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

Court Tells Litigants “NO MORE WARNINGS” When It Comes to Boilerplate Discovery Objections: eDiscovery Case Law

In Liguria Foods, Inc. v. Griffith Laboratories, Inc., C 14-3041-MWB (N.D. Iowa Mar. 13, 2017), Iowa District Judge Mark W. Bennett declined to sanction the parties for issuing boilerplate objections, but strongly warned them that the use of boilerplate objections in the future would place counsel and their clients at risk for significant sanctions.

In this case related to millions of dollars’ worth of sausage that turned rancid, it became apparent to the Judge Bennett (during a review of another discovery dispute) that both parties had submitted “obstructionist discovery responses” to each other during the discovery process.  On January 27, 2017, Judge Bennett entered an Order To Show Cause Why Counsel For Both Parties Should Not Be Sanctioned For Discovery Abuses And Directions For Further Briefing, directing the parties to file, under seal, all their written responses to each other’s discovery requests by the following day. Judge Bennett also notified counsel of his intention to impose sanctions on every attorney who signed the discovery responses, if he determined that the responses were, indeed, improper or abusive

The parties filed their written responses to discovery requests, as directed, the following day.  Based on his review of the discovery responses, Judge Bennett identified numerous discovery responses, from both sides, that he identified as improper in this ruling.  According to Judge Bennett, the improper objections included:

  • “not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence”;
  • “subject to and without waiving its general and specific objections”;
  • “to the extent they seek information that is protected from discovery under the attorney-client privilege, the attorney work-product doctrine or is otherwise privileged or protected from disclosure”; and
  • “overbroad and unduly burdensome.”

In its brief in response to the Order To Show Cause, the plaintiff acknowledged that many of its objections were not stated with specificity, but asserted that it had not interposed any objection “for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation” and that some of its objections did include explanations.  The defendant, in its brief, stated that its written responses to the plaintiff’s discovery requests were not intended for any improper purposes and that the parties had conducted the litigation in a cooperative and professional manner. The defendant also noted that a magistrate judge had reviewed various defendant responses and found no fault with them, contending that that both parties relied on standard “boilerplate” language to assure that they were not waiving their rights while they met and conferred about the scope of privileges, pertinent time periods, among other issues.

Both sets of counsel ultimately admitted that the reason they used “boilerplate” objections had a lot to do with the way they were trained, the kinds of responses that they had received from opposing parties, and the “culture” that routinely involved the use of such “standardized” responses.

Judge Bennett evaluated each boilerplate objections, identifying violations of Rule 26(d), 26(b)(5)(A)(iii) and the “specificity” requirements of Rules 33(b)(4) and 34(b)(2).  However, in part because the parties “did not try to raise frivolous defenses for their conduct when called on” the use of “boilerplate” sanctions, Judge Bennett declined to sanction the parties this time.  Instead, he provided a new Supplemental Trial Management Order, advising the lawyers for the parties that “in conducting discovery, form or boilerplate objections shall not be used and, if used, may subject the party and/or its counsel to sanctions. Objections must be specific and state an adequate individualized basis.”

Judge Bennett also concluded his order with these strong words, in caps for emphasis: “NO MORE WARNINGS. IN THE FUTURE, USING “BOILERPLATE” OBJECTIONS TO DISCOVERY IN ANY CASE BEFORE ME PLACES COUNSEL AND THEIR CLIENTS AT RISK FOR SUBSTANTIAL SANCTIONS.”

Here’s another recent case where parties were warned about “boilerplate” objections.

So, what do you think?  Will we someday get past the issue of lawyers using standard, “boilerplate” objections in discovery responses?  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.

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

After Metadata Shows Agreement Documents to Be Unreliable, Defendant’s “Hans” are Tied: eDiscovery Case Law

In Ensing v. Ensing, et. al., No. 12591 (Del. Court of Chancery, Mar. 6, 2017), Vice Chancellor Slights ruled for the plaintiff in the case and concluding that the defendant “has engaged in blatant violations of court orders and bad faith litigation conduct that justify serious sanctions”, ordering him to pay two-thirds of the plaintiff’s counsel’s fees and expenses and all of the plaintiff’s computer forensic expert’s fees and expenses.

Case Background

This case arose between a divorcing husband and wife operating a winery and boutique hotel in Italy (indirectly through two Delaware limited liability companies) when the husband (Dr. Hans Ensing) tried to remove the wife (Sara Ensing) and appoint himself as manager of one of the entities, and then engage in a series of transactions intended to divest Sara of her interests in the winery and hotel.  As a result, Sara (now the plaintiff) initiated action against her husband (now the defendant) in this case in July 2016.

During the case, the defendant produced a “Pledge Agreement” and a “Trust Agreement” purportedly executed by the plaintiff and defendant, making the defendant manager of one of the entities and allowing him to appoint the management for that entity. The plaintiff denied ever signing the agreement and claimed they were “forgeries”.  In response to the plaintiff’s claims that the documents were “forgeries,” the defendant told the court that he intended to have “certified copies” of the documents “prepared at the U. S. Embassy in Rome (which never happened) and claimed during an October deposition that a lawyer and accountant had been instrumental in forming the entities (but he couldn’t provide contact information for the accountant or even his nationality).

The defendant also could not produce the originals of either of the disputed documents, but continued to argue that both documents were evidence in his favor.  The defendant also ignored the court’s order to turn over the devices on which he testified that he had created and stored the agreements, leading the court to grant the plaintiff’s motion to draw an adverse inference against the defendant, putting the burden on him to prove the two agreements were authentic.

Then, on the eve of trial, the defendant attempted to distance himself from both documents. Nonetheless, the plaintiff offered evidence that the company stamp appearing above her name on the Pledge Agreement wasn’t created until 2015, but the document was created in 2012 and had a computer forensic expert testify that the metadata from the Trust Agreement PDF file revealed that it was created on June 15, 2016, and then emailed to the plaintiff thirty minutes later.

Vice Chancellor’s Ruling

Vice Chancellor Slights stated: “After carefully reviewing the evidence, I conclude that Sara has carried her burden of proving that Hans had no authority to remove her as manager of the entities, to appoint himself as manager of the entities or to transfer membership units of one of the entities to an entity under his control.”  Vice Chancellor Slights also concluded that “Hans has engaged in blatant violations of court orders and bad faith litigation conduct that justify serious sanctions”, referencing the two agreements as “sham documents”.  As a result, Vice Chancellor Slights also ordered the defendant to pay two-thirds of the plaintiff’s counsel’s fees and expenses and all of the plaintiff’s computer forensic expert’s fees and expenses.

So, what do you think?  Does it seem like there are more cases than ever with potentially altered or forged ESI?  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.

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

Putting Information on File Share Site without Protection Waives Privilege, Court Rules: eDiscovery Case Law

In Harleysville Insurance Co. v. Holding Funeral Home, Inc., No. 1:15cv00057 (W.D. Va. Feb. 9, 2017), Virginia Magistrate Judge Pamela Meade Sargent ruled that the plaintiff’s placement of privileged information on a file share site and distribution of the hyperlink to access that information without providing any protection for the site resulted in a failure to take reasonable steps to protect the information – as a result, the declared attorney-client privilege and work-product protections were waived.  Judge Sargent also denied the plaintiff’s motion to disqualify defense counsel for accessing the information without informing plaintiff’s counsel, but did order defense counsel to pay the plaintiff’s fees and costs in bringing the motion.

Case Background

In this dispute over a fire insurance claim by the defendants against the plaintiff insurance agent, a senior investigator for Nationwide Insurance, owner of the plaintiff company, uploaded surveillance footage to a file share service operated by Box, Inc. and sent an email containing a link to the site to an investigator at the National Insurance Crime Bureau (“NICB”) in September 2015.  The email contained a confidentiality notice indicating that the “e-mail contains information that is privileged and confidential”.  The information on Box was not password protected, but, for a while, only the video was available on the Box site.  The plaintiff conceded that any person who used the hyperlink to access the Box Site had access to the electronic information stored there as it was not password protected.

In April 2016, the Nationwide investigator placed files containing the plaintiff’s entire claims file and Nationwide’s entire investigation file for the defendants’ fire loss on the Box Site to be accessed by the plaintiff’s counsel.  Then, in May 2016, in response to a subpoena, the NICB electronically produced its files – including the email containing the link – to the defense counsel, which gave them access to the file share site containing the claims files.  Defense counsel subsequently accessed the site and reviewed and downloaded the entire claims file, but did not notify the plaintiff’s counsel that it had accessed the information until plaintiff’s counsel discovered the claims file included in materials produced by the defense in October 2016.  As a result of this discovery, the plaintiff moved to disqualify defense counsel; in response, they argued that that the motion should be denied because the plaintiff “waived any claim of privilege or confidentiality by placing the information on the Box, Inc., site where it could be accessed by anyone.”

Judge’s Ruling

In assessing the waiver of attorney-client privilege, Judge Sargent noted that “the court has no evidence before it that any precautions were taken to prevent this disclosure”, observing that the employee who uploaded the information to the site and plaintiff’s counsel both “knew – or should have known – that the information was accessible on the internet.”  As a result, Judge Sargent found that the plaintiff “has waived any claim of attorney-client privilege with regard to the information posted to the Box Site”, noting that the plaintiff “conceded that the Box Site was not password protected and that the information uploaded to this site was available for viewing by anyone, anywhere who was connected to the internet and happened upon the site by use of the hyperlink or otherwise.”

Based on the fact that the plaintiff did not claim that its agent’s posting of its claims file to the Box Site was not an intentional act and that she could not “find that Harleysville, or its counsel, took reasonable steps to prevent its disclosure or to rectify the situation”, Judge Sargent determined that “Rule 502 does not apply in this situation to prevent a waiver of the work-product doctrine”.  As a result, she also concluded that the plaintiff waived any claim of privilege or work-product protection over its claims file.

As for the plaintiff’s motion for disqualification, Judge Sargent noted that “defense counsel have admitted that they accessed the Box Site by the hyperlink provided in the email” and indicated that “[t]his court should demand better” in terms of behavior of the defense counsel.  However, she stated: “Based on the decision that the posting of the Claims File to the internet waived any attorney-client privilege or any work-product protection over the information contained in the file, I find that the disqualification of defense counsel is not warranted in this situation”, calling that “an extreme sanction”.  Instead, she found that “the more reasonable sanction is that defense counsel should bear the cost of the parties in obtaining the court’s ruling on the matter”.

So, what do you think?  Should placing files on a file share site waive privilege?  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.

For the Fifth Year, Florida is the Place to Be for eDiscovery Education: eDiscovery Trends

The fifth annual University of Florida E-Discovery Conference is coming up one week from today, on March 30, and you can attend even if you don’t plan to be in the state of Florida on that day.

Not surprisingly, given the new technology CLE requirement in Florida, the focus of the conference this year is competence in 2017.  As the conference site notes, it’s “no longer your grandfather’s e-discovery (circa 2005). There are exciting new e-discovery tools, new offerings and huge new challenges against a backdrop of increasing demands for competence by judicial officials.”

Notable speakers include Craig Ball, George Socha of BDO Consulting, David Horrigan of kCura, Ralph Losey of Jackson Lewis, Mary Mack of ACEDS, Kenya Dixon of the FTC, Corey Lee of Hunton & Williams and Sonya Strnad from Holland & Knight.  Not to mention a number of federal and state judges, including U.S. Magistrates William Matthewman, Anthony Porcelli, and Gary Jones, Florida Circuit Court Judge Meenu Sasser, and retired Florida Circuit Court Judge Ralph Artigliere.

The conference includes topics ranging from cloud/social media/mobile devices preservation to collections on a budget to meet and confer to defending your keyword search.  The use of artificial intelligence for document review is explored, as well as efficient and reliable document review using contemporary tools.  The day ends with a judicial panel where federal and state judges discuss what they now expect from clients and attorneys.  A link to the Agenda is here.

For the first time, the University of Florida Levin College of Law is also sponsoring an E-Discovery CareerFest to respond to the growing interest of University of Florida law students in exploring career paths that involve electronic discovery and data analytic skills.  The CareerFest will be conducted the day before the main conference, Wednesday, March 29, from 3:00 to 5:30PM ET.

The 2017 UF Law E-Discovery Conference has been approved for 6 General, 6 Technology and 1 Ethics CLE credits by the Florida Bar.  If you plan to attend in person, the event will once again take place at the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus.  But, if you can’t attend in person, the event will also (once again) be streamed online.

The conference costs $199 to attend in person or $99 to attend via livestream.  Members of the 8th Judicial Circuit Bar Association, ACEDS and Friends of the conference are eligible to receive a discounted rate.  The conference is free to attend in person or via livestream to all employees of federal and state government agencies, judges and judicial staff, students, and academics.  To register for the conference, click on the “Register Now” link on the conference web site here.

So, what do you think?  Are you attending the conference?  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.

6,905 Billable Hours for Attorney Review May Not Be Billable if the Reviewer Isn’t Actually an Attorney: eDiscovery News

A contract lawyer for a Pennsylvania plaintiffs’ firm clocked 6,905 hours of work on a shareholder lawsuit against former executives and directors of Sprint Corp. related to its 2005 merger with Nextel.  One problem, however: that attorney had apparently been disbarred for years when he performed the work.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (One Lawyer, 6,905 Hours Leads to $1.5 Million Bill in Sprint Suit, written by Joe Palazzolo and Sara Randazzo, subscription required), “Alexander” Silow, a contract lawyer for the Weiser Law Firm PC, clocked 6,905 hours of work during the case. Averaging about 13 hours a day, Silow reviewed 48,443 documents and alone accounted for $1.5 million, more than a quarter of the requested legal fees, according to court documents.  Those awarded fees had already been cut from $4.2 million down to just $450,000 back in November of last year.

That initial fee reduction was awarded after Kansas District Judge James Vano called the requested amount “unbelievable.” “It seems that the vast amount of work performed on this case was illusory, perhaps done for the purpose of inflating billable hours,” Judge Vano, who sits in Olathe, Kan., wrote in a Nov. 22 opinion.

Silow had been working as a contract attorney for at least eight years when staffing agency Abelson Legal Search placed him at the Weiser firm in 2008, according to a Feb. 3 letter from the firm to Judge Vano. The law firm was notified by a third party it declined to name and learned that no one with Silow’s name was listed in a state database of licensed lawyers, Robert B. Weiser, co-founder of the firm, said in the letter.  Silow had presented himself to the firm as “Alexander J. Silow”, but “was in actuality named Jeffrey M. Silow” and confessed he had been disbarred when the firm confronted him, the letter said. The firm has since ended its relationship with Mr. Silow and alerted authorities, it said.  The Pennsylvania’s attorney discipline office confirmed Mr. Silow was disbarred in 1987 but could provide no additional information.

At least one Sprint Shareholder has requested that the case be reviewed again by Judge Vano in light of the new allegations.

According to Lester Brickman, an emeritus professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York who has written about bill padding, plaintiffs’ firms bill for work done by contract attorneys like Mr. Silow at hourly rates of $300 or more when they submit their fee requests, but they typically pay the attorneys $20 to $40 per hour.  Brickman said it is common for firms to staff cases with contract attorneys and direct them to review thousands of documents to run up the fees.  In this case, bill padding and excessive markup appears to have been the least of the firm’s problems.

Thanks to ACEDS for the tip on the story!

Also, yesterday, I thanked our readers for 6 1/2 years of support and readership of the blog.  Today, I want to thank JD Supra and its readership for being named the Readers’ Choice Top Author in eDiscovery (and CloudNine being named the Top Firm) for 2017!  Distribution of our posts via JD Supra has grown our readership greatly over the past year and I really appreciate our partnership with JD Supra and thank all of you for reading our blog, whether it’s via JD Supra or the “old fashioned way” via our site!  Thank you so much!

So, what do you think?   Should firms do more to ensure that the attorneys they use for review are actually licensed attorneys?  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.

78 is Great! eDiscovery Daily Is Seventy Eight! (Months Old, That Is)

A new record!  (Get it?)  Seventy eight months ago today (a.k.a., 6 1/2 years), eDiscovery Daily was launched.  It’s hard to believe that it has been 6 1/2 years since our first three posts debuted on our first day, September 20, 2010.  Now, we’re up to 1,656 lifetime posts, and so much has happened in the industry that we’ve covered.

Twice a year, we like to take a look back at some of the important stories and topics during that time.  So, here are just a few of the posts over the last six months you may have missed.  Enjoy!

Thanks, once again, for your support!  Our subscriber base and daily views continue to grow, and we owe it all to you!  Thanks for the interest you’ve shown in the topics!  We will do our best to continue to provide interesting and useful eDiscovery news and analysis.  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.

Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C., Part 2: eDiscovery Trends

This is the sixth (and final) of the 2017 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY (aka Legalweek) this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Craig Ball.  A frequent court appointed special master in electronic evidence, Craig is a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs throughout the United States, having delivered almost 2,000 presentations and papers.  Craig’s articles on forensic technology and electronic discovery frequently appear in the national media and he teaches E-Discovery and Digital Evidence at the University of Texas School of Law.  He currently blogs on eDiscovery topics at ballinyourcourt.com.

Craig provided so much good information that we decided to publish his interview in two parts.  The first half of his interview was published yesterday.

Speaking of the rise in discourse you mentioned, we’ve seen a recent trend with regard to an emphasis on technology competence for attorneys and we’re up to 26 states that have adopted some sort of technology competence requirement, with Florida being the first state that has required technology CLE for their attorneys.  Do you think the increased emphasis on technology competence will (finally) change the general lack of understanding of technology within the legal profession?

I think those are significant developments. Still, as we take two steps forward, we take one step back. The best example: although we’ve moved forward with the institutionalization of and impetus for competence, the greatest “stick” that we have, sanctions, have become increasingly harder to obtain for eDiscovery malfeasance.  At this point, you must demonstrate an almost murderous intent to get significant sanctions. And, while I’m not troubled by the structure of 37(e) – serious sanctions have always come behind serious misconduct and not mere error – proportionality and the diminished ability to obtain sanctions have sapped the impetus to do more than the minimum.  Quality is still not part of the conversation.

Abuses are still rife.  Wasteful practices are everywhere.  And we still have a very long way to go before we get to genuine competency.  The question is, will three hours of CLE in Florida that you can satisfy in almost any way, without any testing or other check on competency, make a difference?  We could do much more if we decided that competency is something we really want and demand of lawyers.  We still make it optional and easy to avoid.  I admire what California did with their simplified idea of “Learn it, get someone who knows it, or get out”.  It’s one thing to establish that as a series of aspirations and goals – like the nine things you need to know in the California model – but it’s quite another thing to put “teeth” into those obligations.  When it comes to competency, we don’t demand enough of lawyers after the Bar exam.

Too, we close ranks when it comes to malpractice stemming from technical incompetency.  Judges are understandably loath to criticize their friends and colleagues.  Making a pronouncement against a lawyer’s competency or integrity from the bench carries a “long tail” in terms of its consequences.  So judges that otherwise might take lawyers to task feel constrained not to do so except in the most severe cases.  When you only punish the most severe cases of incompetence and malfeasance, you create a false impression that those are the only kinds of cases out there.

When you only punish the most severe cases, any lawyer who might otherwise think “I’d better learn this” will look at those horrific cases and say “I’m never going to do that”.  The problem is that they may do something that is just as bad – they may do it with less intent, less venal motivation – but the outcome will be the same.  If I shoot someone because I don’t know which way to point a gun or I shoot someone because I want to kill them, the law distinguishes between those two, but the mourning family may not – the result is tragedy.  We can forgive one instance of incompetence, but, after a while, if you’re just remaining incompetent and doing things the way you’ve always done them, that’s callous malfeasance.  Every dog gets one bite, but not two, three or four. At some point you must put the dog down and punish the owner.

One of the things that coming to this event makes me think about is what a shame it is that there’s only one of these a year that requires people to come to New York City in the winter.  I long for the days when Legaltech was all over the country and there were many flavors of legal technology conferences that you could attend. I think we are at an inflection point where people have come around to recognizing that they need to learn some of these things, but the resources to do so remain sparse.  There are too few significant events with strong, fresh, engaging components.

For example, the frustration we have in Texas is that if we build it, they don’t always come.  We need something in the marketplace and in the management of the Bars and in the educational process to train lawyers that makes this “keeping up” obligation something that we embrace with greater enthusiasm.  The camaraderie, community, sharing of ideas – a lot of that has turned into YouTube videos.  The “confabs” are almost all gone.  You’ve got these gigantic trade shows of constituencies, but at the local level, there’s very little.

How does a practitioner who can’t justify spending three or four days in New York during the winter have a chance to look at all the wares?  You can’t go to Amazon.com and search for law office management or eDiscovery software with the same ability that you can shop for a vacuum.  That’s a shame. We still communicate info about eDiscovery solutions by word-of-mouth, by hype and so forth.

Take your company, CloudNine.  I know your company to be very competent with a skilled group of people and competitive pricing.  But, how do you break out?  How do you get yourself heard in the marketplace?  There are a lot of great vendors out there perceived as regional or second-tier for no reason except that there is so much noise out there and there is so little ability to compare apples to apples in an objective way.  Options are drowned out by marketing budgets.  Is being good and efficient and cost-effective enough to make you the winner in the marketplace?  I think there is a sense among vendors that it’s not, it’s a gamed system that is all about the marketing money and not about the quality of the offering.

With that in mind and with consolidation within the eDiscovery provider community increasing, where do you see the market heading for eDiscovery providers?

As much as I want to share some optimistic observations (and I do see some things about which to be optimistic), I am deeply concerned about what the coming year is going to bring about for a number of vendors.  We’ve seen consolidation.  It may be bad for the consumers and it may be bad for trade shows as we have discussed.  But, I think it’s about to change and the loss of players that’s coming is going to be in many ways as severe as 2008.  We are seeing enormous pricing pressure and razor-thin margins.  I see efforts being made to generate the appearance of good business and good sales; but when the numbers are crunched and the sales persons take their commissions, a lot of these “good sales” will be unprofitable and unsustainable.

I think we’re going to see the collapse of several operations in 2017.  They can’t defy gravity much longer.  When the numbers start coming in and the flattening is obvious, the VC money gets spooked and people start scrambling to get their investments out, I think we’re going to have another significant shuttering reduction in the number of offerings out there. I’m hoping that will be ameliorated somewhat by startups and so forth, but I have to share with you my candid concern.  It may not all happen in 2017, it may wait until 2018 in the kind of uncertainty and optimism that comes in with regime change.  All of the stunning things that are happening right now may engender lots of litigation.  But, it’s hard to know whether this is good or bad for lawyers and whether it’s good or bad for litigation support.  Many providers may hang on for most of 2017, but it may be the “Wile E Coyote” approach – sooner or later, you look down and realize you’ve run off the cliff.  I’m sorry to be a Cassandra on that topic, but the numbers speak for themselves.  People are bidding on jobs at margins that are unsustainable without either massive cuts in personnel or shortcuts in quality that will entail massive headaches.

We’ve never fully adjusted to the commoditization of eDiscovery services. There are still too many people who remember the old pricing.  There are a lot of things – such as automation and the Cloud – which mean that the heyday of multi-thousand per gigabyte pricing is gone and never coming back.  We cannot build our market around those margins.   It’s like the oil industry – you can build for $100 a barrel oil, but you’d better realize you’re going to see $40 a barrel oil for a lot longer than you may expect.  I think the eDiscovery industry was built for $100 a barrel, but we are selling e-discovery at $25 a barrel.  At least that’s what the margins will look like when it  shakes out.

In addition to what we’ve already discussed, what are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

I’ve just relocated on a more permanent basis to New Orleans, Louisiana.  I will always be a Texan, but my body will be in New Orleans.  My goal for 2017 is a personal one: to cut back on the travel.  I’ve been doing 50 to 70 programs around the country and around the world now for many, many years.  I’m like George Clooney’s character in “Up in the Air” – when people ask me where I live, I want to say, “here, I live in an airplane.”  I’m tired of that.  It meant that I was disengaged from community, from friends and family, and I am tired of that. So, I’m going to be more selective in in what I do.  I’m saying “no” to engagements that may make me money, but not bring much joy.  I’m saying “no” to speaking engagements that, in ordinary circumstances, I would have routinely accepted.  Instead, I’m asking myself what I really like to do, where I really want to go, who I really want to speak with and where I really can make the most positive difference.  So, I’m hoping that this year instead of participating in 70 events, it will be more like 25.

But, I plan to use that disengagement to reengage in the areas where I think I can do some good.  Writing more. Celebrating more.  I’m one of those people you meet in life where you say “there’s a guy who needs to drink more”.  And, it’s not really about enjoying drinking, it’s that drinking is part of a social life that I have always made secondary to professional commitments.  I’m fortunate to now live in a city where I have great friends and there is always something enjoyable to do.  I don’t want to be the fool that says “I wish I could do that, but I have this thing to finish for work”.  Life is short and I feel the ticking clock that is held for me by my friends like Browning Marean and Bill Butterfield, who are saying “Craig , live a little”.  No one lays on their deathbed and says “Why didn’t I spend more time at the office?”  Our generation needs to mentor now.  We need to equip younger professionals with a sound moral and ethical compass and the skills with which to succeed within those moral and ethical boundaries.  That’s our true legacy – our children and others we can set on a path to make a positive difference.

Thanks, Craig, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, 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.

Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Part 2: eDiscovery Trends

This is the fifth of the 2017 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY (aka Legalweek) this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.  Jason is a member of Drinker Biddle’s Information Governance and eDiscovery practice and co-chair of the Information Governance Initiative.  An internationally recognized speaker and author on the preservation of electronic documents, Jason previously served as the first Director of Litigation for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and as trial lawyer and senior counsel at the Department of Justice.  He also was a founding co-coordinator of the National Institute of Standards and Technology TREC Legal Track, a multi-year international information retrieval project devoted to evaluating search issues in a legal context.  He served as lead editor of the recently published ABA book, Perspectives on Predictive Coding and Other Advanced Search Methods for the Legal Practitioner.

Jason provided so much good information that we decided to publish his interview in two parts.  The first part of his interview was published on Friday and Craig Ball’s interview originally scheduled for today will be published on Wednesday and Thursday of next week (also in two parts).

Since you mentioned the recent trend we’ve seen toward an emphasis on technology competence for attorneys, I was going to also mention that we’re up to 26 states that have adopted some sort of technology competence requirement, with Florida being the first state that has required technology CLE for their attorneys.  Do you think the increased emphasis on technology competence will change the general lack of understanding of technology (and advanced search technologies) within the legal profession?

Doug, I’m happy to say that, in the 36+ years that I’ve practiced law, I’ve never had to meet a CLE requirement – the Massachusetts and the DC bars don’t require it!  (Call me lucky.  I’ve also vowed never to take another bar exam.)  But there is clearly a movement towards states’ adoption of the ABA professional rules, including the comment to Rule 1.1 mentioned above.  And in addition to California’s ethics opinion, there are any number of local courts where a great deal of e-discovery competency has been expected of counsel for some time.  (The Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program, Judge Paul Grimm in Maryland, and state and federal courts in New York have all led the way on this.)   Anyone who practices eDiscovery in a large, complex case is going to have to confront this fact.   Technical competency is of course also needed in a larger percentage of smaller cases in state and federal court as well, given that the need to search Facebook and related apps, as well as GPS devices and other smart technologies, all will be increasingly useful for handling smaller cases involving personal injury, divorce or employment law.  You just can’t hide from the world that we are in – we are immersed in ESI and increasingly immersed in algorithms and analytics that affect all of our lives.

So, to be technically competent in e-discovery in 2017, you do need to know what you don’t know.  Like the California ethics opinion states, that means either knowing the technical points spelled out in the opinion, or knowing enough to know you need help by going to an expert within your firm or a consultant.  Or to step aside and get a co-counsel to help.  And, I think that will be a trend line that we will see.  I don’t think we are all required by these opinions to be Maura Grossman or Judge Peck, or that we need to get an advanced degree in information science or data analytics (although it might help!).   We just need to know enough to ask questions about what it takes to do a better job in eDiscovery.

The highest goal for the e-discovery bar will continue to be working in a way that is consistent with Rule 1, with a just, speedy and economical approach to litigation.  And, in the information governance arena, we can make ourselves valuable and competent as well, by knowing something about advanced search.   At Drinker Biddle, my colleague Bennett Borden is a partner and Chief Data Scientist of our firm – to my knowledge the only lawyer who holds those two titles at an AmLaw 100 firm.   Bennett has been on a “soapbox” as well, saying that we can apply what we have learned using analytics in eDiscovery to every field of practice at a law firm, whether it’s mergers and acquisitions or employment law or anything.  Our practice group routinely is called upon to advise and be part of an ongoing firm-wide discussion of how clients need insight into their large data sets.

We all know where these lines are going.  In terms of technology, at least, the world is not going backwards.  We’re not heading to a place where computers are getting less smart – just the opposite.  Whether you agree with me that the pace of change is itself accelerating,  or just think change is happening, we are in a world where (for the rest of our lives) we are going to be confronting new apps and new technologies.  And, as lawyers, we need to understand the implications across a range of engagements across all legal domains.

In addition to what we’ve already discussed, what are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

A few things come to mind: One is that the Information Governance Initiative celebrated its third anniversary during this year’s Legaltech.  Under Barclay Blair and Bennett Borden’s stewardship, the IGI has grown now to 25+ supporters from the legal tech community.  The IGI is widely recognized as a robust “think tank” providing thought leadership about IG topics.  Aside from white papers and benchmark studies, what we have focused on in the last couple of years is holding a Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO) summit and, this year, that will take place on May 10 and 11 in Chicago.  As we have in the last two years, we will endeavor to gather 60 or 70 “card carrying” members of the IG profession – people who are in a leadership role within IG at their respective organizations.  Many of those who come are de facto Chief Information Governance Officers except that they have some other title on their business card.  This year we will again have a serious conversation about what it means to be a leader in IG.

I have written a recent article in Ethical Boardroom (a magazine out of the UK that may not be very well known in the US, but has really good content regarding corporate governance issues), that I would like to be a theme for 2017 and going forward: how to involve the boards of directors in companies in participating in oversight of information governance issues, to essentially deputize them as fiduciaries of IG in some sense.  Through Sarbanes-Oxley and through the efforts of many companies, board members have developed expertise on cybersecurity issues, and there have been many articles about how you can get involved in that.  But, I think there’s a broader conversation than just data breach issues which encompasses IG – and I have written an article on that.  I’ve also been interested in data ethics issues including moderating a panel at the last annual ACC meeting in San Francisco, so I’ll also be talking about algorithmic bias this year as well.

The last thing that I’ll bring up which is very close to my heart is that, since 2007, I’ve been asked to lead a workshop with my fellow organizers, called the DESI (Discovery of ESI) VII workshop series at the International Conference of AI and Law (ICAIL).  The format of the workshop is that people come and present work that they’ve done, either research papers or even just position papers of 4 or 5 pages.  So, it’s a very easy lift to be part of a very smart community of PhDs and lawyers talking about sophisticated topics.

This year, the workshop will be held on June 12 at King’s College in London.  In prior years we’ve had workshops in Barcelona, Rome, Beijing, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Palo Alto, as well as once before in London itself.   Now, we’re back in London, and I encourage all of your readers to attend and consider participating by putting in a paper.  Maura Grossman and Gordon Cormack graciously have agreed to be the opening keynote speakers at this year’s workshop, which will be especially focused on identifying and protecting sensitive information in large collections.  This is an eDiscovery problem in complex litigation involving privileged documents, but it’s also a problem for privacy related materials (like PII and PHI), and a problem that comes up in audits and internal investigations as to what is proprietary and what can be provided.

Filtering content is also a problem in terms of allowing public access to the vast digital archives of government.  In the case of White House email, we’ve been accumulating emails since the 1990s and there will soon be close to a billion emails that are in existence at the National Archives.  One cannot, however, walk into the National Archives and see any of those e-mails, at least any time soon.  One can walk in and see paper records — but the large and growing collections of e-mails and certain other forms of electronic documents remain off limits because of the sensitive nature of content scattered throughout the collections.  In fact, it may be many, many decades before the vast bulk of NARA’s e-mail collection is made available to the public.  So, that’s an issue that I’ve been writing and speaking on, and that I trust will be discussed at DESI VII.  I will also be speaking on this subject at CeDEM 2017, an upcoming e-Democracy conference being held outside of Vienna, Austria this coming May. 

Thanks, Jason, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Don’t forget our webcast tomorrow: Best Practices for Effective eDiscovery Searching at noon CST.  Click here to register!

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.

George Socha of BDO: eDiscovery Trends

This is the fourth of the 2017 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY (aka Legalweek) this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is George Socha of BDO.  Co-founder of EDRM, George is a Managing Director in BDO Consulting’s Forensic Technology Services practice. Named an “E-Discovery Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, he assists corporate, law firm, and government clients with all facets of electronic discovery, including information governance, domestically and globally. Prior to joining BDO, George spent 16 years as a litigation attorney in private practice before starting his own consulting firm focused on e-discovery issues in 2003. He received his law degree from Cornell Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What are your observations about LTNY this year and how it compared to other LTNY shows that you have attended?

ALM made several changes this year:  Legalweek, not just Legaltech, and an entry fee for the exhibit hall.  I gather traffic in the exhibit hall was down from last year; maybe that meant fewer people just showing up for free stuff or perhaps there were fewer serious shoppers as well.  From what I heard, sessions generally were well attended.  If ALM was hoping for a re-energized Legaltech, I don’t think they got there.

Some years, Legaltech is abuzz with the newest catchphrase, such as “early case assessment” or “predictive coding.”  No pithy phrase left to the fore this year.  There was, however, a recurring theme.  Growing concerns over cybersecurity seemed drive a level of interest in and lend a degree of urgency to information governance in a way we have not seen in the past.  A major problem, folks seemed to say, was the security of data.  A way to help address that problem, better governance of the data.  Part of the means for achieving better governance, turning to eDiscovery tools and techniques.

This past year was an important year for EDRM with the acquisition of EDRM by the Duke University School of Law.  What was the driving force behind the decision for EDRM to be acquired by Duke and how do you think it will impact where EDRM goes from here?

For several years, Tom Gelbmann and I had been looking for a new home for EDRM.  Tom was ready to retire.  I did not want to run EDRM on my own.  And in any event, it was time and past to find an established institution that could provide for a more solid future than any one, two or three individuals could do.

Last year, we were put in touch with the folks at Duke.  From the first discussion it looked like a good match, and I am pleased to be able to say that the first months have gone well.   Tom is now fully retired and Duke is now been taking over the operation of EDRM.  While Tom may be fully retired, I continue to be very actively involved in EDRM and will be for the foreseeable future.

Duke will hold an EDRM workshop this spring, as we have in the past.  The focus of that workshop will be on 1) developing Technology Assisted Review (TAR) standards, both for the bench and the bar, 2) beginning development of standards for data analytics across all phases of the EDRM diagram, and 3) working on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issues, particularly development of the US code of conduct.  Most likely, there will be a couple more activities as well.  The conference will be at Duke (May 15 through 17) and it will follow much the same format as we have used in the past.

Duke can bring to bear a depth and breadth of resources Tom and I never could match, opening up opportunities that we lacked the bandwidth to pursue.  For example, this fall Duke will convene a conference in September, at the Duke Law School, focusing on the TAR standards under development.  In addition, Duke just launched a rebuilt EDRM website, with a new look and better navigation.

One recent trend we’ve seen is with regard to an emphasis on technology competence for attorneys and we’re up to 26 states that have adopted some sort of technology competence requirement, with Florida being the first state that has required technology CLE for their attorneys.  Do you think the increased emphasis on technology competence will change the general lack of understanding of technology within the legal profession?

I would so much like to be able to say “yes, I think those efforts will accomplish those goals”.  However, I’m not so certain how successful they really will be.  CLE requirements are met by attendance, not by demonstrating competence.  Simply to mandate attendance at a CLE by itself is not sufficient to ensure increased competence.

It also is not clear, to me at least, that there is any consensus as to what constitutes technological competence.  Are we talking about the ability for a lawyer to write a document himself or herself using a word processing program?  Or are we talking about an ability for a lawyer to handle the technological components of certain parts of the eDiscovery process?  Are we saying that lawyers ought to be able to make forensically sound copies of the contents of a hard drive?  Are we saying that they are to understand at some level what it means to make forensically sound copies of a hard drive?  Or are we talking about some other level of technological competence?

Another recent trend we’ve seen is a move toward SaaS automation, with not only certain providers making a splash by offering SaaS automation technology, but also “big boys” in the industry (such as kCura and Ipro) moving toward offering their own SaaS automation solutions.  What do you think the move toward automation will mean for the eDiscovery space?

“Automation” means many different things, depending upon which portion of the eDiscovery and larger legal technology space you focus on.  SaaS automation is only a piece.  For some time now, providers have been automating portions of the eDiscovery process, such as relying on automated steps to facility loading data into a platform, for example, or using TAR to improve the review workflow.  We only will see more of this.

We are beginning to see more effective use of data analytics at all stages of the EDRM diagram, from information governance through presentation.  Similarly, I think we are going to see more and more effective use of artificial intelligence across the full spectrum.  You can take that same concept and expand it out further. It’s not only for eDiscovery, but for all facets of the practice of law.  There are a growing number of people and organizations that are trying to figure out how technology can enhance what lawyers and their support staff are capable of doing.

In addition to what we’ve discussed about EDRM, what are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

Perhaps not surprisingly a significant part of my focus these days is the use of data analytics across all phases of the EDRM model as well as in related areas, such as information governance and cybersecurity.  It is not man versus machine; it is people and technology working together.

Thanks, George, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, 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.

Mary Mack of ACEDS: eDiscovery Trends

This is the third of the 2017 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY (aka Legalweek) this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Mary Mack of ACEDS.  Mary is the Executive Director of the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists (ACEDS).  E-discovery luminary and recipient of the Masters Conference Educator of the Year 2016, Mary provides ACEDS and its membership more than a decade of strong credibility and sound leadership within the e-discovery community. Mary is the author of A Process of Illumination: The Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery, considered by many to be the first popular book on e-discovery. She is the co-editor of the Thomson Reuters West treatise, eDiscovery for Corporate Counsel.

What are your expectations of LTNY this year?

{Interviewed Mary the first morning when the conference had really just started}

My biggest expectation is that I’m going to see people and that I’m going to renew relationships.  For example, I just bumped into Hampton Coley, whom I worked with maybe seven years ago and haven’t seen since we worked together.  Legaltech is the place where that’s possible.  But, some of the people that I would normally expect to be here, like Tom O’Connor, aren’t here this year.

From an educational standpoint, unfortunately most of the action is off the floor and away from the sessions, but I was looking at some of those sessions and they’re stellar.  There are some great educational sessions lined up at the show this year.  So, if I am fortunate enough to have an appointment drop out, I’m going to jump into a session or two.

How many years have you been coming to LTNY and how do you think the show has evolved over that time?

I’ve been coming to the show over ten years.  I think there was a time, maybe 2006 or 2007, where it was like everybody and their brother became an eDiscovery company.  Even the copy people had a sign for eDiscovery at their booths.  Now, I think LTNY has evolved to where it’s about an 80% eDiscovery show with 20% around the edges and I think the part that’s around the edges is really interesting.  I’m always looking for things that are going to impact eDiscovery that aren’t quite eDiscovery yet and we saw some of that in years past with Information Governance and with privacy, and now we’re seeing it with cybersecurity.

That was the topic of the event that we had last night – the state of the industry as it relates to eDiscovery and cybersecurity.  I think this year won’t quite be the breakout year for cybersecurity, but it will be the “seed planting” year for cybersecurity, with a look at how cybersecurity informs eDiscovery and how eDiscovery informs cybersecurity.  Because it’s not enough just to keep people out of your network, you need to prosecute, you need evidence and you need that evidence to be authentic.

As for the event we had last night, it was really fantastic.  Jared Cosegilia of Tru Staffing Partners did a good job of organizing the presentation and even had us rehearsing the transitions and breaks.  We were able to put our survey data out for people who are really interested in both security and privacy in our community.  We had some surprising things in our survey, like the fact that over half of the people participating are more than ten years tenured in the industry.  But, what I heard afterward is that government agencies in particular are looking for the younger eDiscovery professionals and they’re having a hard time finding them.  Most eDiscovery professionals are considerably tenured, but the agencies are looking for people that can come in at an entry level salary expectation that’s much different than what we have now.

I think the reason for that is that there really are no schools, other than Bryan University perhaps, with a degree for eDiscovery.  We have courses at UC Irvine and we’re looking at other law schools to teach eDiscovery.  Some law schools have a full course on eDiscovery; in other schools, it’s just one credit now.  But, there’s not an educational feeding ground for the young talent where that young talent has to come in and “earn their stripes”.  The ones who do come in are maybe paralegals, maybe legal assistants or maybe they’re an existing person in a corporation and that’s how they get in.  They’re just not coming fresh out of school.

With that in mind, we’ve seen a recent trend toward an emphasis on technology competence for attorneys and we’re up to 26 states that have adopted some sort of technology competence requirement, with Florida being the first state that has required technology CLE for their attorneys.  What impact do you think those developments will have on attorneys becoming more educated about technology?

I think the technology CLE requirement in Florida is very exciting.  From what I understand, they expected it to be controversial and it wasn’t – it was actually embraced.  So, I think that with those requirements, attorneys will embrace the opportunities to learn more about eDiscovery and I think Florida will see a nice “bump” there in attorney knowledge, like California did when they addressed knowledge of eDiscovery specifically in their formal opinion.  I think it will permeate outside of the “bubble” because the evidence is primarily electronic these days.  Sure, sometimes you have your signed papers and handwritten notes, but most evidence is originating in the digital world and it needs to be admitted and produced in the digital world.  I think that once that attorneys understand the technology and it becomes demystified and the fear goes away, I think that we’ll see them adopt and even embrace it.

Last year, ACEDS presented a handful of webinars and conference sessions related to automation and Technology Assisted Review and, as you’ll recall, there was lively discussion about TAR during those presentations, and even more lively discussions about TAR after those presentations.  Where do you feel we are today with regard to the acceptance of Technology Assisted Review?

It’s clearly being more and more accepted.  The Supreme Court of Victoria just explicitly approved it in the Rules for Australia.  Judge Peck, once again, wrote an opinion and highlighted how it is a process – it’s not just about the Technology Assisted Review, it’s also about how you perform the Technology Assisted Review.  At the conferences that I attend, when you ask audiences for a show of hands of those who have used TAR, you used to get maybe one or two hands raised.  Now, about half to three quarters of the audience raises their hands to the question of whether they’ve used TAR before.  So, I think the acceptance is there and it will take a different kind of lawyer to manage the reviews.  It’s not going to be your typical contract review attorney, it’s going to be more of a subject matter expert attorney that gets involved.  For the contract review attorneys, it’s an opportunity (and also a challenge) to “up-level” themselves to stay competitive and marketable.

What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

We’ve got a couple of big things happening: one that’s stealth and one that’s not stealth.  I’ll tell you first about the “not stealth” one: we received approval to provide pro bono scholarships for any organization working on Access to Justice.  Regardless whether it’s a corporate or law firm pro bono program, a law school clinic, an advocacy organization, the public defender’s victims’ rights organizations, any of these types of programs can sponsor a scholarship.  The only requirement that we have is that they perform eight hours of pro bono work in order to apply and then they can put whatever other requirements on it that they want.

Organizations who qualify can just pick somebody or hold a contest or whatever they want to do and we will enroll them in eDiscovery essentials, which is a $600 course that will give them an understanding of the functional landscape of eDiscovery, from soup to nuts, with a certificate to reflect completion of that course.  And, that will put them on the path to eDiscovery.  With what I was saying earlier about how government agencies can’t find those entry level people that they seek, part of the reason for that is that they can’t afford to get themselves educated.  So, this is a way for ACEDS to contribute to Access to Justice while also helping young people get that education.

The “stealth” item to mention is that we’re going to provide some cyber training.  We’re in beta and don’t have a press release or anything yet, but we’re working with Roy Zur, who gave a wonderful cybersecurity presentation at our national conference last year, on a project called “Cybint”.  He has put together an assessment and training program, with “bite size” training segments of around ten minutes each.  Once you take the assessment, you’ll know what training you need and you can focus on those specific ten minute training sessions to “up-level” your skills and start to bridge the gap between eDiscovery and cybersecurity.

Thanks, Mary, for participating in the interview!

Thank you, Doug, for your consistent and excellent reporting and blogging.

And to the readers, 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.