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Just How “BIG” is Big Data Getting? Check Out These Facts – eDiscovery Trends
 

If you work with information as an attorney, paralegal, litigation support professional or information technology (IT) professional, you have probably heard the term “big data” at an ever increasing rate.  But, just how BIG is big data getting?  Check out these facts.

An article by Bernard Marr on SmartData Collective (Big Data: 25 Amazing Need-to-Know Facts) provides some startling facts that you might be surprised to know.  Here are a few examples (with sources linked):

  • Every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of time until 2003;
  • Over 90% of all the data in the world was created in the past 2 years;
  • It is expected that by 2020 the amount of digital information in existence will have grown from 3.2 zettabytes today to 40 zettabytes (FYI, a zettabyte is one billion terabytes!);
  • The total amount of data being captured and stored by industry doubles every 1.2 years;
  • If you burned all of the data created in just one day onto DVDs, you could stack them on top of each other and reach the moon – twice;
  • 570 new websites spring into existence every minute of every day;
  • 1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the US by 2015 to carry out big data projects. Each of those will be supported by 3 new jobs created outside of IT – meaning a total of 6 million new jobs thanks to big data;
  • The big data industry is expected to grow from US$10.2 billion in 2013 to about US$54.3 billion by 2017.

With this level of data growth in the world, it’s no wonder that information governance and eDiscovery continues to be more challenging!

Check out Bernard’s article here for the entire list of 25 facts (it even includes a slide deck!).  And, thanks to Rob Robinson’s excellent ComplexDiscovery site for the heads up!

Tomorrow, we will take a look at what big companies think about (and what they’re doing about) big data.  Speaking of something BIG, check this out.

So, what do you think? Does your organization have a plan for managing big data?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid – eDiscovery Horrors!

Today is Halloween.  Every year at this time, because (after all) we’re an eDiscovery blog, we try to “scare” you with tales of eDiscovery horrors.  This is our fifth year of doing so, let’s see how we do this year.  Be afraid, be very afraid!

Did you know that overlaying Bates numbers on image-only Adobe PDF files causes the text of the image not to be captured by eDiscovery processing applications?

What about this?

Finding that the information was relevant and that the defendants “acted with a culpable state of mind” when they failed to preserve the data in its original form, New York Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis granted the plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions against the defendant, ordering the defendant to bear the cost of obtaining all the relevant data in question from a third party as well as paying for plaintiff attorney fees in filing the motion.

Or this?

It’s Friday at 5:00 and I need 15 gigabytes of data processed to review this weekend.

How about this?

Ultimately, it became clear that the defendant had not exported or preserved the data from salesforce.com and had re-used the plaintiffs’ accounts, spoliating the only information that could have addressed the defendant’s claim that the terminations were performance related (the defendant claimed did not conduct performance reviews of its sales representatives).  As a result, Judge Kemp stated that the “only realistic solution to this problem is to preclude Tellermate from using any evidence which would tend to show that the Browns were terminated for performance-related reasons”…

Or maybe this?

Could an “unconscionable” eDiscovery vendor actually charge nearly $190,000 to process 505 GB and host it for three months?  Could another vendor charge over $800,000 to re-process and host data (that it had previously hosted) for approximately two months?  Yes, in both cases (though, at least in the second case, the court disallowed over $700,000 of the billed costs).

Scary, huh?  If the possibility of additional processing charges for your PDF files, sanctions because you didn’t preserve data in its original format or preserve it in your cloud-based system or inflated eDiscovery vendor charges scares you, then the folks at eDiscovery Daily will do our best to provide useful information and best practices to enable you to relax and sleep soundly, even on Halloween!

Then again, if it really is Friday at 5:00 and you need 15 gigabytes of data processed to review this weekend (inexpensively, no less), maybe you should check this out.

Of course, if you seriously want to get into the spirit of Halloween, click here.  This will really terrify you!  (Rest in Peace, Robin)

What do you think?  Is there a particular eDiscovery issue that scares you?  Please share your comments and let us know if you’d like more information on a particular topic.

Happy Halloween!

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

eDiscovery in Arbitration Has Become Less…Arbitrary – eDiscovery Trends
 

When you think of eDiscovery, you typically think of it as it relates to litigation – two sides of a case requesting and producing electronically stored information (ESI) as one means of identifying evidence designed to lead to resolution of a lawsuit.  But litigation is just one method for dispute resolution.  Another method is arbitration.  But, do arbitrators really “get” eDiscovery?

According to a new article in Corporate Counsel (Arbitrators Finally 'Get' E-discovery, written by Josh M. Leavitt), they finally do – thanks to the issuance of new rules (though some of those rules have actually been around for a while).  Leavitt observes that proponents of arbitration have considered the cost and delays of discovery “inconsistent with core principles of arbitration such as efficiency and cost-effectiveness” and that it was “not uncommon to go through substantial arbitrations without participating in anything remotely resembling either a federal e-discovery conference with opposing counsel or a prearbitration conference where the arbitration panel engaged the parties in meaningful and technically sound discussions about e-discovery.”

The end result was often either an ineffective, costly and/or manipulated discovery process.  However, as Leavitt notes, arbitral bodies JAMS and the American Arbitration Association (AAA) “now have protocols for e-discovery, as do several of the international arbitration providers”.

JAMS

The former Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, now known as JAMS, Inc., published in January 2010 its Recommended Arbitration Discovery Protocols to “provide JAMS arbitrators with an effective tool that will help them exercise their sound judgment in furtherance of achieving an efficient, cost-effective process which affords the parties a fair opportunity to be heard.”  Also, Rule 16 of JAMS Comprehensive Arbitration Rules (also added in 2010) covers topics such as preliminary conferences, formats of production, metadata, custodians and cost shifting.

American Arbitration Association (AAA)

Last October, the AAA added new rules R-22 and R-23 to its Commercial Arbitration Rules and Mediation Procedures, which establishes parameters for arbitrators to manage exchange of ESI, impose ESI search parameters and make cost allocations and sanction noncompliance.  Also, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR), the international arm of the AAA, has published a 3 page Guidelines for Arbitrators Concerning Exchanges of Information to establish the authority for arbitrators to manage ESI and impose sanctions for noncompliance with their ESI orders.

With these resources available, arbitrators can make the process of eDiscovery less…arbitrary.

So, what do you think? Have you managed discovery in arbitration? Was it efficient?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

“The Decade of Discovery” On Tour – eDiscovery Trends

A few months ago, we told you about an intriguing documentary about eDiscovery that premiered in the New York area.  Now, that documentary is making the rounds and may be coming to a theatre near you.

The Decade of Discovery was written and directed by Joe Looby, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, served in the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps, practiced as an environmental enforcement attorney for New York state and was a founder of the forensic technology practices at Deloitte and FTI.  His film production company is called 10th Mountain Films, named in honor of his father, who served in the 10th Mountain Division, a U.S. Army ski patrol that fought in World War II.

Described as a “documentary about a government attorney on a quest to find a better way to search White House e-mail, and a teacher who takes a stand for civil justice on the electronic frontier”, Looby notes in a radio interview with the Mid Hudson News that the documentary includes comments by “a government attorney, a teacher, seven judges and two professors”, which includes several well-known names in eDiscovery: U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, of the Southern District of New York, Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and now of counsel at Drinker Biddle & Reath, and the late Richard Braman, founder of The Sedona Conference, among others.  Looby refers to those who have advanced tremendous progress made over the past decade in eDiscovery practice as “true American heroes”.

The movie addresses the considerable advancements to address problems like this in both the government and litigation arenas.

Now, the movie has some additional showings scheduled in other parts of the country, including South Carolina, Florida, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco and Houston (yay! – I already have tickets).  You can get more information on scheduled showings – and view the trailer – here.

So, what do you think? Is this a movie you would like to see? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

Microsoft Acquires Equivio (Reportedly) and Everyone Speculates what that Means for eDiscovery – eDiscovery Trends

The acquisitions just keep coming.  The Wall Street Journal reported on October 7 that Microsoft has signed a letter of intent to acquire Israeli text-analysis vendor, Equivio.  The Journal said Microsoft may pay $200 million for the startup, though Bloomberg’s report on the same day stated “Microsoft will pay materially less than that, the person with knowledge of the matter said”.  So, what does it mean for the eDiscovery industry?

Leave it to Ralph Losey to get some thought leader input on the subject.  In his most recent blog post from his excellent e-Discovery Team® blog (e-Discovery Industry Reaction to Microsoft’s Offer to Purchase Equivio for $200 Million – Part One), Ralph takes an in-depth look at the acquisition and clearly, based on the “Part One” in the title, he still has more to say.

Ralph starts with a business press view of the deal, noting that “as the WSJ article that broke the news exemplifies, they do not even seem to know that a e-discovery industry exists, nor that Equivio is part of it” and that “the WSJ just describes Equivio as a startup company that has created… text analysis software that can group together relevant texts from large amounts of documents”.  Ralph notes (or perhaps bemoans) the lack of understanding of the industry and of predictive coding by the average business journalist and states “Whatever the final price may be, the Two Hundred Million number sounds about right to me. No one else I talked to seemed shocked by the price either, which was certainly not true about Hewlett Packard’s ill-fated purchase of Autonomy for $10 Billion.” (here is a link to our previous coverage of that deal, which included an $8.8 billion write-down the following year).

Ralph then goes on to include comments from several industry insiders – most of which are on the record – from notables such as Jason R. Baron, Craig Ball, Kenneth J. Withers, Bill Hamilton, Rob Robinson and others.  Three of the comments are off-the-record (perhaps by competitors?), but the collection of comments provides an interesting perspective not only of the deal, but also of the industry overall.  Speculation runs the gamut, with a lot of comments directed toward impact on the Information Governance space and/or Microsoft’s simple desire to acquire Equivio’s artificial intelligence technology.  You can review all of the comments in Ralph’s blog here.

Having attended several of the twice yearly EDRM meetings over the years, I have noticed that Microsoft has been sending representatives to recent meetings, so there is certainly interest in eDiscovery and Information Governance at some level within the organization.  It will be interesting to see to what extent.

As we have noted a couple of times in the past, Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery site keeps a running list of mergers, acquisitions and investments in the eDiscovery industry and goes all the way back to 2001.  And, another great resource for details about some of these transactions is Litigation Support Industry: eDiscovery Business News and Information Blog, published by Brad Jenkins, the President and CEO of CloudNine Discovery (shameless plug warning!), who just happens to be my boss (here is his coverage of the deal).

As always, leave it to Craig Ball for the best analogy of the deal: “it’s a windfall for Equivio; but for Microsoft, the price is as impactful as it would be for you or I to purchase a good steak.”

So, what do you think?  Does the acquisition signal Microsoft’s entry into eDiscovery?  Was the price fair?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

eDiscovery Throwback Thursdays – How things evolved, part 3

So far in this blog series, we’ve taken a look at the ‘litigation support culture’ circa 1980, and we’ve covered how databases were built and used.  We’ve come a long way since then, and in the past couple of weeks we’ve discussed how things have evolved — we’ll continue that this week. First, though, If you missed the earlier posts in this series, they can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve talked about the form in which document collections were stored and the evolution – first in paper form, then on microfilm, then microfiche, and then as digital images.  Database content has evolved too.  Early databases included coded information only.  In the mid 1980’s, litigation support professionals starting thinking about and talking about OCR (optical character recognition) technology, mostly because one of the main-stream litigation support vendors promoted the advantages of full-text databases.

The primary advantage was, of course, the availability of all words on a document for searching.  There was a price-tag though, because the starting point was still paper.  Text was captured in an OCR scanning process.  Like image technology, full-text took a while to catch on in our industry.  The biggest hurdle initially was a lack of confidence in the results – with good reason.  At the time, searching the internet wasn’t mainstream, so the average litigation team member wasn’t comfortable with employing a less-than-rigid search method.

In addition, search technology was less advanced than it is today, so there was a greater burden on the user to get a search right.  And, OCR technology wasn’t as advanced either, so there were a lot of errors in the scanning process – errors that affected search results. Over time, however, these things changed.  Average business people became more and more comfortable searching text (thanks in large part to Google); search technology advanced; and OCR technology advanced.

Eventually, including full-text in a database became the norm, and even started replacing coded information.  Another factor that contributed to the evolution of full-text was the cost to store data.  It used to be expensive.  I remember sitting in meetings where attorneys debated on things like using abbreviations and punctuation in databases because of the expense of storage – they looked for every way they could to cut down on the data that was stored.  As storage costs went down over the years, it became easier to justify including full-text in databases.

These changes — databases that included images and full-text, coupled with advanced search technology – made a huge change in how litigation databases were used.  Databases were no longer a ‘back-office’ tool – they were used directly by attorneys, and they provided attorneys with very, very fast access to their documents.  By the mid 1990’s litigation databases were not only main stream, but they were regularly portable.  Not only did attorneys have almost-immediate access to their documents – they had that access even when not in the office.

This brings us up to the 1990’s, at which point electronic discovery quickly emerged as the next big advancement.  I won’t cover the evolution of it in this series… CloudNine has documented that well here in its eDiscovery Daily Blog.

This post concludes the Throwback Thursday blog series. I hope you enjoyed this look back at the way things used to be in our industry!

Please let us know if there are eDiscovery topics you’d like to see us cover in eDiscoveryDaily.

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

Survey of Corporate Counsel Finds that there is Much Room for Improvement in Handling eDiscovery – eDiscovery Trends

Yesterday, we discussed a new self-assessment test that enables organizations to measure their eDiscovery “maturity”.  Today, we look at a new survey of corporate counsel from BDO Consulting that shows that they feel there is substantial room for improvement when evaluating their organizations’ effectiveness in managing eDiscovery.

According to BDO’s press release promoting their inaugural Inside E-Discovery Survey by BDO Consulting, corporate counsel give their internal and external resources a grade of 6.5 out of 10 for overall effectiveness in handling and managing their eDiscovery.  The survey was completed by 100 senior in-house counsel and is scheduled to be released in late October.

Here are the top critical factors identified by in-house legal professionals as impacting their eDiscovery process:

  • Nearly half (48.4 percent) of respondents ranked understanding the universe of potentially responsive evidence early in the case as the most critical factor, more than three times as much as the next ranked factor;
  • 15.6 percent of respondents ranked predicting the total cost of eDiscovery as the most critical factor;
  • 14.1 percent of respondents ranked reducing eDiscovery review fees as the most important factor; and
  • 12.5 percent of respondents reported the ability to use previously collected and processed electronically stored information (ESI) for other matters as the most important factor, pointing to a desire among corporate counsel to achieve efficiencies by reusing prior work product.

When it comes to selecting eDiscovery providers, quality of provider (47.6 percent of respondents) is twice as important as cost (23.8 percent) as the most important factor for provider selection.

Other findings:

  • Response to Challenges: To respond to the increasing challenges of eDiscovery, 31.4 percent of respondents reported implementing new guidelines or policies within the past year to streamline and improve their response to litigation. Just over one in four (25.5 percent) say they have adopted tools and technologies, while 15.7 percent say they have hired an outside vendor.
  • Top eDiscovery Challenges Going Forward: When asked about key forward-looking challenges with regards to eDiscovery management, the largest percentage of in-house counsel (22.5 percent) say managing mobile and social networking data is the number one issue they will face in the near future, followed by cost control (17.5 percent), new regulations (15 percent) and automating processes (12.5 percent).
  • Few Organizations are Ahead of the Curve: Only 5.4 percent of respondents identify their organization as an “early adopter” when it comes to its willingness to adopt new tools and technologies. In addition, only 17.6 percent currently use customized customer portals to view and track project statistics and only 16.2 percent use data visualization techniques to assist in priority processing or review.
  • Spending on the Rise: 43.2 percent of corporate counsel respondents predict eDiscovery spend will increase within the next year, while a mere 6.2 percent expect it to decrease.

An infographic of the survey results is available from BDO Consulting here.

So, what do you think?  Do any of these results surprise you?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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

eDiscovery Blog Throwback Thursdays – How things evolved, Part 2

So far in this blog series, we’ve taken a look at the ‘litigation support culture’ circa 1980, and we’ve covered how databases were built and used.  We’ve come a long way since then, and in last week’s blog, we started discussing how things have evolved.  In the next posts, we’ll continue discussion of things evolved, but first, if you missed the earlier posts in this series, they can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Last week, I described the use of microfilm and microfiche to store document collections.  As most of you know, the next step in the evolution process was a move to storing documents as images.

This was a huge step in the world of litigation support, and honestly it was long overdue when it finally became adopted as a standard.  Like so many advancements, it was ‘looked at’ and ‘talked about’ for years before it became the norm.  One of the most significant hurdles was simply cost:  while the cost to scan documents to create images wasn’t much different than the costs to photocopy or film, image viewing technology was expensive.  Firms did not already have this technology, and corporate clients were not willing to bear the cost.  Eventually, however, it caught on.  By the late 1980’s more and more litigation teams were building databases with images.

There were other changes happening that helped this along – a couple of which meant using images only made sense:

  1. The use of computers in general was becoming more widespread.  Computers were no longer only used by large companies.  Small and mid-sized companies were using them.  PCs were introduced to the world so large main-frame computers and mini computers were not the only option. Desktop computers were becoming widespread.
  2. Because the use of computers was growing, more and more commercial software products were available, including commercial litigation support products.  Two of the first popular commercial products were Inmagic and BRS Search.

Because of these changes, technology use in law firms grew.  Law firms were buying computers for use by attorneys and paralegals.  Law firms started hiring IT staff.  Law firms started hiring litigation support professionals and buying litigation support software.  In short, law firms were developing internal resources to build and maintain databases.  They were creating an infrastructure that could support the use of images.

Including images in litigation support databases caused another shift in the way databases were used:  because the documents themselves were immediately available in a database, databases were being used more and more often directly by attorneys.  They were no longer a ‘back-office’ function.  For many years, it was common for law firms to have ‘walk-up’ litigation support stations, but these ‘walk-up’ stations were often used by attorneys, and eventually it became normal to see a computer on every desk in a law firm.

Tune in next week and we’ll continue discussion of how the litigation world circa 1980 evolved and got to where it is today.

Please let us know if there are eDiscovery topics you’d like to see us cover in eDiscoveryDaily.

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

eDiscovery Throwback Thursdays – How Things Evolved

So far in this blog series, we’ve taken a look at the ‘litigation support culture’ circa1980, and we’ve covered how databases were built and used.  We’ve come a long way since then, and in the next posts I’m going to talk a bit about how things evolved.  But first, if you missed the earlier posts in this series, they can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Litigators who used databases circa 1980 – for the most part – recognized a significant improvement in efficiencies.  As technology and approaches evolved over time, more efficiencies were realized.

One of the first big changes in how we worked was the use of microfilm.  Paper documents were still photocopied and coded, but microfilm became the preferred mechanism for storing and retrieving documents.  While the technology had been around for quite a long time, the litigation projects I worked on used paper repositories up until the early 1980s, which is when microfilm started to become the standard. This approach offered multiple advantages, the most significant being:

  1. It dramatically reduced the amount of space required to store a document collection.  The documents for a large case could be stored in a box or two rather than in a room or two. This also meant that it was reasonable to have multiple copies of a document collection stored in offices convenient for the litigation team, rather than a single, central repository of documents.
  2. Attorneys still used central repositories to handle large document pulls, but with microfilm It was faster and easier to retrieve those documents — turnaround time was much better.
  3. It preserved the integrity of the document collection.  Once a collection was filmed, pages wouldn’t be lost, shuffled, or damaged.

So, what is microfilm and how does it work?  Micro-reproductions of document pages are stored on reels of film.  Here’s a picture:

 

Those reels are labeled with the inclusive document number range.  Now — when doing a document pull – instead of locating a box and pulling a document to photocopy, you would locate a reel, thread it on a microfilm reader (see picture above), scroll to the correct frame, and hit a print button.

This approach evolved even further, and we started using microfiche.  The principle was the same, but the film was stored on cards instead of reels:

 

The cards were stored in sleeves labeled with the inclusive document numbers, and the cards were inserted into a microfiche reader.

Let me point out that microfilm and microfiche are still in use today in many libraries around the country.  Most libraries are no longer ‘filming’ new documents (they’re using imaging technology), but many still have historic collections of newspaper and magazine articles stored on microfilm or microfiche.

Tune in next week — we’ll continue discussion of how the litigation world circa 1980 evolved and got to where it is today.

Please let us know if there are eDiscovery topics you’d like to see us cover in eDiscoveryDaily.

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

eDiscovery Daily is Four Years Old!

Believe it or not, it has been four years ago this past Saturday since we launched the eDiscovery Daily blog!

When we launched nearly four years ago on September 20, 2010, our goal was to be a daily resource for eDiscovery news and analysis.  Now, we’ve done so for four years.  We’ve lasted as long as many presidential administrations (and probably worked WAY more days).  We hit over 300,000 visits to the site in May and, earlier this month published our 1,000th post!  And, every post we have published is still available on the site for your reference, which has made eDiscovery Daily into quite a knowledgebase!  We’re quite proud of that.

Comparing our first three months of existence to now, we have seen traffic on our site grow an amazing 474%!  Our subscriber base has more than tripled in the last three years!  And, as always, we have you to thank for that!  Thanks for making the eDiscoveryDaily blog a regular resource for your eDiscovery news and analysis!  We really appreciate the support!

As many of you know by now, we like to take a look back every six months at some of the important stories and topics during that time.  So, here are some posts over the last six months you may have missed.  Enjoy!

After 2,354 Public Comments, One Major Change to the Proposed Federal Rules: After lots of controversy about Rule 37(e), two subcommittees made significant changes to the rule.  It was amended again later.

Definition of “Electronic Storage” Considered in Invasion of Privacy Lawsuit: There goes the Stored Communications Act again.

Daughter’s Facebook Post Voids $80,000 Settlement: Moral of the story – don’t publicly gloat if your dad has a non-disclosure agreement as part of the settlement.

New California Proposed Opinion Requires eDiscovery Competence: Shouldn’t every state have one on these?

How to “Alert” Yourself to Interesting eDiscovery News and Announcements: Here’s where I get some of my topic ideas.

The Mergers and Acquisitions Keep on Coming: Thanks to Rob Robinson and my boss, Brad Jenkins, you’ll be able to tell the players with or without a scorecard.

Surprisingly Few States Have an Ethics Opinion Regarding Lawyer Cloud Usage: Go figure.

Everything You Wanted to Know about Forms of Production, Don’t Be Afraid to Ask: Leave it to Craig Ball to provide an extremely useful guide.

The Pitfalls of Self-Culling and Image Files: Why having custodians do their own self-collection and culling may be a bad idea.

Want to Craft Better Searches? Use a Dictionary: Without it, you can retrieve too many non-responsive documents or, even worse, miss some important ones.

Are eDiscovery Vendor Fees “Unconscionable”?: This is why it pays to compare rates.

Failure to Preserve Cloud-Based Data Results in Severe Sanction for Defendant: You are still responsible for your Salesforce.com database, even if you don’t store it.

Production from a Provider’s Point of View:  What does an eDiscovery provider need to know when producing your data?  Get answers here and here.

It’s Friday at 5 and I Need Data Processed to Review this Weekend: It might be funnier if it didn’t actually happen sometimes.

When Reviewing and Producing Documents, Don’t Forget the “Mother and Child Reunion”: It’s easy to leave out “family” members of responsive files if you’re not careful.

Unfortunately, we also lost two amazing eDiscovery pioneers in the past few months: Richard G. Braman and Browning Marean.

This is just a sampling of topics that we’ve covered.  Hope you enjoyed them!

For the next two weeks (other than Jane’s Thursday posts), we will be re-publishing a few of our popular posts from the past as I will be on my honeymoon!  While blog editors don’t need as much vacation as US presidents do, we still need a break every once in a while.  🙂

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