Close
Enter your
text here

Electronic Discovery

A New Partnership to Span Data and Legal Discovery: eDiscovery Trends

 

We usually preface any mention of our parent company CloudNine with a “shameless plug warning” note.  So, consider yourself warned.  However, our latest announcement – an exciting new partnership – bears mention here in this blog.  Oh, and there’s a webinar you should check out too.  :o)

Today, CloudNine is announcing a partnership with Heureka Software, a preeminent provider of technology that gathers and analyzes unstructured data. Our partnership will provide legal, business, and information technology professionals an integrated solution that combines data discovery and legal discovery to harvest data insight to provide actionable legal intelligence.

Remember last week when we discussed a framework for discovery automation that includes data discovery and legal discovery?  Our partnership with Heureka embraces that framework.

Our partnership provides users with Simplified Discovery Automation that gives information, business, and legal professionals an integrated solution that automates eight core tasks that help organizations translate data discovery into insight, and insight into legal intelligence.  Combined, the Heureka Intelligence Platform and the CloudNine eDiscovery Platform provide customers with a complete capability to discover data from the point of creation to defensible disposition.

Here is a link to our press release with more information.

Also, Heureka Founder & Chairman of the Board Ron Copfer and I will be presenting an ACEDS webinar titled Simplified eDiscovery Automation: From Evolution to Revolution next Thursday, November 3rd at 1pm ET.

Our webinar presentation will provide an overview of the evolution of electronic discovery technologies and share ways that you can consider and compare technology offerings from the large ecosystem of providers supporting litigation, investigations, and audits. It will also include an overview of the attributes of fourth generation eDiscovery automation technology as well as a short demonstration of two of those offerings: the Heureka and CloudNine platforms (and we’ll show you how to get a free trial during the presentation!).

Hope to see you there! (Recorded Version Available for On Demand Review)

So, what do you think?  Do you think of discovery as just related to litigation?  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.

CloudNine and Heureka Partner to Provide Legal Intelligence through Data and Legal Discovery Technologies

Integrated Offering Provides Data Discovery and Legal Discovery Capability throughout Information and Litigation Lifecycles

Houston, Texas (PRWEB) October 25, 2016

CloudNine, the eDiscovery Company (cloudnine.com) which provides eDiscovery automation software and professional services for litigation, investigations, and audits, today announced a partnership with Heureka Software, a preeminent provider of technology that gathers and analyzes unstructured data. The partnership will provide legal, business, and information technology professionals an integrated solution that combines data discovery and legal discovery to harvest data insight to provide actionable legal intelligence.

“Heureka’s technology helps organizations gain clarity on their data by allowing them to search and analyze unstructured data without moving a single file,” shared Brad Jenkins, CEO of CloudNine. “This capability, when coupled with CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software, allows organizations to gain insight on data from the point of creation and then to seamlessly conduct legal discovery with a full-featured eDiscovery platform once data is identified for preservation and collection. This true end-to-end solution spans both the information lifecycle and litigation lifecycle of data, speeding and simplifying the tasks of data and legal discovery.”

“One of the biggest challenges organizations face today is understanding the data they have and extracting insight and intelligence from that data,” said Nate Latessa, CRO of Heureka Software. “The combining of our endpoint approach to indexing and identifying data with CloudNine’s ability to take data, normalize it, and make it ready for evaluation provides users with a seamless solution that can be used to help organizations understand risks, identify opportunities, and reduce exposure throughout the information lifecycle.”

The CloudNine/Heureka partnership provides organizations an integrated and robust technology solution for assessing and reviewing data.

The benefit of this combined solution to organizations is that it helps answer questions like:

  • Where do I start if I want to understand my data? (Data Discovery)
  • How do I start if I need to review my data? (Legal Discovery)
  • How do I automate important discovery tasks to maximize effectiveness and efficiency? (Simplified Discovery Automation)

The partnership provides users with Simplified Discovery Automation that gives information, business, and legal professionals an integrated solution that automates eight core tasks that help organizations translate data discovery into insight, and insight into legal intelligence.

Divided into categories of Data Discovery (Insight) and Legal Discovery (Intelligence) these eight tasks include:

Data Discovery (Insight)

  • Interrogation of Data
  • Indexing of Data
  • Preservation of Data
  • Collection of Data

Legal Discovery (Intelligence)

  • Ingestion of Data
  • Processing of Data
  • Review of Data
  • Production of Data

These tasks are accomplished through the process integration of the Heureka Intelligence Platform and the CloudNine eDiscovery Platform. Combined, these offerings provide customers with a complete capability to discover data from the point of creation to defensible disposition. Information on the offering including offering capabilities, implementation requirements, security attributes, and subscription pricing along with use case discussions and demonstrations can be requested directly from CloudNine.

CloudNine and Heureka executives Doug Austin and Ron Copfer will be presenting an ACEDS webinar entitled “Simplified eDiscovery Automation: From Evolution to Revolution” on Thursday, November 3rd at 1pm EST. The presentation will include a demonstration of the complete CloudNine/Heureka offering. Click here for more information.

About CloudNine, The eDiscovery Company

Founded in 2002 and based in Houston, Texas, CloudNine is a legal intelligence technology company with deep expertise in the analysis, processing, and review of electronically stored information (ESI). Currently used by more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms as well as in many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine has been highlighted in reports and surveys by Gartner, 451 Research, Blue Hill Research, and Corporate Counsel Magazine. CloudNine also publishes the eDiscovery Daily Blog, a trusted source of information for the legal industry. A leader in eDiscovery automation, you can learn more about CloudNine at 713.462.3885, info@cloudnine.com, or at cloudnine.com.

About Heureka Software

The Heureka Intelligence Platform (HIP) provides a unified framework that enables organizations to identify information and gather intelligence from any of their digital endpoints on a global scale, in real time. HIP allows you to discover and analyze data in-place for strategic, surgical incident and event response. Heureka Software is based in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more about Heureka Software at heurekasoftware.com.

For more information contact:

Rob Robinson, CMO, CloudNine
PR@cloudnine.com
512.934.7531

Christy Burke, President, Burke & Company
cburke@burke-company.com
917.623.5096

CloudsNine_400x400_Transparent

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

Searching Only File Names is Not the “Safe Way” to Avoid Sanctions: eDiscovery Case Law

See what I did there?… :o)

In Rodman v. Safeway, No. 11-cv-03003-JST (N.D. Cal., Oct. 6, 2016), California District Judge Jon S. Tigar ordered the defendant to pay plaintiff’s Class Counsel $688,646 as a discovery sanction under Rule 26(g), ruling that “failure to search within the contents of the legacy drive constituted an unreasonable inquiry”, but denied without prejudice the plaintiff’s request for a negative jury instruction.

Case Background

In this certified class action for breach of contract, the Court previously granted the plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment that the defendant breached its contract with class members who registered to shop online after 2006 “by charging higher prices for groceries on its online Safeway.com delivery service than it charged in the stores where the groceries were selected.” After the Court denied the plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment regarding pre-2006 liability, only one issue remained to be tried: whether class members who registered for the delivery service prior to 2006 had agreed to the same contract as class members who registered after 2006.

Trial was scheduled to begin on October 6, 2015. Approximately seven days before that date, the defendant produced ten highly relevant documents related to its pre-2006 terms and conditions. The documents were found on a “legacy” computer drive by the defendant’s Director of Marketing, Steve Guthrie, who was reviewing that drive in anticipation for trial. Apparently, Guthrie’s initial search of the legacy drive did not involve a search within the contents of the files, but rather merely searched for file names within the legacy drive. Guthrie did not find the ten documents-in-question until approximately ten days before trial – over five months after fact discovery closed on April 24, 2015. Ultimately, the parties stipulated that the Court’s prior summary judgment orders were equally applicable to Class members who registered before January 1, 2006 and in November 2015, the Court issued a Judgment in favor of the certified class in the amount of $30,979,262 in damages and $10,905,505 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $41,884,767. The defendant appealed.

On April 6, 2016, Plaintiff filed a motion for discovery sanctions under Rule 26(g) based primarily on the defendant’s “false and inaccurate statements” in response to interrogatories and document requests “concerning the non-existences of documents reflecting historic copies of” the defendant’s pre-2006 terms and conditions. The Court held a hearing on the motion on August 25, 2016.

Judge’s Ruling

Judge Tigar disagreed with the defendant that its inquiry was unreasonable, stating “Although there is no indication of bad faith in Safeway’s inability to find the ten responsive documents during fact discovery, the Court concludes that Safeway’s initial search of the legacy drive was unreasonable”, giving three reasons that the inquiry was unreasonable:

  1. There was “no indication that Safeway’s counsel guided or monitored Mr. Guthrie’s search of the legacy drive in any significant way”;
  2. There was no evidence that Guthrie had any experience searching large repositories; and
  3. The evidence indicated that the search was objectively unreasonable.

Ultimately, Judge Tigar concluded that the defendant’s failure to search within the contents of the legacy drive constituted an unreasonable inquiry and that the defendant offered no substantial justification for its violation of Rule 26(g). The plaintiff requested attorneys’ fees totaling over $1 million, but Judge Tigar reduced that request by one-third, resulting in a fee award of $688,646. Judge Tigar also denied without prejudice the plaintiff’s request for a negative jury instruction, but indicated that the plaintiff may renew the request for a negative jury instruction should the Ninth Circuit remand this case for trial.

So, what do you think? Should the lack of finding of bad faith have resulted in a different outcome? 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.

A Half Salary Guide is a Whole Salary Guide: eDiscovery Trends

When it’s from Robert Half.

Robert Half’s 2017 Legal Salary Guide (downloadable from here) once again features salary ranges for more than 100 positions in the legal field and provides some other interesting statistics, as well. Here are a few highlights.

  • Incentive for Retention: In a survey of 200 lawyers among the largest law firms and corporations in the US, when asked which of the following provides the best incentive for legal professionals to remain with a law firm or company (aside from compensation or bonus), 34 percent of respondents said “Challenging work or variety of assignments”, 26 percent said “Flexible work arrangements” and 20 percent said “Professional development opportunities”. “Good corporate culture/work atmosphere” was a distant fourth at 6 percent.
  • Practice Areas with Greatest Job Opportunities: When asked which of the following practice areas will offer the greatest number of job opportunities at your law firm or company in the next two years, 36 percent of the same respondent group said Litigation, followed by General business/commercial law at 25 percent. No other group had more than 8 percent. Interestingly enough, the same question posed to 150 lawyers among the largest law firms and companies in Canada resulted in a flip-flop of those two practice areas with 36 percent choosing General business/corporate law and 31 percent choosing Litigation. Maybe it’s because Americans are more litigious?
  • Litigation Support/eDiscovery Salaries: Starting salaries for litigation support/eDiscovery directors and managers are expected to increase from 7.8 to 8.9 percent annually from 2016! The top end of the salary range for litigation support/eDiscovery directors with 10+ years of experience is $141,500. Document coders also see an increase – 4.6 percent over 2016.

The guide also provides salary expectations for lawyers, paralegals, office managers, legal secretaries, legal specialists and contract and compliance administration positions for both law firms and corporate legal. Once again, they’re all up (big surprise!).

The survey guide also provides an adjustment for various US cities across the country (obviously, salaries are much higher in New York City (140.5 percent of the reported numbers for the different positions) than in El Paso, TX (72 percent). For example, the top end of the salary range for litigation support/eDiscovery directors with 10+ years of experience in Houston (107 percent for my hometown) is actually $151,405 (are you reading this, boss?). So, you can adjust the numbers based on local variances.

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

Once again, it’s a FREE 36 page PDF guide which can be downloaded here. Check it out. Maybe you need a raise?

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.

A Framework for Discovery Automation: eDiscovery Trends

Automation has been a recurring theme this year on this blog. At the beginning of the year, I declared that the age of eDiscovery automation is upon us. I’ve also spoken about discovery automation on numerous occasions, including here, here, here, here and here (just two days ago!). Now, a recent post on the Complex Discovery blog takes an interesting look at a framework for discovery automation.

The post A Concise Framework for Discovery Automation notes that “[o]ne of the biggest challenges facing information, business, and legal professionals is the ability to cohesively consider the elements of data discovery and legal discovery within a technology framework that is comprehensive enough to address critical discovery tasks throughout information and legal lifecycles yet concise enough to be realistically approached from an automation perspective.” It illustrates how daunting the challenge can be by looking at the results of the Information Governance Initiative’s Annual Survey for 2015-16 to see how many types of discovery dependent products are considered as part of the information governance technology ecosystem – 22 technologies in all, from records and information management to compliance to data science.

One of the most interesting things about the post is the differentiation between Legal Discovery (a.k.a. Electronic Discovery, which is defined as “the process of identifying, preserving, collecting, processing, searching, reviewing and producing electronically stored information that may be relevant to a civil, criminal, or regulatory matter”) and Data Discovery (which is defined as “the exploration of patterns and trends within unstructured data with the objective of uncovering insight and driving action”). As the diagram above illustrates, there are (not just one, but) two types of discovery, each with its own set of processes and tasks.

I’ve been increasingly interested in efforts to manage information prior to commencement of the legal process and the term “Data Discovery” seems very appropriate to reference those activities.

Another interesting thought about the framework is the idea of a fifth generation of eDiscovery offerings. Just when you got used to four generations, there’s a fifth! As Rob notes, the “characteristics of a fifth generation eDiscovery offering would be the adaptation of current data discovery offerings for use with offerings that were designed for eDiscovery, designed for eDiscovery task integration, and designed for eDiscovery task automation”.

Great article, and it saves me having to do a lot of writing on a travel day back from DC and The Masters Conference (with a bad cold, to boot). Thanks, Rob!

So, what do you think? Do you think of discovery as just related to litigation? As always, 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.

Masters Conference DC, Day Two: eDiscovery Trends

As we indicated yesterday and Monday, The Masters Conference has been going on in Washington DC! Today’s the last day! Let’s take a look at today’s events!

The conference is being held at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036. Registration begins at 7:30am again today, with sessions starting at 8:30am.

Here is the list of today’s sessions:

8:30am – 9:30am:

Multiple Strengths, One Goal: Building Rock Star Diverse Teams

Moderator: Zelda Owens, CSSGB, Panelists: Aaron Crews, Debbie Reynolds, Mary Ellen Connerty, Monica Bay

Moving from Models to Standards: Next Steps in Maturing the Industry

Moderator: Eric P. Mandel, Panelists: Eli Nelson, Kevin Clark, Sunil Ohri, Tara Emory

9:45am – 10:45am:

The Five Forces Impacting Corporate eDiscovery: Five forces on how to save corporations money, locate your documents quicker, make fewer mistakes and make you look like a star. This panel discusses practical ways to leverage technology so you can do more of what you do best as a lawyer. Learn to trust the technology to make you more efficient and more profitable.

Moderator: Adam Kuhn, Panelists: Aaron Crews, Ethan Ackerman, Michael E. Lackey, Neguiel Hicks

FRCP: Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: The Early Returns: This presentation will review the proposed changes to the FRCP, including e-Discovery conduct, insight into how federal judges are already thinking about the changes, and how to adjust your current and future litigation strategies and e-Discovery processes in light of the proposed amendments. The legal community will definitely be altered in the coming years as a direct result of the FRCP alterations. Get the jump on any surprises with this informative and interesting presentation.

Moderator: Ralph Colby Losey, Panelists: Cheryl A. Feeley, David Kinzer, Jennifer A. Brennan

11:00am – 12:00pm:

Revealing the New Privacy World of the EU/US Privacy Shield and the GDPR

Moderator: Evelyn Minnick, Panelists: James Daley, Nikos Leoutsarakos, Paul A. Meyer.

“Seeing is believing” – How Video is Changing the Way We Win Cases

Moderator: Ian Campbell, Panelists: Chad Papenfuss, Deena Coffman, Robert DeBord, Susan Taylor.

12:15pm to 1:35pm:

Explore today’s best practices for investigations, ranging from internal investigations to highly complex regulatory investigations

Moderator: Krista Fuller, Panelists: Aaron Crews, Antonia Rahneva, John Rosenthal, Thomas Matzen.

1:45pm – 2:45pm:

Latest Cybersecurity Trends in Government

Moderator: James Bourie, Panelists: Allison Bender, Donald Codling, Justin Zeefe.

Faster, Bigger, Better eDiscovery: Leveraging Technology to its Fullest: As the volume of information grows, corporations are pushing outside counsel to find cheaper and more efficient ways to handle eDiscovery. However, today’s litigation is too often forged without a master plan – plagued by errors, delays and unnecessary expense. What’s needed is a more streamlined, systematic approach to curb the drain on time and resources that eDiscovery has become. In this session, industry experts will address how to best leverage a variety of technologies to help drive down client costs and increase productivity.

Topics include:

  • TAR and leveraging analytics
  • Unique file redactions
  • The future of technology in eDiscovery

Moderator: Bruce Markowitz, Panelists: Antigone Peyton, Oral Pottinger, Paul A. Meyer, Robert D. Keeling.

3:00pm – 4:00pm:

Cybersecurity: and in House perspective: Join two top in-house lawyers. To hear about how they address top cybersecurity issues internally and externally.

Moderator: Christina Ayiotis, Panelists: Hilary Hageman, Michelle Beistle.

Streamline eDiscovery Workflows that Deming would Love

Moderator: Tammy Doss, Panelists: Allison Stanton, Nick Carter, Shea Leitch

4:15pm – 5:15pm:

JUDGES PANEL

Panelist: Hon. Ronald J. Hedges.

There will also be a happy hour at 6pm “focused on enjoying and reflecting on the next 10 years”.

So, what do you think? Did you attend The Masters Conference this week? If so, what did you think? And, as always, 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.

Masters Conference DC, Day One: eDiscovery Trends

As we indicated yesterday, The Masters Conference is going on today and tomorrow in Washington DC!  Let’s take a look at today’s events!

The conference is being held at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036.  Registration begins at 7:30am on Tuesday, with sessions starting at 8:45am.  Sessions run all day Tuesday and Wednesday.

Here is the list of today’s sessions:

8:30am – 10:45am:

Intro to becoming a Certified eDiscovery Specialist: Mary Mack and Helen Bergman Moure will be presenting LIVE Part One of The CEDS Online Exam Prep Seminar which is the ultimate tool to guide you through all the steps of the e-discovery process and prepare you for the CEDS Certification exam.

Part One Seminar topics include:

  • Information Management and Litigation Readiness
  • Project Planning
  • Litigation Hold Implementation

Participants are eligible for a substantially discounted price on the balance of the Certified eDiscovery Specialist training package.

11:00am – 12:00pm:

Future of eDiscovery: Riding the Analytics Revolution: Big Data plays a big role in litigation for many law firms and organizations. Having the ability to cull down your data earlier in the litigation cycle enables your firm or organization to work more efficiently and competitively. Technology is increasingly playing a key role in helping firms and organizations effectively identify and manage the data most important to your litigation. This session will discuss the emerging trends around analytics in eDiscovery, and how your firm or organization can implement best practices to ensure the highest quality results at a lower cost than traditional document reviews.

Moderator: Tom O’Connor, Panelists: Jeannine M. Kenney, Sunil Ohri, Tracy D. Drynan.

The Internet of Things (IoT) Creates a Thousand Points of (Evidentiary) Light. Can You See It?: The Web 3.0 has been dubbed the “Internet of Things”. This is an ecosystem of interconnected sensory devices that perform coordinated preprogramed – and even learned – tasks without the need for continuous human input. Combined with existing data sources (ie. e-mail, social media, smart phones, enterprise applications, and system logs), this represents an extremely rich source of data.

Within that data lies evidence. Valuable evidence.

Also within that data lies duty, obligation, risk, and opportunity for litigators. Join us for a discussion about the internet of Things, and all things structured, and how it fits (or doesn’t fit) within the EDRM.

Moderator: Charlie Platt, Panelists: Don Meyers, Mason Pan, Nick Kaywork.

12:00pm to 1:30pm:

10 Years Back, 10 Years Forward: The Evolution of Automation in eDiscovery: This unique session highlights the progress of eDiscovery technologies during the last decade and looks forward through the lens of innovation to the next ten years data discovery. This information-packed session includes some of the world’s foremost authorities on eDiscovery who will be sharing their thoughts, considerations, and recommended best practices for the use of Technology-Assisted Review. The session format will allow each expert an opportunity to present followed by a short dialogue. Additionally, the conclusion of this expanded lunchtime session will recognize at a high-level the aggregate recommendations of this expert panel.

Moderator: Mary Mack, Panelists: Bill Dimm, Bill Speros, David Horrigan, Doug Austin, George Socha.

1:45pm – 2:45pm:

Cybersecurity, eDiscovery, and Your Outside Counsel: What you don’t know CAN hurt you: As technology adoption gains strength across the legal industry, and both corporate counsel and law firms expand their use of outsourced vendors for legal support services such as eDiscovery, understanding data privacy and information security risks has become a critical element of vendor and law firm management for every company.

With the number of threats, hacks, and breaches at an all-time high, what you don’t know about your vendors’ cybersecurity practices can hurt you. This session will explore:

  • Common cybersecurity challenges in today’s legal and eDiscovery environment
  • Hidden issues and “land minds” that can increase your data security risks
  • Managing security with offshore vendors: Risky proposition or smart solution?
  • Beyond ISO 27001 basics: Advanced methods for protecting client data

Plus, attendees will receive a valuable take away tool, Evaluating Cybersecurity Practices: 10 Questions to Ask Outside Counsel and eDiscovery Vendors.

Moderator: Christian Dodd, Panelists: Antonella Commiato, David M. Hickey, Ken Smiley.

Benefits and Challenges in Creating an Information Governance (IG) Program: Information governance is a comparatively new concept and is evolving fast. Gartner defines information governance as the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archival and deletion of information. It includes the processes, roles, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals. In this panel discussion we will discuss building and enhancing your information governance program. Attendees will learn about how this impacts downstream and what it means for you the e-Discovery professional.

Moderator: Dan Elam, Panelists: Carlos A. Leon, Kenya Parrish-Dixon, Esq., CEDS, Leigh Isaacs.

3:00pm – 4:00pm:

Analytics in our Community covering the pros and cons of the latest trends

Moderator: Richard Clark, Panelists: Anthony (AJ) Dobson, Ethan Ackerman, Paul Gettmann.

Spanning the gap: Discovery Counsel and Project Management

Moderator: Alexander Lewis, Panelists: Antigone Peyton, Bryant Gauthier, Ellen Pyle

 

4:15pm – 5:15pm:

Cybersecurity Bridging the GAP between Cybersecurity and The Legal Community

Moderator: Kevin Clark, Panelists: Leigh Isaacs, Scott Bilbrey, Susan Taylor.

Legal Project Management

Moderator: Bruce Malter, CEDS, Panelists: Ian D. McCauley, Michael Quartararo, Scott Bilbrey

CloudNine will be co-sponsoring the Happy Hour with ACEDS at 5:30pm, followed by the 10th Anniversary Masters Awards Gala dinner, which is benefiting the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Click here to register for the conference.  It’s not too late!

So, what do you think?  Are you going to The Masters Conference this week?  If so, come join us!  And, as always, 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.

This Week is The Time to “Master” Your Knowledge of eDiscovery In Our Nation’s Capital!: eDiscovery Trends

This week is the week!  If you’re in the Washington DC area tomorrow and Wednesday, join us at The Masters Conference!

The Masters Conference brings together leading experts and professionals from law firms, corporations and the bench to develop strategies, practices and resources for managing the information life cycle.  This one will be unique as The Masters Conference will be celebrating its 10th anniversary!  Like the other events, the Washington DC Conference will cover a wide range of topics from CEDS certification prep by ACEDS to the impact of social media and the Internet of Things (IoT) on eDiscovery risks and costs to case and project management and the meaning of cybersecurity to the legal community.

Unlike the other events, the DC event is a two-day event, held this Tuesday and Wednesday at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036.  Registration begins at 7:30am on Tuesday, with sessions starting at 8:45am.  Sessions run all day Tuesday and Wednesday.

CloudNine will again be sponsoring a session, this time the session is titled 10 Years Forward, 10 Years Back: Automation in eDiscovery, which is the lunch panel at noon on Tuesday.  I am excited to be participating again with a tremendous panel: George Socha – Managing Director, BDO Consulting and Co-Founder of EDRM, David Horrigan – E-Discovery Counsel and Legal Content Director, kCura, Bill Dimm – CEO, Hot Neuron and Bill Speros – Evidence Consulting Attorney, Speros & Associates, LLC.  Mary Mack, Executive Director of ACEDS will be moderator of the session.

The unique session highlights the progress of eDiscovery technologies during the last decade and looks forward through the lens of innovation to the next ten years data discovery, including some of the world’s foremost authorities on eDiscovery who will be sharing their thoughts, considerations, and recommended best practices for the use of Technology-Assisted Review. The session format will allow each expert an opportunity to present followed by a short dialogue. Additionally, the conclusion of this expanded lunchtime session will recognize at a high-level the aggregate recommendations of this expert panel.

In addition, CloudNine will also be co-sponsoring the Tuesday Happy Hour with ACEDS.  And, eDiscovery Daily will be covering the two days of the event, with a list of the sessions to be covered each day!

Click here to register for the conference.  Today is the last day to get the $165 rate for two full days of sessions; otherwise it’s $565(!).  There is also vendor pricing for attendance and having a booth at the conference.

So, what do you think?  Are you going to be in Washington DC this Tuesday and Wednesday?  If so, come join us!  And, as always, 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.

How to Avoid Getting “Burned” by Redactions: eDiscovery Best Practices

Having addressed this issue with a client recently, it seems appropriate to revisit this topic…

On the surface, it may seem easy enough to redact a document during eDiscovery review to obscure confidential or privileged information.  All you need to do is draw a black box over the affected text, right?  Not necessarily.  There’s a lot more to consider in order to ensure that you don’t inadvertently produce information that was intended to be redacted.  Here are a few things to consider to avoid getting “burned by redaction failures.

Failure to “Burn” the Redaction into the Image

If the redaction isn’t “burned” into the image so that it cannot be removed, the redacted data can still be viewed.  Especially when your images are Adobe Acrobat PDF files, the most common mistake is to redact by obscuring the text by drawing a black box over the text or images you want redacted.  A simple “cut and paste” can remove the black box, revealing the redacted text.  Acrobat provides a redaction tool (for those editing the PDF there) to properly apply a redaction – it’s best to save the file to a new name after the redaction has been applied.

If you’re using a review application to manage the review, the application should ensure a “burned in” redaction for anything exported or printed, regardless of whether it lets you look at the redacted data within the application itself.  For example, CloudNine provides a tool to enable the reviewer to draw a gray box over the text to be redacted so that text can still be viewed within the application.  However, if the file is exported or printed, that box gets “burned” in as a black box to completely obscure the redacted text.

Failing to Update Corresponding Text Files to Remove Redacted Text

Even if the image is handled properly, you can still disclose redacted text if you don’t make sure that the corresponding text file, whether extracted from the native file or generated via Optical Character Recognition (OCR), isn’t updated to remove the redacted text.  If you don’t update the corresponding text files, you’re allowing redacted text to slip through the production “back door”.  This happens more often than you might think.

Producing Un-Redacted Native Files

If you’re producing native files, you’ve hopefully discussed with opposing counsel how to handle native files that require redaction.  Typically, the approach is to convert those to an image format and redact the image.  Sometimes the parties agree to “redact” the native files themselves and produce those.  If so, as is the case with Adobe PDF files, there’s a right way and wrong way to redact native files.  Changing the text to white or the background to match the text color is not the same as redacting the text.  All you have to do is to revert back to the original formatting or simply highlight the affected area to see the redacted text.  Instead, you’ll want to agree on a procedure where the text is deleted or replaced with an equal amount of meaningless content (e.g., all “X”s) to preserve text flow and pagination (make sure track changes is off before redacting).  You may even want to agree to copy the entire content of a redacted document to a new file (to remove residual document composition information that might remain).

Failing to Redact Metadata

You may redact content on the document that you produce separately as metadata, via a load or data file.  Failing to check the produced metadata for redacted documents could enable redacted data to slip through.  So, don’t forget to check and remove any sensitive data here, as well.

Quality Control (QC) Check before Producing

Generally, when producing documents with redactions, you should have a checklist that ensures that image redactions are “burned” in, that redacted native files (if produced natively) are properly redacted, and that corresponding text files and metadata have been checked to ensure that redacted data has been removed from those as well.  Otherwise, you could be “burned” by inadvertent production of redacted materials.

P.S., to see what I “redacted” up above, highlight it with your cursor.  :o)

So, what do you think?  How do you handle redactions within your productions?  Do you have a process to QC check redactions before producing?  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.

Time for the Fall eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey!: eDiscovery Trends

We’ve covered three rounds of the quarterly eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey created by Rob Robinson and conducted on his terrific Complex Discovery site (previous results are here, here and here).  Last time, sponsorship from ACEDS and promotion from EDRM, strong>LTPI, Masters Conference, and Women in eDiscovery helped increase the number of respondents dramatically (more than the first two surveys combined).  Now, it’s time for the Fall 2016 Survey to complete the cycle!

As before, the eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey is a non-scientific survey designed to provide insight into the business confidence level of individuals working in the eDiscovery ecosystem. The term ‘business’ represents the economic factors that impact the creation, delivery, and consumption of eDiscovery products and services.

Also as before, the survey asks questions related to how you rate general business conditions for eDiscovery in your segment of the eDiscovery market, both current and six months from now, a general sense of where you think revenue and profits will be for your segment of the market in six months and which issue do you think will most impact the business of eDiscovery over the next six months, among other questions.  It’s a simple nine question survey that literally takes about a minute to complete.  Who hasn’t got a minute to provide useful information?

Individual answers are kept confidential, with the aggregate results to be published on the ACEDS website (News & Press), on the Complex Discovery blog, and on selected ACEDS Affiliate websites and blogs (we’re one of those and we’ll cover the results as we have for the first three surveys) upon completion of the response period, which started on Tuesday and goes through Wednesday, November 30 (extra time this time for even more responses!).

Last quarter, ACEDS even conducted a webinar led by ACEDS Executive Director Mary Mack and sponsored by CloudNine, with expert commentary from panelists George Socha, Co-Founder of EDRM and Managing Director of Thought Leadership at BDO, Eric P. Mandel, Managing Member at Indicium Law PLC and Member of the Board for LTPI, Zach Warren, Editor in Chief of Legaltech News and me(!).

The more respondents there are, the more useful the results will be!  What more do you need?  Click here to take the survey yourself.  Let’s go for a new record!

So, what do you think?  Are you confident in the state of business within the eDiscovery industry?  Share your thoughts in the survey and, as always, please share any comments you might have with us or let us know 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.