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Electronic Discovery

Once Again, It’s Time to Recognize Your Favorite Law Blog!: eDiscovery Trends

ABA Journal is working on their 10th annual list of the 100 best legal blogs, and, once again, they would like your advice on which blogs you think they should include.  If you have a favorite law blog (or “blawg”, get it?), now is the time to nominate it for recognition in the ABA Journal Annual Blawg 100!

On their Blawg 100 Amici page, you can complete the form to identify yourself, your employer or law school, your city and email address, the URL of the blog you wish to nominate, a link to a recent post from the blog and a brief (up to 500 characters) description as to why you’re a fan of the “blawg”.  You’re also asked whether you know the “blawgger” personally (and admonished to “be honest”) and whether ABA Journal can use your name and comment in their coverage.  You can nominate more than one “blawg”.

As always, ABA Journal notes that they discourage submissions (which they call “amici”) from:

  • Bloggers who nominate their own blogs or nominate blogs to which they have previously contributed posts.
  • Employees of law firms who nominate blogs written by their co-workers.
  • Public relations professionals in the employ of lawyers or law firms who nominate their clients’ blogs.
  • Pairs of bloggers who have clearly entered into a quid pro quo agreement to nominate each other.

Friend-of-the-blawg briefs (i.e., to fill and submit the form) are due by no later than 11:59 p.m. CT on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2015 to include your nomination.

One twist this year is that law blogs in the Blawg 100 Hall of Fame are not eligible for this year’s list.  Wow, there’s a “Blawg Hall of Fame”.  Some of us are just trying to make the All-Star Game, just sayin’… :o)

Anyway, if you have enjoyed reading eDiscovery Daily over the past several years and found our blog to be informative, we would love to be recognized!  Feel free to click on the link here to nominate us!  We appreciate the consideration!

There are other excellent legal technology blogs out there.  Here are a few of our favorites.  Feel free to nominate them too.  :o)

Our hats are off to all of those who provide eDiscovery news and analysis to the industry!  Again, if you would like to nominate any of the blogs (including, of course, eDiscoveryDaily), click here.  Deadline is August 7.

So, what do you think?  Do you have a favorite eDiscovery blog or source of information?  Share it with our readers!  And, 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.

Today’s the Day to “Master” Your Knowledge of eDiscovery in New York City!: eDiscovery Trends

Today’s the day!  If you’re in the New York City area today, join me and other legal technology experts and professionals at The Masters Conference New York City 2016 IoT, Cybersecurity and Social Media Conference for a full day of educational sessions covering a wide range of topics!  It’s not too late to register and attend!

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 year’s NYC event covers a wide range of topics from the impact of social media and the Internet of Things (IoT) on eDiscovery risks and costs to the revolution in eDiscovery analytics to how to handle cross-border data in the wake of the Schrems decision and the new privacy shield.

The event will be held at the historic New Yorker Hotel, 481 8th Ave., New York, NY 10001.  Registration begins at 8am, with sessions starting right after that, at 8:30am.

CloudNine will again be sponsoring the session Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery at 8:30am.  I am excited to again be moderating, this time with Bill Dimm, CEO of Hot Neuron, Bill Speros, Evidence Consulting Attorney with Speros & Associates, LLC and Hon. Ronald J. Hedges, Senior Counsel with Dentons, as panelists.

Our panel discussion will provide an overview of the eDiscovery automation technologies we will really take a hard look at the technology and definition of TAR and the limitations associated with both.  It should be a very informative discussion with a very knowledgeable panel!  Hope you can join us!

Click here to register for the conference.  The cost is only $165 for a full day of sessions.  That’s hard to beat!

The Masters Conference also has an event coming up in Washington DC in October – its 10 year anniversary event!  Click here for more information on that.

So, what do you think?  Are you attending today’s conference?  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.

Accessing Your Former Company’s Data with a Shared Password Could Make You a Hacker: Cybersecurity Trends

Can you spot what’s different about today’s post?  See below…  :o)

According to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, if you leave your company and then use a former co-worker’s credentials to access your former company’s computer systems, you could be a hacker.

In The Wall Street Journal Law Blog (Appeals Court: Using Shared Password to Steal Company Secrets is Hacking, written by Jacob Gershman), the appellate court affirmed the computer-hacking conviction of a former executive (David Nosal) at a recruiting firm accused of using a shared password to steal headhunting leads from the company’s internal network after he left his job to launch a rival business, ruling that he violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Reuters reported that Nosal and two friends, who had also left Korn/Ferry, used an employee’s password in 2005 to access the recruiting firm’s computers and obtain information to help start a new firm.

In a 2-1 decision written by Judge M. Margaret McKeown, the majority held that Mr. Nosal acted “without authorization” in violation of the CFAA when he used login credentials shared by his assistant to gain access to the company’s network after his own credentials had been revoked.  The dissenting judge, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, expressed his concerns over the ruling, stating:

“People frequently share their passwords, notwithstanding the fact that websites and employers have policies prohibiting it. In my view, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act does not make the millions of people who engage in this ubiquitous, useful, and generally harmless conduct into unwitting federal criminals…”

However, Judge McKeown, in her opinion, indicated that the circumstances at issue couldn’t be applied to innocuous scenarios, like “asking a spouse to log in to an email account to print a boarding pass.”  Judge McKeown also noted that, without enforcement, “an employee could willy nilly give out passwords to anyone outside the company – former employees whose access had been revoked, competitors, industrious hackers, or bank robbers who find it less risky and more convenient to access accounts via the Internet rather than through armed robbery.”

The appellate court did rule that the more than $800,000 in restitution (about $600,000 of that in attorney’s fees) that Nosal was ordered to pay his old employer was unreasonable and asked a lower court to recalculate it.

So, what do you think?  Have you ever used a shared password to access a system to which you previously had credentials?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

What’s different about this post?  It doesn’t have the word “eDiscovery” in the title… :o)

New Time!  Just a reminder that I will be moderating a panel at The Masters Conference New York City 2016 IoT, Cybersecurity and Social Media Conference this coming Monday, July 11 (we covered it here) as part of a full day of educational sessions covering a wide range of topics.  CloudNine will be sponsoring that session, titled Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery at 8:30am, not 4:15pm.  The early bird catches the knowledge.  :o)  Click here to register for the conference.

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.

Court Rejects Plaintiff’s Request for Fee Reimbursement in Responding to Motion: eDiscovery Case Law

In Gade v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., No. 14-00048 (D. Vermont, June 6, 2016), Vermont Chief District Judge Christina Reiss denied the plaintiff’s motion for an order requiring the defendant to pay expenses and fees that she incurred in opposing the defendant’s motion to compel production of an Excel spreadsheet from the plaintiff’s expert.

Case Background

In this personal injury case where the plaintiff sued after the defendant denied her uninsured and underinsured motorist benefits claims, the defendant deposed the plaintiff’s biomechanical expert (John Smith).  The defendant asked for the expert to bring his files to the deposition, but did not examine the files before or during the deposition, instead requesting a complete copy of the expert’s file afterward, including his calculations.  In response, the plaintiff produced a copy of the expert’s file, including eight pages of data and calculations in PDF format.

On three different occasions, the defendant requested the expert’s files in Excel format, to see the underlying calculations and inputs on which the expert relied. During a September 2015 telephone conference, the plaintiff advised the defendant that if the expert’s files existed in Excel format, they would be produced; however, the plaintiff failed to do so, even after three additional written requests for those files.  Finally, the plaintiff responded that she would not produce the expert’s files in Excel format because his files, including his “unredacted calculations” and “the applicable formulas” had previously been produced in PDF format, inviting the defendant to cite “some applicable rule or decision that allows a party to compel another party’s expert to produce work-product files in a particular format”.

Ultimately, the defendant filed a motion to compel, which the plaintiff opposed; however, the parties, after sharing additional information, eventually agreed that motion to compel was moot. However, the plaintiff then sought compensation from the defendant for her attorneys’ fees incurred in opposing the motion, alleging that Defendant did not properly meet and confer as required by the rules.

Judge’s Ruling

After noting that the plaintiff “complied with her duty of disclosure and Defendant properly withdrew its motion to compel”, Judge Reiss turned her attention to the question of whether the defendant complied with Local Rule 26, which requires the movant to “confer[] with opposing counsel in a good faith effort to reduce or eliminate the controversy or arrive at a mutually satisfactory resolution.”  Judge Reiss noted that the defendant “made six informal written requests for Mr. Smith’s files in Excel format from July 28, 2015 through October 13, 2015” and “also made an oral request for the information during a September 10, 2015 telephone call, after which Plaintiff initially stated that she would produce Mr. Smith’s files in Excel format, but later declined to do so.”

While admitting that “the better practice would have been for Defendant to make a formal request Mr. Smith’s files and underlying calculations prior to his deposition”, Judge Reiss ruled that “Defense counsel’s repeated attempts to obtain Mr. Smith’s files in Excel format prior to seeking court intervention, in conjunction with its affidavit supporting the motion to compel, satisfy the requirements of Local Rule 26(d)(2).”  As a result, determining that “it would be unreasonable and unfair to require” the defendant to pay fees to respond to a motion to compel that “arguably should have been unnecessary”, Judge Reiss ruled that “an award of sanctions, expenses, and fees is not warranted in this case.”

So, what do you think?  Did the Defendant go far enough to meet and confer on the issue?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

New Time!  Just a reminder that I will be moderating a panel at The Masters Conference New York City 2016 IoT, Cybersecurity and Social Media Conference on Monday, July 11 (we covered it here) as part of a full day of educational sessions covering a wide range of topics.  CloudNine will be sponsoring that session, titled Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery at 8:30am, not 4:15pm.  The early bird catches the knowledge.  :o)  Click here to register for the conference.

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.

According to Gartner, Cloud eDiscovery Solutions Gaining Momentum: eDiscovery Trends

According to a new guide by Gartner designed to help General Counsel and IT leaders at organizations evaluate and select eDiscovery solutions for investigative and legal matters, cloud-based eDiscovery solutions are gaining momentum in the market.

Written by Gartner’s industry analyst Jie Zhang, Market Guide for E-Discovery Solutions (available for purchase here) identifies several key findings, including the observation that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are gaining momentum, interest in Microsoft’s eDiscovery capabilities continues to build and (not surprisingly) the eDiscovery service market continues to see high merger and acquisition activities.  Ease of use and more competitive and straightforward pricing structures are cited as reasons for the emergence of SaaS solutions in the eDiscovery market.

The Table of Contents for the 24 page guide is as follows:

  • Market Definition
    • Technology
    • Services
  • Market Direction
    • Three Types of Solution Providers
    • Pricing
    • Market Adoption and Growth
  • Market Analysis
    • SaaS Solutions Are Gaining Momentum
    • Building Interest in Microsoft’s E-Discovery Capabilities
    • Searching Across Multiple and Hybrid Data Repositories Becomes More Onerous and Leads to Overinvestment
    • Merger and Acquisition Is Second Nature to the E-Discovery Service Market
    • The Application of Machine-Learning Technology in E-Discovery Beyond the U.S. Market
  • Representative Vendors
    • Representative E-Discovery Solution Providers
  • Market Recommendations
  • Gartner Recommended Reading

According to Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery site (link here), the report also highlights 50 total providers in the industry (30 software providers, 20 service providers), including CloudNine (shameless plug warning!).  For software providers, deployment model and key technology capabilities or other noteworthy characteristics are identified, for service providers, the report identifies proprietary and/or third party software offered, as well as services offered.  The report concludes with recommendations for general counsel, chief compliance officers, chief information officers (CIOs) and their teams to consider when choosing and implementing eDiscovery solutions, as well as other Gartner recommended reading reports.

The report provides a current list of available software and service providers, with some useful industry observations and recommendations to help organizations in selecting the right provider for them.

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised by any of Gartner’s industry observations?  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.

Cybersecurity Concerns Serve as Impetus for Law Firm Acquisition: eDiscovery Trends

We all know that data breaches and cybersecurity are more of a concern than ever.  In at least one case, those concerns were part of the decision for two law firms to announce their decision to merge last week.

As covered by Bloomberg Law (L.A. Divorce Lawyer to Join Big Law: Her Cybersecurity Worries and More, written by Casey Sullivan) and other outlets, celebrity divorce attorney Stacy Phillips and her four-lawyer boutique law firm, Phillips Lerner, decided to be acquired by Blank Rome last week and joined the firm last Friday.

Over the years, Phillips has represented Bobby Brown in his divorce from Whitney Houston, Corina Villaraigosa in her divorce from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Darcy LaPier in her child custody battle with Jean Claude Van Damme.

When interviewed by Bloomberg Law, Phillips indicated that cybersecurity concerns were part of the reason for the decision to join Blank Rome.

“I wanted to be part of a larger institution. I made that decision as the world gets far more complicated. I wasn’t sleeping at night because I was worried about cybersecurity”, said Phillips.  “I wanted to practice law and develop business. Running the business isn’t my interest and isn’t my strength.”

Asked about her specific concerns about cybersecurity, Phillips responded: “Divorce is a contentious process and people do bad things and people in other cases can be resentful and make efforts to hack into our computers. And what we have of our clients is extremely personal. It’s everything from their emotions, to their finances, and their kids. It’s very scary. The law firms can be hacked and infiltrated. It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of ‘when?’ Each law firm and many law firms are going to be hit. [Blank Rome is] a bigger platform and you don’t have to worry about things like that. I don’t want to worry about that at the level that I have been. Other people know and understand it better than I do. I am grateful that others will take care of it. For me, to learn how to do all the computer stuff is a challenge. My son is an engineer and I didn’t get that brain chip.”

Perhaps stories like this will cause other firms to consider similar moves to join larger firms with a more secure infrastructure.  We’ll see.

So, what do you think?  Is this acquisition part of a growing trend?  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.

“Master” Your Knowledge of eDiscovery Again – This Time, In New York City!: eDiscovery Trends

Back in May, I was excited and honored to moderate an enjoyable panel session in Chicago at The Masters Conference Windy City Cybersecurity, Social Media and eDiscovery event.  However, if you aren’t located in the Chicago area (or didn’t travel there for the event) you may have missed it.  Now, if you’re going to be in the New York area on July 11, you get another chance to attend!

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.  Like the Chicago event, the New York City 2016 IoT, Cybersecurity and Social Media Conference will cover a wide range of topics from the impact of social media and the Internet of Things (IoT) on eDiscovery risks and costs to the revolution in eDiscovery analytics to how to handle cross-border data in the wake of the Schrems decision and the new privacy shield.

The New York event will be held at the historic New Yorker Hotel, 481 8th Ave , New York, NY 10001.  Registration begins at 8am, with sessions starting right after that, at 8:30am.

CloudNine will again be sponsoring the session Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery at 4:15.  I am excited to again be moderating, this time with Bill Dimm, CEO of Hot Neuron, Bill Speros, Evidence Consulting Attorney with Speros & Associates, LLC and Hon. Ronald J. Hedges, Principal of Ronald J. Hedges, LLC, as panelists.

Our panel discussion will provide an overview of the evolution of electronic discovery technologies and also share with attendees ways that they can consider and compare technology offerings from the large ecosystem of providers supporting litigation, investigations, and audits and includes an overview of the attributes of fourth generation eDiscovery automation technology.  It should be a very informative discussion with a very knowledgeable panel!  Hope you can join us!

Click here to register for the conference.  The cost is only $165 for a full day of sessions.  That’s hard to beat!

The Masters Conference also has an event coming up in Washington DC in October – its 10 year anniversary event!  Click here for more information on that.

So, what do you think?  Are you going to be in New York City on July 11?  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.

eDiscovery Daily will return on Tuesday.  Happy Independence Day!

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.

Appeals Court Reverses Terminating Sanctions Against Plaintiff for Deletion of Emails: eDiscovery Case Law

In Flagship Theatres of Palm Desert, LLC v. Century Theatres, Inc. et. al., No. B257148, Consolidated  with Nos. B259552 and B261149 (Cal. App., May 24, 2016), the Court of Appeals of California, Second District determined that the trial court “abused its discretion” by “granting terminating sanctions in a case in which the prejudice to the non-offending party can be ameliorated by a more limited remedy”.  As a result, the appeals court reversed the judgment and remanded it back to the trial court with a lesser sanction, prohibiting the plaintiff “from offering evidence of acts, events, or communications occurring during the period” when one of the plaintiffs deleted emails.

Case Background

In this antitrust suit, the plaintiffs, who operated a movie theater, claimed that the defendants had conspired to keep the most popular films from being distributed to the plaintiff’s theater and filed suit in 2006.  For the next two years, the case proceeded through discovery, and each side requested and received documents from the other. Most notably, in December 2006, one defendant served a set of requests for production in which it requested numerous categories of documents from the plaintiffs.  Ultimately, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed movie distributor defendants from the case, but added Cinemark as a defendant following Cinemark’s acquisition of Century.

From the date of production in 2007 until the trial court granted summary judgment in July 2008, no defendant moved for further production.  That summary judgment decision was reversed by the appellate court in 2011 and remanded back to the trial court for further proceedings.

In the summer of 2012, one of the plaintiffs (Tabor) began experiencing problems sending and receiving email from the AT&T account that he used for both personal and business email.  On the advice of an AT&T customer service representative, he deleted thousands of email messages to free up space, deleting the earliest emails up to February 19, 2009.  The plaintiffs then received another discovery request from the new defendant (Cinemark) requesting emails. Upon realizing that he had deleted items he had a duty to preserve, Tabor attempted to recover the emails but was unsuccessful. When Cinemark learned that Tabor had deleted the emails, it moved for sanctions. The trial court denied the motion because it was unable to fully evaluate the extent of prejudice to Cinemark. Subsequently, Cinemark renewed its motion for sanctions. This time, the trial court granted the motion and the plaintiff appealed.

Appellate Court’s Ruling

The court noted that “Cinemark likely suffered some prejudice, and it is entitled to a remedy to compensate for this prejudice. But the potential for prejudice is limited to the period between the spring of 2007 [the time period up to which the plaintiff had previous produced relevant ESI] and February 19, 2009 because the relevant emails outside that period, with some minor exceptions, were saved. Accordingly, the trial court abused its discretion by not limiting appropriate sanctions to the period between the spring of 2007 and February 19, 2009.”

The appellate court also disagreed with the trial court opinion that the plaintiffs “must be able to establish that they actually sought to license and play enough films to generate 40% of the cumulative box office grosses”, noting that the plaintiffs might have realized that distributors were unwilling to give them certain kinds of movies and simply stopped requesting them.  Because the appellate court determined that the deletion of emails outside of the 2007-2009 time frame was “small scale and innocuous”, it determined that there was no justification for additional sanctions.

As a result, the appellate court reversed the judgment and remanded it back to the trial court with a lesser sanction, prohibiting the plaintiff “from offering evidence of acts, events, or communications occurring during the period” between spring 2007 and February 19, 2009 (unless Cinemark offered evidence during that time period that was “more than nonsubstantive, peripheral, or foundational”, in which case, the plaintiffs could present evidence and seek damages pertaining to that time period).

So, what do you think?  Was the appellate court sanction a more appropriate remedy?  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.

Here’s One Group of People Who May Not Be a Fan of Big Data Analytics: eDiscovery Trends

Most of us love the idea of big data analytics and how it can ultimately benefit us, not just in the litigation process, but in business and life overall.  But, there may be one group of people who may not be as big a fan of big data analytics as the rest of us: criminals who are being sentenced at least partly on the basis of predictive data analysis regarding the likelihood that they will be a repeat offender.

This article in the ABA Journal (Legality of using predictive data to determine sentences challenged in Wisconsin Supreme Court case, written by Sony Kassam), discusses the case of 34-year-old Eric Loomis, who was arrested in Wisconsin in February 2013 for driving a car that had been used in a shooting.  He ultimately pled guilty to eluding an officer and no contest to operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent. Loomis, a registered sex offender, was then sentenced to six years in prison because a score on a test noted he was a “high risk” to the community.

During his appeal in April, Loomis challenged the use of the test’s score, saying it violated his right to due process of law because he was unable to review the algorithm and raise questions about it.

As described in The New York Times, the algorithm used is known as COMPAS (Correctional Offender  Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions).  Compas is an algorithm developed by a private company, Northpointe Inc., that calculates the likelihood of someone committing another crime and suggests what kind of supervision a defendant should receive in prison. The algorithm results come from a survey of the defendant and information about his or her past conduct.  Company officials at Northpointe say the algorithm’s results are backed by research, but they are “proprietary”. While Northpointe does acknowledge that men, women and juveniles all receive different assessments, the factors considered and the weight given to each are kept secret.

The secrecy and the use of different scales for men and women are at the heart of Loomis’ appeal, which an appellate court has referred to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which could rule on the appeal in the coming days or weeks.

Other states also use algorithms, including Utah and Virginia, the latter of which has used algorithms for more than a decade.  According to The New York Times, at least one previous prison sentence involving Compas was appealed in Wisconsin and upheld.  And, algorithms have also been used to predict potential crime hot spots: Police in Chicago have used data to identify people who are likely to shoot or get shot and authorities in Kansas City, Mo. have used data to identify possible criminals.  We’re one step closer to pre-crime, folks.

So, what do you think?  Should algorithms that have a significant effect on people’s lives be secret?  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.

Blue Hill Research Notes CloudNine in Modern eDiscovery Platform Report

Extract from article by Jim Duffy, Esq.

In order to assist organizations with their own eDiscovery solution selection and evaluation of eDiscovery vendor support for eDiscovery challenges, Blue Hill Research assembled a select Solution Landscape describing eDiscovery vendors that demonstrate strong adoption of modern eDiscovery solution components that include: (1) cloud-based deployment, (2) focus on expanded data collection, (3) robust predictive coding and analytics capabilities, and (4) improved user interface and user experience.

CloudNine received mention in the report Reinvesting in the eDiscovery Cycles: Modern eDiscovery Platforms and was noted as one of the vendors in the eDiscovery ecosystem that demonstrated attention to the challenges identified by Jim Duffy, Esq. of Blue Hill Research.

Source: Blue Hill Research

For access to the complete report, click here.

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