organizations outside of legal handle risk management with dedicated people, formal structures and better intelligence about where to deploy resources. This is a better way to manage risk, using empirical data to perform calculated, rational assessments. But where do you start? Learn how to approach risk comprehensively and intelligently instead of reactively, and hear how law firms and legal departments can use data to reduce risk and protect the business.

Speakers are: Steven Naphy – Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, L.L.P.; Bill Hardin – Navigant; Brad Waldron – Caesars Entertainment Legal Department; Christopher Calnon – ACE Group.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

Aligning Information Security, Litigation Support and E-Discovery

Description: A panel of litigation support, information security and corporate legal department representatives will tackle the challenges of remaining responsive to the sea of incoming litigation support/e-discovery requests while staying in compliance with internal and external information security requirements. We will help litigation support and information security professionals understand the pressures each is under, create a shared vision of success and build the relationships necessary to drive value for clients while effectively managing risk.

Speakers are: Mr John L. Kapp – Shearman & Sterling, LLP; Dawn Radcliffe – TransCanada Pipelines; Hal Marcus – Recommind, Inc.; Lisa Markey – Shearman & Sterling, LLP.

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM:

Oracle Predictive Coding Study: Phase II Results

Description: Last year’s wildly successful session based on the results of the Electronic Discovery Institute’s predictive coding study is back for more! In this year’s follow up, we will present the next phase of results. Come get an unbiased, scientific view into the world of predictive coding.

Speakers are: Patrick L. Oot – Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.; Beth Patterson, CLSP – Allens.

For a complete summary listing of all sessions at the conference, click here.

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.