Our Insights on eDiscovery

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently ordered all of its enforcement staff attorneys to cease the destruction of documents from investigative files after criticism that the SEC wrongfully destroyed thousands of documents associated with high profile enforcement matters, including investigations into Wall Street banks. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the SEC’s inspector general are currently examining whether the organization’s document destruction policy requires revision. This cease order comes in the wake of information provided by a SEC whistleblower, indicating that the SEC wrongfully destroyed thousands of documents from preliminary investigations.

Successful marketing efforts have two components – ‘big picture’ marketing aimed at spreading the word about what you offer, and one-on-one marketing to individual attorneys and litigation teams. In the last several posts in this series, we covered ‘big-picture’ marketing. Now let’s move on to techniques and mechanisms for one-on-one marketing. Here are some suggestions aimed at doing one-on-one marketing that work.

Last week, we covered several ‘big-picture’ marketing mechanisms and techniques that work well in a law firm. There are just a few more I want to mention.

Yesterday, we considered a recent article about the use of predictive coding in litigation by Judge Andrew Peck, United States magistrate judge for the Southern District of New York. The piece has prompted a lot of discussion in the profession. While most of the analysis centered on how much lawyers can rely on predictive coding technology in litigation, there were some deeper musings as well.

There are a handful of judges whose pronouncements on anything eDiscovery-related are bound to get legal technologists talking. Judge Andrew Peck, United States magistrate judge for the Southern District of New York is one of them. His recent article, Search, Forward, published in Law Technology News, is one of the few judicial pronouncements on the use of predictive coding and has sparked a lively debate.

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project, created to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market, is now in its seventh year of operation. This week, the EDRM Mid-Year meeting has taken place in St. Paul, MN (giving some of us a chance to break out our winter clothes early!). Twice a year, in May and October, eDiscovery professionals who are EDRM members meet to continue the process of working together on various standards projects. Here are some highlights from this week’s meeting.

Yesterday, we covered a couple of ‘big-picture’ marketing mechanisms and techniques that work well in a law firm. Here are a few more.