Our Insights on eDiscovery

After yesterday’s story regarding SCOTUS taking up the Microsoft Ireland case, I’m not trying to make this “bad news week” for Microsoft, but with GDPR looming next year, this seemed like a good story to cover. According to a report, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has declared that Windows 10 breaches the data protection law in the Netherlands over the way it processes personal information.

A few months ago, we reported that the Department of Justice had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that landmark appeals court decision handed down last summer in favor of Microsoft Corp. that put their company data stored overseas mostly out of reach of U.S. law enforcement. Yesterday, SCOTUS, at the urging of a whopping thirty-three states, agreed to take the case.

Budgetary constraints are a common hurdle for law firms and legal departments seeking to address the legal, technological, and business elements of eDiscovery. This economic constraint is compounded by the lack of consistency, predictability, and transparency in the pricing of many software offerings, regardless of whether they are on-premise or off-premise, or based on emerging or mature technologies.

When consumers are considering their eDiscovery technology choices, there are more factors to consider today than ever. In addition to considering the functionality of the software application, you now also have to consider whether to buy or “rent” the application, how the software is delivered to you and whether it’s required to be within your firewall or can be an off-premises solution. Thanks to ACEDS, you can learn today how to sort out those factors and make an educated solution selection.

The ability of eDiscovery software to deal with data complexity such as being able to ingest and process an increasing number of data formats is one of the most important challenges faced by eDiscovery professionals today. In fact, according to the Summer 2017 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey, almost 22% of 101 eDiscovery ecosystem respondents highlighted that the challenge of increasing types of data would have the biggest impact on their business during the next six months.

If you’re going to be in the Washington DC area this Thursday and/or Friday, October 12th and 13th, join me and other legal technology experts and professionals at The Master’s Conference DC event. It’s a day and a half of educational sessions covering a wide range of topics!