Our Insights on eDiscovery

So where does this leave us? The idea behind TAR – that technology can help improve the eDiscovery process – is a valuable goal. But figuring out what pieces of technology to apply at what point in the workflow is not so easy, especially when the experts disagree as to the best methodology.

Before you think about using more advanced technology, here are some other tools to consider using first, some operational cautions to keep in mind and when you may not want to use TAR.

The use of Technology Assisted Review (TAR) has been accepted in the courts for several years, but most lawyers still don’t use it and many still don’t know what it is or how it works. Why not? We will discuss this and other questions in a webcast next week.

At the Houston ACEDS luncheon/TAR panel last week, we asked a few questions of the audience to gauge their understanding and experience with Technology Assisted Review (TAR). Some of the questions (like “have you used TAR on a case?”) were obvious questions to ask. Others might have not been so obvious.

TAR began as a process and in the early stage of the discussion, it was common to refer to various TAR tools under the heading “analytics”. But before long, the definition began to erode and TAR started to become synonymous with Predictive Coding.

Over the past year I have asked this question several different ways in blogs and webinars about technology assisted review (TAR). Why is TAR like ice cream? Think Baskin Robbins? Why is TAR like golf? Think an almost incomprehensible set of rules and explanations. Why is TAR like baseball, basketball or football? Think never ending arguments about the best team ever. And now my latest analogy. Why is TAR like a bag of M&M’s?