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Sometimes, Your Wildcard May Not Be “Wild” Enough: eDiscovery Best Practices

On the very first day we launched this blog nearly six years ago (next Tuesday is our six year anniversary), one of our first blog posts was called “Don’t Get ‘Wild’ with Wildcards” where we showed how a poorly constructed wildcard of “min*” to retrieve variations like “mine”, “mines” and “mining” actually retrieved over 300,000 files with hits because there are 269 words in the English language that begin with the letters “min” (such as words like “mink”, “mind”, “mint” and “minion”).  Sometimes, though, you have the opposite problem – your wildcard isn’t “wild” enough.

Last week a client of mine provided some search terms to me for review.  One of the searches he proposed included a wildcard term for depreciate* to reflect assets that depreciate.  See any problem with that term?

That wildcard would have picked up variations such as depreciates and depreciated, but would have missed other obvious variations like depreciating and, of course, depreciation.  Oops.

So, how do you find the actual variations of the word you want?  One way, as we noted back in September 2010, is to list all of the words that begin with your search string.  Morewords.com is one site that shows a list of words that begin with your search string.  So, to get all 269 words beginning with “min”, go here – simply substitute any characters for “min” to see the words that start with those characters.  You can choose the variations you want and incorporate them into the search instead of the wildcard – i.e., use “(mine or “mines or mining)” instead of “min*” to retrieve a more relevant result set.

However, if you don’t want to search through 269 words to get the ones you want, or if you picked a place to insert your wildcard character so that all desired terms don’t even display, there’s another way.  As we discussed a couple of years ago, you can use a dictionary.

Dictionary.com, that is.  Type in the word that you want at the top of the form and find all of the uses of it (e.g., the yellow sweater is mine, which tells you not all of the hits may be relevant to mining terms) and also variations of a term (e.g., depreciated, depreciating, depreciation).  You can even find synonyms of the word (e.g., reserve, excavate) on the left hand side of the form (via Thesaurus.com) that might lead to additional terms you may want to include in your search.

Believe it or not, a poorly placed wildcard may sometimes not be “wild” enough.  If you want to make sure you cover all of the variations you need (and only those variations), use a dictionary.

So, what do you think? Do you use wildcards in your eDiscovery searches? If so, how do you check them to ensure that they are neither over-inclusive nor under-inclusive?  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.

Now You Can Weigh in on Principles and Guidelines for Developing and Implementing a Sound eDiscovery Process: eDiscovery Best Practices

The Sedona Conference® has had a busy summer (yes, it’s still technically summer).  Last month, they finalized their guide for “possession, custody, or control” as it’s used in Federal Rules 34 and 45 and also issued a Public Comment Version of a new TAR Case Law Primer.  Now, they have also issued a Public Comment Version of a new Principles and Guidelines for Developing and Implementing a Sound E-Discovery Process, which is a project of its Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1).

As noted in the Preface, the Commentary “represents the culmination of five years of spirited dialogue within WG1 on a number of sensitive topics that go to the heart of what it means to be a competent advocate and officer of the court in an age of increasing technological complexity. It addresses the tension between the principle of party-controlled discovery, and the need for accountability in the discovery process, by establishing a series of reasonable expectations and by providing practical guidance to meet these competing interests. The overriding goal of the principles and guidelines set forth in this Commentary is to reduce the cost and burden typically associated with modern discovery by helping litigants prepare for – or better yet, avoid altogether – challenges to their chosen discovery processes, and by providing guidance to the courts in the (ideally) rare instances in which they are called upon to examine a party’s discovery conduct.”

The preliminary 55 page PDF guide includes an Introduction and the following 13 principles, which are:

  • Principle 1: An e-discovery process is not required to be perfect, or even the best available, but it should be reasonable under the circumstances. When evaluating the reasonableness of an e-discovery process, parties and the court should consider issues of proportionality, including the benefits and burdens of a particular process.
  • Principle 2: An e-discovery process should be developed and implemented by a responding party after reasonable due diligence, including consultation with persons with subject-matter expertise, and technical knowledge and competence.
  • Principle 3: Responding parties are best situated to evaluate and select the procedures, methodologies, and technologies for their e-discovery process
  • Principle 4: Parties may reduce or eliminate the likelihood of formal discovery or expensive and time consuming motion practice about an e-discovery process by conferring and exchanging non-privileged information about that process.
  • Principle 5: When developing and implementing an e-discovery process, a responding party should consider how it would demonstrate the reasonableness of its process if required to do so. Documentation of significant decisions made during e-discovery may be helpful in demonstrating that the process was reasonable.
  • Principle 6: An e-discovery process should include reasonable validation.
  • Principle 7: A reasonable e-discovery process may use search terms and other culling methods to remove ESI that is duplicative, cumulative, or not reasonably likely to contain information within the scope of discovery.
  • Principle 8: A review process can be reasonable even if it does not include manual review of all potentially responsive ESI.
  • Principle 9: Technology-assisted review should be held to the same standard of reasonableness as any other e-discovery process.
  • Principle 10: A party may use any reasonable process, including a technology-assisted process, to identify and withhold privileged or otherwise protected information. A party should not be required to use any process that does not adequately protect its rights to withhold privileged or otherwise protected information from production.
  • Principle 11: Whenever possible, a dispute about an e-discovery process should be timely resolved through informal mechanisms, such as mediation between the parties and conferences with the court, rather than through formal motion practice and hearings.
  • Principle 12: A party should not be required to provide discovery about its e-discovery process without good cause.
  • Principle 13: The court should not decide a motion regarding the adequacy of an e-discovery process without a sufficient factual record. In many instances, such a motion may not be ripe for determination before there has been substantial or complete production.

Principles 1 through 5 are General Principles, 6 through 10 are Specific Applications of the General Principles and 11 through 13 are principles related to Defending the E-Discovery Process.

As usual, the Commentary is free and you can download it here.  The Sedona Conference welcomes input on the Commentary through November 15, 2016. Questions and comments regarding the Primer may be sent to comments@sedonaconference.org.

So, what do you think?  Will these new principles help organizations implement a sound eDiscovery process?  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.

According to Gartner, Machine Learning is at the Peak of Inflated Expectations: eDiscovery Trends

I missed this earlier, but, last month, Gartner published the 2016 edition of its Hype Cycle chart.  Machine Learning is only one of several “smart machine technologies” that will be “the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years”.  But, if you look at the chart closely, you will find that Machine Learning is at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”.

The report (available here), which “distills insight from more than 2,000 technologies”, says the following regarding smart machine technologies:

“Smart machine technologies will be the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years due to radical computational power, near-endless amounts of data, and unprecedented advances in deep neural networks that will allow organizations with smart machine technologies to harness data in order to adapt to new situations and solve problems that no one has encountered previously. Enterprises that are seeking leverage in this theme should consider the following technologies: Smart Dust, Machine Learning, Virtual Personal Assistants, Cognitive Expert Advisors, Smart Data Discovery, Smart Workspace, Conversational User Interfaces, Smart Robots, Commercial UAVs (Drones), Autonomous Vehicles, Natural-Language Question Answering, Personal Analytics, Enterprise Taxonomy and Ontology Management, Data Broker PaaS (dbrPaaS), and Context Brokering.”

The infographic shown below (have I told you lately how I love infographics?) shows the following phases: “Innovation Trigger”, “Peak of Inflated Expectations”, “Trough of Disillusionment”, “Slope of Enlightenment” and “Plateau of Productivity”.  It also color codes each of the technologies as to the number of years to mainstream adoption (i.e., less than 2 years, 2 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years, more than 10 years and obsolete before plateau).  Sorry folks, self-driving cars (a.k.a., Autonomous Vehicles) are still more than ten years away.  Machine learning is at the top of the curve (i.e., “Peak of Inflated Expectations”) and is predicted to become a mainstream item within two to five years.  Great news, though, in the short term, that means we’re about to head down the “Trough of Disillusionment”.  Oh dear.  Here is the infographic again, full-sized for easier reading:

hypecycle2016

Here is additional commentary from Sharon Nelson of Ride the Lightning and Serdar Yegulalp of InfoWorld.

So, what do you think?  Are the expectations for machine learning technology inflated at this point?  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 Your Chance to Hear Experts’ Views on eDiscovery Business Confidence: eDiscovery Trends

Earlier this week, we covered results from the ACEDS and Complex Discovery Summer 2016 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey, which was conducted last month with the results published on Rob Robinson’s terrific Complex Discovery site (in my post, I focused on trends over the past three surveys to see how the responses have varied from quarter to quarter).  Now, you can hear experts comment on the results of the survey and their thoughts about the state of eDiscovery business in general!

This time, there were 168 total respondents to the survey, which is more than double the number of respondents as the Spring survey.  In fact, there twelve were more respondents than the first two surveys combined.  Obviously, sponsorship from ACEDS and promotion from EDRM, LTPI, Masters Conference, and Women in eDiscovery helped increase the number of respondents dramatically.  The end result is perhaps the most meaningful eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey results yet.

Next Thursday, September 15, ACEDS will be hosting a webinar (sponsored by CloudNine) regarding the survey.  During this one hour presentation and discussion led by ACEDS Executive Director Mary Mack, expert panelists will share and discuss the results of this quarterly survey. The discussion will feature eDiscovery leaders including George Socha, Co-Founder of EDRM and Managing Director of Thought Leadership at BDO, Eric Mandel, Managing Member at Indicium Law PLC and Member of the Board for LTPI and me.  We will not only take a look at this survey in general, we will also break down the results within different response groups (e.g., providers, law firms, corporations, etc.) and compare the results of this survey to those of past surveys to discuss changes in trends.

The webinar will be conducted at 1:00 pm ET (which is 12:00 pm CT, 11:00 am MT and 10:00 am PT).  Oh, and 5:00 pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).  If you’re in any other time zone, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself.  Click on the link here to register for the webinar.  Hope to see you there!

So, what do you think?  What’s your state of confidence in the business of 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.

Court Denies Defendant’s Motion to Overrule Plaintiff’s Objections to Discovery Requests

Court Rejects Discovery for Additional Time Period, But Grants Additional Discovery on Termination Plan: eDiscovery Case Law

In Blodgett et. al. v. Siemens Industry, Inc., No. 13-3194 (E.D. N.Y., Aug. 9, 2016), New York Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson denied the plaintiff’s motion to compel the defendant to respond to the first two requests in its third request for production, but granted the motion regarding the plaintiff’s third request for ESI regarding a division-wide reduction-in-force plan.

Case Background

In this case alleging improper termination, the plaintiffs sued after the defendant allegedly promised them continued employment and then terminated their jobs in April 2013.  Previously, the Court had directed the defendant to produce additional ESI from custodians previously agreed upon by the parties as well as two new custodians, but when the plaintiff filed a motion to compel in July 2015 regarding alleged deficiencies in the defendant’s responses, the Court denied the plaintiff’s motion, without prejudice and with the right to renew, on the grounds that it was not in compliance with Local Rule 37.1.

In its renewed motion, the plaintiffs sought production of additional emails that included a new three-month time frame (October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012) not previously requested.  The plaintiffs also sought emails related to the rejection of a proposal for an additional sales manager position that the plaintiff argued “refers to Defendant working on a possible reduction of staff in August 2012”.  The defendant claimed that the quote in one particular email (“look at the final territory breakdown. While we worked on this last August, the documents need to be refreshed and double checked”) related to territory breakdowns, not contemplation of a reduction-in-force and one of the custodians (Richard Lattanzi) testified that there were no discussions regarding reduction-in-force in August 2012.  The plaintiffs also requested all documents related to “Project Merlin,” a division-wide reduction-in-force plan, contending that those documents were relevant, and that the defendants had not yet produced any documentation about this project.

Judge’s Ruling

Regarding the first request, Judge Tomlinson, in denying the request, stated:

“Having considered the parties’ arguments in light of these standards, the Court declines to compel Defendant to respond to Request No. 1. As Defendant points out in its opposition, compliance with this document request would require Defendant to search the ESI of all seven custodians using a third set of date parameters (i.e., October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012) not previously agreed to by the parties or authorized by the Court. Plaintiffs simply have not provided the Court with a basis beyond speculation to believe that relevant information is likely to be uncovered as a result of requiring Defendant to undertake an additional search for the proposed three-month period.”

Judge Tomlinson, also denied the second request as well, stating “In short, Lattanzi’s deposition testimony does not support the additional discovery sought in Request No. 2. To the extent Plaintiffs wished to determine what Schlesinger meant in his March 2013 email and whether that email does, in fact, refer to an August 2012 reduction in force, they could have questioned Schlesinger about the email during his deposition, which was conducted more than four months after Defendant produced the email on April 1, 2014… And although Plaintiffs assert that “Mr. Lattanzi’s deposition revealed additional information that requires supplemental disclosure by Defendant,” Plaintiffs have not identified this alleged “additional information.” Their conclusory statement is insufficient to compel the discovery sought in Request No 2.”

However, Judge Tomlinson, granted the plaintiff’s third request, noting “From the parties’ submissions and their representations of Lattanzi’s deposition testimony, it appears to the Court that Project Merlin was an overarching reduction-in-force encompassing not only Plaintiffs’ group, but other groups within Defendant’s Building Technologies division. The Court therefore finds that documents, information, and correspondence regarding a particular reduction-in-force within Project Merlin which resulted in the termination of Plaintiffs’ employment are relevant and should be produced. However, Plaintiffs are not entitled to discover information about reductions-in-force in other groups/divisions which were affected pursuant to Project Merlin but were unrelated to Plaintiffs’ termination.”

So, what do you think?  Did the Court make the right decisions?  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.

Perhaps the Most Meaningful eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey Results Yet: eDiscovery Trends

The results are in from the ACEDS and Complex Discovery Summer 2016 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey, which was conducted last month and (as was the case for the Winter and Spring surveys) the results are published on Rob Robinson’s terrific Complex Discovery site.  Are individuals working in the eDiscovery ecosystem still as confident in the business as they were in the first and second quarters?  Let’s see.

As always, Rob provides a complete breakdown of the latest survey results, which you can check out here.  So, to avoid redundancy, I will focus on trends over the past three surveys (for the most part) to see how the responses have varied from quarter to quarter.

More Than Double the Respondents: This time, there were 168 total respondents to the survey, which is more than double the number of respondents as the Spring survey.  In fact, there were twelve more respondents than the first two surveys combined.  Obviously, sponsorship from ACEDS and promotion from EDRM, LTPI, Masters Conference, and Women in eDiscovery helped increase the number of respondents dramatically.

Providers Were No Longer the Majority Respondents: Of the types of respondents, 78 out of 168 were either Software and/or Services Provider (32.7%) or Consultancy (13.7%) for a total of only 46.4% of respondents as some sort of outsourced provider (down from 61.9% last time).  Law firm respondents were in a strong second place with 33.9%.  Even the percentage of other respondents (which includes Corporation and Governmental Entity respondents) was up from 11.7% (Winter) to 14.4% (Spring) to 19.7% this time.  Here’s a graphical representation of the trend:

Summer2016-Dist

Less Respondents Consider Business to Be Good: Less than 48% (47.6%, to be exact) of respondents rated the current general business conditions for eDiscovery in their segment to be good, with 13.7% rating business conditions as bad.  Last time, those numbers were 61.8% and 3.9% respectively.  While this (and other) ratings reflect a dip, part of that could be attributable to the greater diversity in respondents (I would expect that providers would typically be more optimistic than the other groups).  Then again, this could be a more realistic reflection of the industry as a whole.  Here is the trend for the first three quarters:

Summer2016-BusCond

Almost Everyone Still Expects eDiscovery Business Conditions to be as Good or Better Six Months From Now: Almost all respondents (97.0%) expect business conditions will be in their segment to be the same or better six months from now (virtually changed from last quarter, though the “better” component dropped from 53.9% to 44.6%).  That wasn’t reflected as much in the revenue and profit projections though, as 91.7% expected as good or better revenue and only 85.7% expected as good or better profits (“lower” reached a high of 14.3%).  Here is the profits trend for the first three quarters:

Summer2016-Profits

Increasing Volumes of Data and Budgetary Constraints Continue to be Considered the Most Impactful to eDiscovery Business: Increasing Volumes of Data (28.6%) was actually considered to be the most impactful to the business of eDiscovery over the next six months, followed very closely by Budgetary Constraints (28.0%, one vote off).  Lack of Personnel (14.3%) rose to third, Inadequate Technology (11.9%) rose considerably to fourth,  Increasing Types of Data (10.1%) staying steady at fifth and Data Security (7.1%) dropping to dead last (it was second and third, respectively, in the first two surveys.  The graph below illustrates the distribution across the past three surveys.

Summer2016-Impact

So, as the survey has become more diverse, the importance of Increasing Volumes of Data and Budgetary Constraints combined has risen from 42.5% in the Winter to 56.6% in the Summer.  On the other hand, the importance of Data Security has dropped by two-thirds, from 21.3% in the Winter to 7.1% in the Summer (the number of respondents that selected data security – 12 – was exactly the same as last time even though the number of respondents more than doubled.  Does that mean that providers place a higher priority on data security than law firms and other respondents?  Maybe.

Level of Support in eDiscovery Business Reflects Considerable Diversity in Responses: A new question we’re covering here shows a virtual even split among type of respondents (based on role), with Executive Leadership and Operational Management tied at 34.5% of respondents each and Tactical Execution close behind at 31%.  In the first two surveys, Executive Management was a majority of respondents with 56.3% and 55.6% respectively.  So, this survey by far reflects the most balanced results based on role.  It will be interesting to see if that trend continues in future surveys.  Here’s that breakdown, quarter by quarter:

Summer2016-Type

Rob has published the results on his site here, which shows responses to additional questions not referenced here.  Check it out.

I’ll be participating in a panel discussion webinar moderated by Mary Mack of ACEDS with George Socha of EDRM also participating as a panelist where we will discuss these trends and others.  Click here to register for that webinar.

So, what do you think?  What’s your state of confidence in the business of 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.

Illustrated Observations from ILTACON 2016: eDiscovery Trends

We wrap up our week covering the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual educational conference of 2016 (otherwise known as ILTACON 2016) by discussing some of the observations from this year’s show.  Here are a few observations that I have put together, based on my own experiences and discussions with fellow attendees at the show.

Venue

The show this year was held at the National Harbor Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in the Washington/Baltimore area.  The venue is sizable, but there were several ILTA placards around the conference which made it easy to find the location for sessions and the exhibit hall quickly.  Session rooms were good sized, though, in a couple of the bigger “Maryland” conference rooms, there seemed to be an acoustics problem and it was hard to hear some of the speakers.  Some of that could be due to speakers not fully speaking into the microphones, but it seemed to be prevalent for all speakers, especially in one session that I attended on Wednesday afternoon.  Nonetheless, the venue was enjoyable with a couple of restaurants in the facility (and several more within walking distance) for breakout meetings over meals, if you chose a different location than the ILTA-sponsored meals.  And, as always, meals were included for conference attendees and there were many taking advantage of that option, as you can see here:

ILTA-6

Environment

As for the ILTACON environment, the show once again included some of the innovations and perks that make it stand out from the rest.  For example:

Laminating Business Cards: ILTACON once again had a station for laminating business cards (with a strap to attach to your bag to differentiate it from others) and it literally takes less than a minute for each card (so, of course, I had two made – one each for my CloudNine and eDiscovery Daily cards).  :o)

Catch Box: As they did last year, ILTACON had the unique “Catch Box” microphone to pass around to audience members for questions or comments.  Clever way to get the microphone passed around more quickly (and with a little bit of fun).

CatchBox

 

ILTACON App: Once again this year, ILTA provided an app that you could download to your iPhone or Android that provided all sorts of information, including maps of the exhibit hall and conference center, an activity feed, agenda for each day with details about the event (including date and time, location, speakers, etc.), details about the speakers and exhibitors and materials to download.  Probably the best show app of any of the shows.

TheFilament.com: Down the hall from the second floor session rooms, there was a big board with instructions to read from several thought provoking questions, put your answer on a post-it note and post it on the board.  The artists this time from TheFilament.com, a team of meeting consultants, then represented those answers in cartoon form.  In addition to the cartoon you see at the top of this post, here are a couple of others in answer to the statement “The thing about legal tech that drives me crazy is…”

ILTA-1ILTA-2

Of course, in a sign of the times (pun intended), the conference needed to set ground rules for any Pokemon GO aficionados in the group…

ILTA-5

Exhibit Hall

This year, there were more exhibitors than last year (195, according to the web site) and the exhibit hall was bigger, which made it seem less crowded.  Exhibitors seemed generally pleased with the traffic and the attendance and one noted that less available distractions than last year (when the show was in Las Vegas) made for more interest and traffic at their booth.

Regarding one participant’s experience, Shawn Gaines, Director of Marketing Communications at kCura, told me: “As always, the community at ILTACON is outstanding.  While there aren’t as many attendees as Legaltech New York, ILTACON’s educational focus makes for really in-depth discussions, particularly with folks we don’t always interact with.  For example, we hosted a CIO Summit and met with a great group of CIOs that we don’t always get the opportunity to garner feedback from and understand their greatest needs.  Booth traffic is always fine, but as a vendor, ILTACON is really all about what you decide to make of it.”

Sessions

As usual, there were numerous sessions (over 170, by my count) and several of them related to litigation support, eDiscovery and information governance (including the ones we covered over the last four days).  So, there was plenty of educational opportunities at the show.  I attended several good sessions, here are a couple that stood out for me:

Preparing an ROI for eDiscovery Services: A Litigation Technology Operations Workshop: The session was hands-on and interactive workshop, enabling attendees to create a simulated return on investment (ROI) analysis for eDiscovery services.  Great idea and great exercise.

Refining Your E-Discovery Reporting: This session walked through a case study covering various phases of the process (from receiving a document request to sampling custodians to discussing metrics for processing, review and production).  Terrific presentation and discussion about eDiscovery metrics.

Extracurricular

Of course, no ILTA experience would be complete without some enjoyable times outside of the conference.  My colleagues and I had a thoroughly fun dinner with Mary Mack and Kaylee Walstad of ACEDS on Monday and an enjoyable lunch discussion with David Horrigan of kCura on Tuesday.  Mary also led me to a wonderful Beer for Bloggers happy hour on Tuesday where I got to meet several interesting bloggers and other folks including Kevin O’Keefe of Lexblog, Gretchen DeSutter of Thomson Reuters and Bob Ambrogi of the Law Sites blog (and others).  Thanks to Lexblog and Thomson Reuters for sponsoring the happy hour – it was great fun to talk blogging, other legal topics and other topics in general!

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.

Thursday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

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

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

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM:

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

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

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM:

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

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

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

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

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

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

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

Wednesday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

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

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

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM:

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

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

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

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

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

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM:

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday’s ILTACON 2016 Sessions: eDiscovery Trends

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

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

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM:

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

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

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM:

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

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

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM:

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

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

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

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

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