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Kelly Twigger of ESI Attorneys: eDiscovery Trends 2018

This is the sixth of the 2018 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year (and some afterward) to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Kelly Twigger.  Kelly is a Discovery Strategist and the Principal of ESI Attorneys, one of the first law firms in the country dedicated to advising clients on the risks and challenges in ESI, including eDiscovery. ESI Attorneys works differently than a traditional law firm – they partner with businesses, law firms and municipalities that do not have discovery counsel knowledgeable to both advise on planning and preparing for eDiscovery and act as discovery counsel across litigation matters to achieve consistency and predictability. Kelly also has a passion for ensuring that lawyers and legal professionals have the tools they need to understand and leverage the power of ESI in discovery, and has developed a SaaS based platform to provide the ability for lawyers to get up to speed and stay there with eDiscovery Assistant.  eDiscovery Assistant is a web based curated eDiscovery research tool and learning center that allows users to conduct eDiscovery specific case law research, use curated discovery rules, forms and checklists together with a Learning Center that rethinks the delivery of legal education. CloudNine uses eDiscovery Assistant to identify and provide case law on this blog. In 2014, the Wisconsin State Bar recognized Kelly as a Legal Innovator for her development of eDiscovery Assistant. Kelly is a regular speaker at national and local events, blogger and the eDiscovery columnist for Above the Law.

What were your general observations about LTNY this year?

{Interviewed after the show}

If I had to pick one word to describe Legaltech this year, I would use the word change. I think that it was clear that the format of Legaltech is undergoing a substantial amount of change, both in terms of personnel and the approach to the show. It is not on the grand scale that it used to be, but it’s still the place to meet up with industry colleagues and get a glimpse of what’s happening in legal tech. The show had less focus on eDiscovery this year – and I attribute that to three things:  the consolidation of service providers in the space, the perceived maturity of the eDiscovery market (it’s not), and the development of new areas of risk in legal that are sexy – artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc. No question those issues are stealing the show in conversations. I saw some pretty amazing smaller companies with revolutionary (for the legal space) products that can start allowing some of the change in the practice of law that we’ve been talking about for a decade. I saw significantly less service providers at the show, because most of those folks moved to off-site meetings instead of having a presence on the vendor floor.  I felt like this year’s show gave credence that we are starting to recognize the changes in the practice of law – boutique firms is a good example – and to build the technology that can support them.

If you were “queen of LTNY” for a year, what kind of changes would you make?

Wow, now that’s a question. What changes would I make to the show? I was driving before we sat down and to talk, and I was thinking about Legaltech in relation to some of the other conferences in which I participate. The Masters Conference is one, the University of Florida Conference in which you and I are going to be on a panel together (tomorrow) is one. I feel like my learning is accelerated greater at those types of events where they are more intimate, where there’s more interaction between the people who were there versus Legaltech.

Legaltech has great panels, but they’re so spread out, in so many different rooms, with so many other events going on at the same time, and so many folks setting up private meetings outside of the conference. It’s a very different dynamic. I would restructure it to encourage those meetings, but also to allow participants to take advantage of the sessions. Why not acknowledge the need to have those meetings and build them into the show? I run from place to place most of the day – my fitness tracker logs many miles a day at Legaltech. It’s too hard to fit everything in a two to three day period that you want to. I’d like to see it facilitated better to make both of those things possibilities.

I’m not an event planner and that’s an easy thing for me to say and a hard thing to make happen. I’m not sure if that’s constructive feedback, or if ALM wants to hear it. But, that’s my thought. You’re getting so many truly knowledgeable people in a space — not just speakers but participants as well — who bring so much to the table from a support focus, from a paralegal focus, from a lawyer focus, from a consultant focus, and I don’t know that the event capitalizes on the value that comes to that conference in the format that it currently has. What I would love to see is the ability for more interaction to capitalize on that knowledge base.

eDiscovery Assistant has a lot of features and resources available. Obviously, one of the most notable aspects of that is all the case law you cover on your site. Do you have any observations on key trends you’ve seen with regards to the eDiscovery case law lately that has been evident from your perspective?

Yes. eDiscovery Assistant is our platform where we really strive to be a resource for people who are engaging in electronic discovery. eDA does not handle data, it’s a strategy tool. It’s a combination of legal research for discovery and a place to get answers on demand when you have to respond to the motion to compel or draft RFP’s on how to request Facebook data. The case law has been aplenty already for 2018 – as of March 24, we have 192 discovery decisions from across the country in the database, all tagged and able to be sorted by eDiscovery issue (think proportionality, social media, form of production, sanctions, etc.).

I’m seeing some inconsistency in application of the amendments from 2015. I’m also seeing that we don’t necessarily have lawyers who are coming to the table more informed about eDiscovery or how to argue issues or educate the judges. In terms of development, we’re seeing a lot more case law in social media, but primarily within the criminal context. We’re starting to see some really interesting developments with cloud-based issues, like the U.S. v. Microsoft Corp. case.

The Supreme Court heard U.S. v. Microsoft Corp. in late February on the issue of whether Microsoft should be required to pull data back from Ireland when the data actually lives in Ireland and not in the United States. The case will have a fundamental impact on the interpretation of the Stored Communications Act, how and where data is stored, and what the government’s reach is under that law. The decision is going to have a huge impact on businesses and the way that we manage our data as consumers from a cloud perspective. How many cloud based applications are you using?  I probably have 50 or more. I’m interested to see what else will come about this year in terms of development, but so far in the case law, we’re still waiting on new things to come about and lawyers to grasp these concepts and argue them effectively to the court. We’re still seeing a lack of education that I’d like to change. Clients deserve the representation on these issues, and we’ve never had such rapid development in an area of the law like we are seeing now. We have 910 cases in 2017 in eDA. 910 cases? That’s crazy.

One of the hotter topics this year at LTNY was GDPR. Where do you think the majority of organizations stand with GDPR? How do you think these next few months are going to unfold?

What I’m seeing with GDPR and working towards compliance varies tremendously across the size of organizations. There still remains a lot of confusion about the applicability of GDPR and what organizations need to be thinking about, and whether they need to be. If you are thinking approaching GDPR compliance, what it is that you specifically need to be addressing? Some of that goes back to the fact that information governance is not as prominent in every organization as it should be, or that those of us in this space would like to think that it should be. I’m not sure that I have great answers for you on GDPR, except that the next few months are going to be very interesting. I think that the enforcement and what comes out of GDPR is going to be the most telling. If eDiscovery is any indication, we won’t see a lot of action for some organizations until we see some enforcement decisions that really bring about the emphatic nature of the privacy regulations.

With regard to eDiscovery, information governance and cybersecurity, what are people not talking enough about that they should be?

That varies by organization. When we have panel discussions, there’s often a lot of discussion at the very high level of cybersecurity, GDPR, or blockchain, and privacy issues. eDiscovery is getting pushed to the wayside prematurely, almost as if some folks are tired of talking about it. I don’t just say that because it’s what we do every day, but because I see it every single day – lawyers at every size organization who don’t know the basics or the technology and how to ask the questions and engage effectively in eDiscovery. A lawyer the other day told me he had friends retire from practicing rather than wade into eDiscovery, it causes that much angst. There are many, many, organizations, law firms and clients in general that are still down at the very base considerations of, “we know we need to be thinking more about ESI and what we’re doing with it, but we don’t know how to think about those things, or what our goals need to be, or how to structure them, because we’re not used to working with business information or governance IT altogether. We’re still in that silo kind of fashion.”  While the market has matured in service delivery, the clients are not there yet. There are a lot of basic things in information governance and eDiscovery that still need to be considered. The more risks you have in cybersecurity and these other issues, the more you’re likely to have tackled them, but those are also risks that are addressed by IT directly and so the liaison between the two isn’t as difficult as it is with eDiscovery. We’ve still got a long way to go.

What would you like our readers to know about things you’re working on?

We are working to solve the problem that I am passionate about – getting lawyers and legal professionals knowledgeable about eDiscovery and getting the clients the representation they need. That there are folks who really don’t know how to get started, lawyers who don’t know how to handle a case with significant or even any electronic discovery involved, which most cases are now – whether they’re law firms, whether they’re lawyers in-house or whether they’re government attorneys. If we want folks to be able to have the ability to understand what the processes are in electronic discovery and dealing with privacy and even some cybersecurity issues, and how to be able to address them, we have to solve the education and knowledge problem first, and that’s what we are trying to do by rethinking the delivery of education in short, manageable and practical chunks.

As lawyers, our job is to issue spot, and we can’t issue spot what we don’t know. In eDiscovery Assistant, we’ve built an online community of users with a knowledge base and continuing education to help tell them by answering questions that arise with developments in technology and the law. For example, here are the issues, now that your clients are migrating to Office 365, here the issues in capturing social media. Here are the issues when you’re using a platform and your service provider suddenly goes under. What do you need to be thinking about? How do you set up contract review? How do you collect any kind of data when you’re sitting in your office and you suddenly have a client’s hard drive? We set out to build a platform that addresses the practical needs of lawyers who have little time, increased client demands, AFA’s etc. and can still give them a credible understanding of what they need to do in eDiscovery. It’s very unique to the legal space. We’ve never had anything like this. We want to create a space where lawyers and legal professionals and anyone who touches the eDiscovery process – these areas where we’re dealing with ESI issues, privacy and cybersecurity and the like – will be able to come in and get up to speed quickly. That’s really what we’re working on. We’re rethinking both the delivery of legal research and also legal education on these topics. We’re really excited about what we’re doing and looking forward towards 2018 has to bring.

Thanks, Kelly, for participating in the interview!

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held this Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly, and with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

CloudNine Acquires eDiscovery Product Lines from LexisNexis: eDiscovery Breaking News

OK, it’s not exactly “breaking” news since we announced it yesterday, but it’s still exciting!  If you didn’t see our press release, let me “break” the news now: CloudNine has acquired the LexisNexis eDiscovery product suite, which includes LAW PreDiscovery, Early Discovery Analyzer (EDA) and Concordance!

In conjunction with the product line purchase, an affiliate of Peak Rock Capital made a significant investment in CloudNine, underscoring its support of CloudNine and its vision for the future of these products.

Needless to say, this is a big announcement for CloudNine and we’re excited to not only carry on support for these products but also invest in them, delivering enhanced capabilities to existing and new customers of these products.  As VP of Products and Services at CloudNine, I’m personally excited to be working with the great customer success and product support teams of these products.  So, if you’re an existing LAW, EDA or Concordance customer, you’ll still be working with many of the same people for training and support that you have been.

Regardless of whether we’re talking off-premise (cloud) or on-premise, our focus is on solving problems.  While we are CloudNine, the acquisition of these trusted on-premise solutions will enable us to immediately begin to solve problems for that segment of the market with a portfolio of proven and performing products.

Now, if you’re an existing LAW, EDA or Concordance customer, I’m sure you probably have some questions about the acquisition and what it means to you.  Here’s a link to an FAQ document that addresses several questions that I’m sure many of you have.  If you have any additional questions, feel free to drop me a line at daustin@cloudnine.com and I will do my best to get your questions to the right person on our team that can provide answers.

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I’m on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

So, what do you think?  Do you use LAW, EDA or Concordance?  Great – we look forward to working with you!  And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

George Socha of BDO: eDiscovery Trends 2018

This is the fourth of the 2018 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year (and some afterward) to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

But first, this week’s eDiscovery Tech Tip of the Week is about The Importance of Metadata.  Metadata is key to the management, tracking and retrieval of documents within the discovery process.  Whether you wish to locate a document sent or received by a particular individual, filter a collection by a relevant date range or locate documents that have been marked as responsive or privileged, the ability to be able to search both the system metadata (that metadata that is extracted from the document when it is processed for review) and user metadata (that metadata used by legal professionals to categorize and track documents during the review and production steps in discovery) is key to being able to manage that document collection efficiently and effectively.  If you don’t think metadata is important to a case, here are 10.8 million reasons why it is.  :o)

To see an example of how Searching for Metadata is conducted using our CloudNine platform, click here (requires BrightTalk account, which is free).

Today’s thought leader is George Socha of BDO.  George is Managing Director at BDO.  Co-founder of EDRM and named an “E-Discovery Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, George has nearly 30 years’ experience assisting a broad range of organizations with all facets of electronic discovery as well as information governance, domestically and globally. Prior to joining BDO, George spent 16 years as a litigation attorney in private practice and then 13 years running his own consulting firm. He received his law degree from Cornell Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What were your general observations about LTNY this year?

Although I have not had the chance to attend much of the show myself, I have been asking others what they think.  The responses have been completely contradictory.  Long-time attendees have said attendance is way down and, for some, the program seems somewhat flat.  Newer attendees find a lot to like, appreciating the programming and the opportunities to mingle.  For me, the conference provides an opportunity to meet in person with colleagues and clients.

With regards to the industry in general, what do you think are some of the hot topics people are talking about?  And, what do you think are some of the hot topics that people should be talking about?

I think that we continue to see a scenario where far too few attorneys have a solid understanding of what they could do and should do with respect to electronic discovery – and even fewer actually are moving forward on those fronts. Even after all these years, it seems the basics don’t get the attention they deserve.

While we spend a lot of time at conferences like this one talking about advanced (and worthy) topics such as predictive coding, those aren’t the commonplace topics of discussion when it comes to actual matters. I continue to encounter folks in law firms and corporate legal departments who are just now are beginning to grapple with electronic discovery; they have never had to deal with it before. I continue to encounter practicing lawyers who have heard the phrase electronic discovery but don’t appreciate what it signifies, aren’t familiar with even the best known players in our space and have never heard of e-discovery-focused organizations such as EDRM and The Sedona Conference.

By now, if you are a litigator, you should know about the EDRM diagram. You should know about the Sedona Principles. You should know about the two sets of FRCP changes in 2006 and 2015. That we encounter folks who aren’t familiar with any of those tells us something about the actual state of the industry.

There has been a lot of increased focus on data privacy this year with GDPR coming into effect.  Where do you think organizations stand with regards to getting compliant with GDPR?  Do you expect to see a lot of organizations scrambling?

From what I’ve seen, there is a lot of uncertainly about what constitutes compliance with GDPR. And, of course, if it’s unclear what constitutes compliance with GDPR, it’s rather hard to figure out how one becomes compliant. I would say that even at this late date, larger corporations are much more focused on GDPR than smaller organizations and law firms.

In larger law firms, there are people who have been spending a fair amount of time looking at GDPR, figuring out what compliance means, and developing and delivering services to help clients be ready for the regulation’s effective date. And there are certainly corporations – mostly larger ones – that also have been spending a fair amount of time and effort and money, taking on the same issues. But, when you look at the larger body of businesses and law firms, GDPR is not exactly front and center for them.

EDRM had a major focus on putting together a guide for technology assisted review last year. Where does that stand and what are you hoping will be the end result of that effort?

Work is underway and progressing well. The guide is divided up into several portions and we’ve got drafts of each portion. Those continue to be developed and reviewed. They are going to be distributed first to the larger EDRM membership for review, just as we’ve done in the past, then released for public comment.  {Editor’s Note: EDRM has since announced that the draft guidelines will be released for EDRM member review in March and a final draft will then be released for public review later this spring.}

I think ultimately we are looking at two sets of materials. The first one will be a nuts and bolts, “how do you do this stuff”, set of guidelines for the people who are in the trenches, mostly people in law firms and corporations. The second set of materials will focus on guidelines for the judiciary to help educate and guide judges through at least the major issues that we see will associated with predictive coding.

When you talk about the nuts and bolts, are we talking a preferred approach or are we just talking a general idea of the things you need to look for in conducting a predictive coding project?

We are talking a framework so that people have a construct to use and a context in which to place all of this. This won’t be so much about specific recommendations as there are too many and those are too tightly tied to specific tools, methodologies, and data seta; just consider the various approaches to predictive coding used today: TAR 1, TAR 2, systems with seed sets, systems with continuous active learning, and so on. We have to be careful to avoid putting out a set of guidelines that box people into the use of only one approach.

In addition, this is a rapidly changing area. We want something that will stand up over time rather than become obsolete as soon as the next big change happens.

And the tools are changing – rapidly. There are things we can now do with predictive coding that just weren’t viable options three years or even two years ago.

If you were “king of LTNY” for a year, what would you do in terms of structuring the curriculum to try to address some of the gaps in eDiscovery knowledge among the legal profession you mentioned?

Not surprisingly, I would look to focus on the practicalities of e-discovery: who can do what, how, and with what tools and techniques, to accomplish common and developing objectives. I would try to provide both basic, medium and advanced level content. To the extent practical and not too difficult, I also would try to do provide sessions that are more hands on.  Of course, this all is a pretty tall order, so I might also want to be a king with limitless time and resources.

I’d try to make the topics narrow enough so that people could get into depth on things and try to offer a wide range. By the way, I would not by any means focus only on electronic discovery, there’s a lot else out there.  Security is a major concern, and so is privacy. There should be a strong focus on that because law firms continue to be areas of risk.  Similarly, a focus on getting your electronic house in order through information governance is very important. And then, let’s see what other areas to cover as other issues emerge.  Again, a pretty tall order.

What would you like our readers to know about what you’re doing and what EDRM’s doing?

As we discussed earlier, EDRM is currently is working on the guidelines of technology assisted review/predictive coding as well as working on a GDPR project. These are the first two undertakings for the “new” EDRM – the EDRM under new management within Duke Law. We should look forward to some new initiatives in the coming year, a broadened scope of activities because EDRM is now part of Duke and, as a result, has a breadth of capabilities that weren’t there before.

Thanks, George, for participating in the interview!

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

Pizza Hut Pie Tops – The Internet of Things Keeps Getting Stranger: eDiscovery Trends

Editor’s Note: Jim Gill’s writing about eDiscovery and Data Management has been twice recognized with JD Supra Reader’s Choice Awards and he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.  Before working in eDiscovery, Jim taught college writing at a number of institutions and his creative work has been published in numerous national literary journals, as well as being nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Jim’s post below highlights the proliferation of “internet of things” (IoT) devices in our world (with a unique example) and how that can impact eDiscovery activities.  Great timing, as I will be talking about collecting data from IoT devices at the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held a week from today – Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

A couple of weeks ago, Pizza Hut announced the release of a pair of sneakers dubbed Pie Tops II – yes, real wearable shoes – which will link with your phone via Bluetooth to connect with the Pizza Hut app, allowing you to order a pizza with the single push of a button on the shoe’s tongue. An additional feature connects with TV receivers like Xfinity, Spectrum, and DirecTV, pausing whatever you’re watching when the pizza arrives at the door.

Yes, this is obviously a marketing gimmick, though it could be yet another sign we’re on the fast track to the world portrayed in the film Idiocracy. But when I saw this, I immediately imagined the possible eDiscovery implications. The IoT has continues to play more of a role in the law, particularly in criminal cases, such as the one where a man in Connecticut was arrested for the murder of his wife because of evidence attained from her Fitbit (covered by the eDiscovery Daily blog here). Now more than ever, criminal and civil courts are dealing with digital evidence that not so long ago didn’t even exist.

Many people in eDiscovery still think of ESI as email or documents. And for the most part, they’re right. But anyone working in the legal tech / data management industries should know by now that what isn’t a concern today, will be in a short matter of time. For individuals, short-sightedness regarding technology may not pose a huge concern on a day-to-day basis. For most of us, the biggest data risk we face is dropping our phones in the toilet. But for corporations, government entities, and other large organizations, getting caught off guard when it comes to the ability to preserve and collect data could bring significant costs, both financial and legal.

This is a where a robust information governance program can protect you from potential snags down the road. Not every new technology will apply to your organization but knowing what your current data landscape looks like gives you a head start on being prepared should something new arise. Housecleaning is also an important part of this process. Once you have a handle on everything, you can begin making decisions on what needs to be kept and what can be defensibly deleted. With data storage becoming more readily available, along with in-place preservation platforms, it’s very easy to keep everything and worry about it later. But more data is coming down the pipe in droves, and sooner or later it’s going to get unwieldy.

It’s also important to think about policies and contingencies regarding new technologies as they come into your organization. More and more people are using their own devices, particularly on the mobile front, which means a huge number of applications are creating ESI related to professional activity. If you don’t have a plan in place for dealing with these as far as preservation and collection, things could get stressful in a hurry should litigation arise. The flipside of that scenario is that too strict a lockdown on the types of devices and platforms that can be used could cut into productivity and dampen creativity.

The main thing to focus on is open and forward-thinking communication should happen continually between all stakeholders: legal, IT, business units, and 3rd party vendors. This way, if something unexpected does come up, everyone is on board and knows how to handle it.

It’s pretty unlikely that data from the Pie Tops II will come into play in your next big case (though I can imagine a modern-day Perry Mason-type drama where someone’s alibi hinges on the time and place they ordered a pizza from their shoes). But, their very existence should get you thinking about the data types that your organization is using, or may soon start using, and their role in litigation.

So, what do you think?  Have you seen a rise in new data affecting your organization?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image Copyright © Pizza Hut, LLC

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

Brett Burney of Burney Consultants LLC: eDiscovery Trends 2018

This is the third of the 2018 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year (and some afterward) to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Brett Burney.  Brett is Principal of Burney Consultants LLC, and focuses the bulk of his time on bridging the chasm between the legal and technology frontiers of electronic discovery. Brett is also very active in the Mac-using lawyer community, working with lawyers who want to integrate Macs, iPhones & iPads into their practice.  Prior to establishing Burney Consultants LLC, Brett spent over 5 years at the law firm of Thompson Hine LLP where he worked with litigation teams in building document databases, counseling on electronic discovery issues, and supporting their technology at trial & hearings.  Brett graduated from the University of Dayton School of Law in 2000 and quickly became active in the world of legal technology. Brett speaks around the country on litigation support, eDiscovery, Mac, and iOS-related topics and today authors a variety of blogs and online courses for legal professionals.  Brett also served as the Chair of the ABA TECHSHOW 2015 Conference Planning Board and recently published the book “Macs in Law” for the American Bar Association. Brett is also the co-author the 2018 eDiscovery Buyers Guide.

What were your general observations about LTNY this year?

It seemed that the 2018 Legaltech/Legalweek Conference had a distinct flavor of maturity this year. The Exhibit Hall was a bit thinner and less wacky than previous years, and the pulse was more focused and business-like.

On the “future is coming soon so you better be ready” side, there were multiple warnings about GDPR and AI, with some Blockchain sprinkled throughout.  On the more practical side were continuing discussions on how to collect and monitor social media and IoT sources.

Overall, this year’s conference appeared to deliver what attendees were seeking in education and information.

If you were “king of LTNY” for a year, what kind of changes would you make?

While I fully understand the push last year to make this a “Legalweek” instead of just “Legaltech,” it’s still very confusing with all kinds of sessions and mini-shows happening at the same time. So I would simplify things as much as possible.

Second, I would try to reach out to small and mid-size firms outside of the New York area.

You and Chelsey with Lex Tech Review recently published a buyer’s guide to eDiscovery solutions. Why did you decide to publish the guide, who do you anticipate using the guide and how do you anticipate them using it?

That’s easy! We simply had a passion to provide a comprehensive set of eDiscovery resources for a section of the market that is routinely overlooked – small and mid-size law firms.

For some reason, most lawyers think that “eDiscovery” is only something that huge law firms have to deal with, and that if you’re a small firm you don’t have to worry about it … so they don’t. But just because you’re in a small firm, doesn’t mean you don’t handle large, important litigation matters. And if you’re involved in litigation today, then you are absolutely involved in eDiscovery.

We have two goals for the eDiscovery Buyers Guide: First to serve as a literal buyers guide to help practitioners find the products they need to use, and second to serve as a resource to help lawyers be more competent about products available for their clients and to understand the products being used by opposing parties.

As an eDiscovery consultant, you work with a lot of clients.  What are the “hot” topics and issues that you find your clients are most consistently encountering?

Honestly, while I love talking out AI and predictive coding and statistical algorithms as much as next eDiscovery tech nerd, the vast majority of my clients are just trying to get their heads wrapped around the day-to-day practical aspects of eDiscovery.  The “hottest” topic I get asked about today is how to confidently and defensibly collect social media content from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Email is still the primary source of potentially relevant electronic evidence today, but it’s unbelievable what folks will post in social media.

In a similar vein, not a week goes by that I don’t have a client asking how they can collect text messages from phones and mobile devices.  Beyond that, many of my clients are just seeking to learn about the best tools and products that they can use to get through an overwhelming number of emails, documents, and electronic files … which is one of the reasons we developed the eDiscovery Buyers Guide.

If you could provide legal practitioners out there with one or two key pieces of advice about better eDiscovery practices, what would you tell them?

Keep it simple and practical, but that doesn’t mean you can be ignorant about the tools you need to use as a litigator in today’s world. For example, I still find so many lawyers using their own Microsoft Outlook to review email collected from a client. And that just completely baffles me that they are co-mingling live electronic evidence with their own work product in the same software! That’s negligent and ripe with risk. If you’re a litigator today, you need to use legitimate document review tools that preserve the evidence, allow you to code, tag, & redact documents, and then produce them in the form or forms in which the opposing party requests.

Second I continue to encourage practitioners to just talk with the other side about eDiscovery processes and procedures. Sure I understand the “strategy” behind the reasoning to keep the opposing party in the dark for as long as possible, but this legacy approach to discovery doesn’t help you or your client when it involves electronic evidence. Cooperation is a dirty word for most lawyers, but it’s absolutely critical for swift and successful eDiscovery resolutions.

What would you like our readers to know about things you’re working on?

Thanks for asking! On the non-e-Discovery side, I offer a fantastic online course for lawyers that want to incorporate iPads into their practice at www.ipracticeonanipad.com. I also host a blog reviewing apps at www.appsinlaw.com.

My latest course is called TextExpander for Lawyers where you’ll learn about the most brilliant software utility that can type FOR you and save you time in your day.

Lastly, I encourage every reader to download the FREE eDiscovery Buyers Guide that features CloudNine amongst many other platforms and products. The website also has helpful blog posts and videos.

Thanks, Brett, for participating in the interview!

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

ALSP – Not Just Your Daddy’s LPO, Part Four: eDiscovery Trends

Editor’s Note: Tom O’Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of computerized litigation support systems.  He has also been a great addition to our webinar program, participating with me on several recent webinars.  Tom also wrote a terrific four part informational overview on Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) titled eDiscovery and the GDPR: Ready or Not, Here it Comes (and participated with me on a webcast on the same topic) and wrote another terrific five part informational overview on Understanding eDiscovery in Criminal Cases.  Now, Tom has written another terrific overview regarding Alternative Legal Service Providers titled ALSP – Not Just Your Daddy’s LPO that we’re happy to share on the eDiscovery Daily blog.  Enjoy! – Doug

Tom’s overview is split into four parts, so we’ll cover each part separately.  We covered part one on March 8 and parts two and three last Monday and Thursday.  Here’s the final part, part four.

What does this mean for the future of ALSPs?

According to the Thomson Reuters report, ALSPs are likely to continue to expand as the complexity and specialization of legal services grows. Additionally, we can expect that even more areas of ALSP specialization will develop. Some of the AM Law 50 and Fortune 50 may still choose to keep their work in-house due to their high level of internal resource or pains endured in the past with ALSPs, but the overall market for ALSP services in the rest of the legal profession should continue to expand.

Specifically, the report showed that while only 38 percent of law firms use a litigation support ALSP now, another 15 percent said they would be likely to use them in the next year. And among regulatory risk and compliance services for corporations, the number of users increases 13 percent for new users within the next year.

The biggest driver? Technology. Firms and companies interviewed for the report identified a number of different technologies they hoped ALSPs would use in the near future, including:

  • artificial intelligence,
  • contract management,
  • process mapping, and
  • workflow technology.

Eric Laughlin, Managing Director of Legal Services at Thomson Reuters, noted that in many cases, these are technologies that are still in the nascent stages in firms or legal departments, saying:

“I think it shows that while legal departments and law firms either haven’t been able to adopt yet because of budget, or perhaps because of the scale, they have high expectations that ALSPs will use technology to their advantage.”

Will there be growth pains? Undoubtedly.  The Thomson Reuters report mentions several areas that law firms and corporations would like clarified before adopting ALSPs, including:

  • 59 percent of law firms that do not use ALSPs cited data security as the main reason,
  • 54 percent of law firms cited quality of service as an inhibitor,
  • 43 percent of corporate users also cited quality of service as a negative, and
  • 43 percent of corporate users cited failure to actually reduce costs as the most negative factor.

The Legaltech New York panel mentioned earlier highlighted these factors, with security getting the most attention. However, the panel suggested these issues may revolve mainly around market education and getting potential customers more familiar with and gaining experience using ALSPs, rather than being insurmountable barriers to continued growth.

The panel also discussed the potential growth in the ALSP market and opined that ALSPs may be viewed as complementary, rather than competitive to firms, helping firms be more efficient and competitive. Since an ALSP is not a law firm, it can often provide one or more services that law firms might offer, but at a lower cost with increased expertise, flexibility, and speed.

Also, because they do not have to adhere to the structure and hierarchy of a law firm, an ALSP can more quickly change business practices to increase efficiency using technology or other innovative practices. Since clients have traditionally preferred having a single point of contact for all their legal business, this would seem to open the door to the opportunity for the law firm or GC to partner with ALSPs to offer cost-effective models for their clients.

What will that future ALSP included hierarchy look like?  First and foremost, it will require good project management skills. Well known legal consultant Casey Flaherty, Principal of the legal operations consulting company Procertas, was recently quoted as saying:

“Most successful users of ALSPs will tell you that… once they took time to train the provider and work to establish a common understanding for the product, the returns on the investment were spectacular.”

So more and more, ALSPs will become partners in legal work more than merely hired vendors. And like all partners in the legal process, the relationship will be ongoing and not simply oriented around one deliverable task.

“The future is now,” Fenwick & West LLP’s Robert Brownstone, who led the Legaltech panel on ALSPs, tells any and everyone who will listen. Brownstone often points out that “it is the rare law firm or legal department that can adequately ramp up – and keep up – on technology, project management and innovation. By planting their flag, ALSPs have provided legal departments not only with a wider array of choices but also a lever to pressure law firms to adjust to the new normal.”

So, while the future appears to be bright for ALSPs, the future also appears to be now.

So, what do you think?  Have you used an ALSP before?  And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Also, it’s notable that Tom’s post is today because I (Doug) want to thank JD Supra and its readership for CloudNine being named the Readers’ Choice Top Firm in eDiscovery for the second straight year!  And, Tom and I were named two of the top four authors in the Readers’ Choice awards for eDiscovery!  I’m honored to be named for the second year in a row!  Distribution of our posts via JD Supra has continued to grow our readership greatly and I really appreciate our partnership with JD Supra and thank all of you for reading our blog, whether it’s via JD Supra or the “old fashioned way” via our site!  Thank you so much!

And, today our blog has been around for 7 1/2 years!  And, we are up to 1,942 lifetime posts!  Thanks to all of you of support and readership of the blog and making it all possible.  We wouldn’t write it if y’all didn’t read it!  :o)

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

Court Grants Key Parts of Motion to Compel Against Safeway: eDiscovery Case Law

In U.S. ex rel. Proctor v. Safeway, Inc., No. 11-cv-3406 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 08, 2018), Illinois Magistrate Judge Tom Schanzle-Haskins allowed the Relator’s motion to compel in part, ordering the defendant to conduct and complete a TAR process on 575,000 issue files previously produced based on key number search alone and also ordering the defendant to produce PDX pharmacy transaction data (PDX Data) – all by March 16.  However, Judge Schanzle-Haskins declined to order the defendant to produce the issue files as Image Files since it had previously produced them in native form and instructions only directed the defendant to produce image files if it created a litigation database.

Case Background

In this case regarding alleged overcharging for pharmaceuticals by the defendant Safeway to federal and state government programs, the relator served his First Set of Requests for Production of Documents to the defendant in February 2017, which requested the documents to be produced, as follows: “Unless otherwise agreed to by counsel, electronically stored information (“ESI”) shall be produced in its unaltered native form and as it is maintained in the ordinary course of business. If, however, you have created a litigation database to facilitate the production of documents, the ESI shall be produced in multi-page TIFF format (minimum 300 dpi resolution) with searchable text files and native files using ‘(beginning Bates number).(extension)’ for each document as the filename.”

The parties negotiated over the production of the requested materials and the defendant produced 260,640 Bates numbered documents and an additional 575,000 Issue Files in native format.  The defendant used a key word search to collect Issue Files, but did not otherwise review the Issue Files to determine the documents produced by the key word search were responsive to the relator’s request and some of the files produced were a mass of incomprehensible special characters and other symbols.  The defendant also had not produced PDX Data that had been requested.  As a result, the relator filed a motion to compel the defendant to review the Issue Files to identify non-privileged responsive documents and produce those files in Bates numbered TIFF or PDF format and to produce the PDX data immediately.  The defendant responded that “Proctor’s request is overly burdensome, cost prohibitive, and cannot be accomplished within the timeframe of the discovery schedule”.

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that “[t]he Request ESI Instructions directed Safeway to produce Image Files if it created a litigation database”, but that “Safeway…was not required to produce documents in more than one form”, Judge Schanzle-Haskins stated he “will not order Safeway to produce the Issue Files as Image Files.”

However, Judge Schanzle-Haskins also ruled that “Safeway must also place a unique Bates number on each Issue File produced”, noting that “Safeway stated during the parties’ negotiations that it would number Native Files with a Bates number.”  He also ruled that “Safeway must review the Issue Files to identify the responsive documents. A party must make reasonable inquiry and certify that discovery is complete and responsive. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(1). Under the facts of this case, Safeway’s key number search alone was not a reasonable inquiry under Rule 26(g).”

Also noting that “Safeway has had more than a year to respond to this request”, Judge Schanzle-Haskins ordered the defendant to produce the PDX data.  The defendant was ordered to produce that data and also identify the responsive Issue Files with Bates numbers by March 16.

So, what do you think?  Was the ruling correct or were the relator’s requests “overly burdensome”?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.

Mary Mack of ACEDS: eDiscovery Trends 2018

This is the second of the 2018 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year (and some afterward) to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Mary Mack of ACEDS.  Mary is the Executive Director of the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists (ACEDS).  E-discovery luminary and recipient of the Masters Conference Educator of the Year 2016, Mary provides ACEDS and its membership more than a decade of strong credibility and sound leadership within the e-discovery community. Mary is the author of A Process of Illumination: The Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery, considered by many to be the first popular book on e-discovery. She is the co-editor of the Thomson Reuters West treatise, eDiscovery for Corporate Counsel.

What have your impressions of LTNY been this year?

{Interviewed Mary the last morning of the conference}

We’re on the downhill slide today and I’m so happy – these shows are a lot of fun, but a lot of work too. A highlight for me was the gathering of our NYC chapter attendees followed by our annual #DrinksWithDougAndMary community happy hour at Ruth’s Chris, sponsored by our fantastic affiliates CloudNine and Compliance Discovery Solutions. Thank you so much for that!  It was packed from 4pm on with everyone representing from the Hon. Judge Peck to our newest CEDS certified person. The other thing that was fun was that our other chapter leadership was in attendance and our chapters look forward to this event every year.

Another highlight for me was the number of great people taking #eDiscoveryRockstar selfies at our booth behind our big backdrop!

I was on a session yesterday with David Horrigan, Bill Hamilton, Dan Katz, Laura Norris and Judge Rodriguez, which was fabulous. I thought it was well attended and the audience was a very mixed group. At the end, the panel asked for predictions and then we had buzzers where we could agree with the predictions, so it was like a round robin prediction. My prediction was The Rise of the Legal Engineer, which (I think) got three “yes” votes and one “no” vote from the other panelists.  Then, after the session was over, one of the attendees came up to me from Airbus with his name tag which indicated that he is a legal engineer.  I decided he had come from the future and they had figured that all out already!

That was a nice session and I’m glad I got to participate in it.  Other than that, this is (unfortunately for me) a business conference, so I’m not able to see as much content as I’d like to, session wise. I’m going to have to depend on the recorded versions.  There were some very nice keynotes, I heard, so I look forward to checking those out particularly.

ACEDS had a great reception Tuesday night at the offices of Thomson Reuters, who is one of our partners.  They very graciously put a reception in their Customer Experience Center, with a view of Times Square right where the New Year’s Eve ball drops down. We had three judges for the content part (Honorable Judges James C. Francis IV, David Waxse and Xavier Rodriguez), but we also had a meet-and-greet with the press, with video of the authors that have been so graciously contributing to get some visibility for the work that they’ve been doing.  Discovery counsel like Nick Ackerman from Dorsey and David Keyko from Pillsbury and Hampton Coley of Canon, former Cravath and Debbie Reynolds from Eimer Stahl.  As for the judges who participated, we had a lovely discussion with Judge Waxse who’s fully retired now and still bringing it down to a level that everybody can understand with storytelling and things of that nature.  And, we had Judge Francis who’s got his Microsoft Ireland case going up to the Supreme Court and he was handicapping how that ruling might go.   We also had comments from Judge Rodriguez, of course, who is so forward-thinking on access to justice and how we’re going to better do that and some of the other aspects of our practice.

Speaking of the Microsoft Ireland case, what are your thoughts about that case? Do you have any expectations or predictions as how it’s going to go?

It’s interesting because I think maybe last month I would have said that the Supreme Court would have said yes, you can get the data. And now, maybe this week I’m thinking with all the data privacy stuff that’s going on in the news that they might say no. That maybe they’ll take a look at it but it might really drastically hurt our commercial technical business, from a US perspective, unless we do something rational around it for privacy purposes.

You have the Microsoft case and then also you have GDPR looming. This year seems to be a particular focus on data privacy, more so than it seems in previous years. What are your thoughts about that, where do you think organizations stand in getting ready for GDPR?

I don’t think organizations are anywhere near ready. I think they’ll be still trying to get ready when the first fines come down. My sense is that there will be fines levied that are rather large and, to me, the climate feels like someone’s going to get a fine pretty early.  Though I may be way wrong on that, I thought maybe UK bribery would be big and it wasn’t. It turned out to be a non-issue, really.

Were there any other topics that stood out for you in this year’s session, that you think are the key topics that people are talking about here at the conference?

Business-wise, I think the most talked about topic is consolidation, and that the downstream effects of that are people’s employment and business aspects. I think that that’s palpable here.  It’s going to be really interesting to see the next quarterly business confidence survey that Rob Robinson does. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a drop in confidence if the people who get consolidated out fill out a survey.  Who knows?  To date, it’s been pretty sunny, I think.  This conference certainly reflects the consolidation.  Certainly the number of people who are buying booths is lower.  Although, it’d be interesting to get the statistics for the satellite suites that aren’t here because that is still going on. For me, it feels less attended than last year — both from the exhibitors as well as attendees.

If you were queen of LTNY for a year, what changes would you make?

If it’s in January, I’d hold it in Florida. {laughs}  Seriously, though, I know that’s not possible. I do think it was a mistake to ‘X’ out the consultants and the partners – I feel that $2,500 entrance fee to the exhibit hall was punitive and many people didn’t come. I think one of the things I’ve always loved about Legaltech New York is that you could see everybody, in the course of three days. Now I’m not seeing that. People that have come for 15 years are saying they can’t do it now. I think that’s a shame.  I do appreciate that the “looky loos” that come with their little bags and just grab up all the swag, are not there. I do appreciate that, but I think we’re missing part of our population that contributes a great deal.

What else would I do?  I think I would look at how they’re sourcing speakers to make sure it’s more reflective of our community.

What would you like to tell our readers about what ACEDS is doing?

ACEDS is going to take a nap. {laughs}  Seriously, though, we are having all sorts of organic chapter growth all over the world. Last year our UK chapter made us global. This year, Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) is up already. Toronto is coming soon and also Australia.  Then, perhaps Japan, perhaps Abu Dhabi and then around the country in places like Houston, where your CEO Brad Jenkins is the chapter president.  We’re also setting up in Dallas and San Francisco and getting inquiries from LA and Atlanta.  We’re getting an explosion in chapter demand. We’re doing all of that and we have some other things in the works I think that’ll be pretty exciting, especially for our partners, around combining technical certification with our more functional certification.

We’re also doing a ton of webinars.  It seems like we have at least one every week.  Sometimes, we have three.  We found that separating the pure education from the service product showcases where partners can brag on themselves and focus on their selling proposition works well.  As long as people know you’re doing a demo and that’s what you’re going to do and that’s what they come for, there’s no illusion.  I feel the program helps with the technical competence and the risks and benefits of technology.

And, we’re seeing more attorneys come to the webinars.  We started that last year as an experiment. We thought we’d get 13 people; instead, we’re getting 130 people and that’s for an intro demo. Then, for service providers, it’s people who’ve already self-selected you for a deeper conversation, like the people that are trying to do RFPs and things like that.  They get to do bit of research without necessarily engaging hot and heavy.  And, it’s good for the partners too, who can point people to those webinars to get started learning about them right away.

Last year, we also did the “Ask the Experts” series, which was really fun.  We did that with Jared Coseglia over at TRU Staffing and we’re going to expand that series. Jared is our anchor and he’s got a quarterly report and we will be bringing in some other experts on other areas of career development and technical development topics as well. The format is different: We conduct some poll questions and then the answers of the poll helps shape the conversation. It’s an unscripted, unplugged type of format and it’s highly interactive.  And, we’ve changed what we’re offering, how we offer it, how we talk about it, based on the feedback we’ve gotten from some of those subjects.  Even though you’re not in the same room, it’s about as close as you can get to that during the hour discussion.

Thanks, Mary, for participating in the interview!

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.