Review Archives

Want to Save Review Costs? Be the Master of Your Domain(s): eDiscovery Best Practices

June 4, 2015

Yesterday, we discussed how some BigLaw firms mark-up reviewer billing rates two to three times (or more) when billing their clients. But, even if that’s not the case, review is still by far the most expensive phase of eDiscovery. One way to minimize those costs is to identify documents that need little or no review and domain categorization can help in identifying those documents.

Even though the types of electronically stored information (ESI) continue to be more diverse, with social media and other sources of ESI becoming more prominent, email is still generally the biggest component of most ESI collections and each participant in an email communication belongs to a domain associated with the email server that manages their email.

Several review platforms, including (shameless plug warning!) our CloudNine™ platform (see example above using the ever so ubiquitous Enron data set), support domain categorization by providing a list of domains associated with the ESI collection being reviewed, with a count for each domain that appears in emails in the collection. Domain categorization provides several benefits when reviewing your collection by identifying groups of documents, such as:

Non-Responsive ESI: Let’s face it, even if we cull the collection based on search terms, certain non-responsive documents will get through. For example, if custodians have received fantasy football emails from ESPN.com or weekly business newsletters from Fortune.com and those slip through the search criteria, that can add costs to review clearly non-responsive ESI. Instead, with domain categorization, domains in the list that are obviously non-responsive to the case can be quickly identified and all messages associated with those domains (and their attachments) can be “group-tagged” as non-responsive.
Potentially Privileged ESI: If there are any emails associated with outside counsel’s domain, they could obviously represent attorney work product or attorney-client privileged communications (or both). Domain categorization is a quick way to “group-tag” them as potentially privileged, so that they can be reviewed for privilege and dealt with quickly and effectively.
Issue Identification: Messages associated with certain parties might be related to specific issues (e.g., an alleged design flaw of a specific subcontractor’s product), so domain categorization can isolate those messages more quickly and get them prioritized for review.

In essence, domain categorization enables you to put groups of documents into “buckets” to either eliminate them from review entirely or to classify them for a specific workflow for review, saving time and cost during the review process. Time is money!

So, what do you think? Does your review platform provide a mechanism for domain categorization? If so, do you use it to help manage the review process and control costs? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

This Firm Marked Up Reviewer Billings Over 500 Percent and that’s Not the Worst Part: eDiscovery Trends

June 3, 2015

Remember when we asked the question whether a blended document review rate of $466 per hour is excessive? Many of you weighed in on that one and that post is still our most viewed of all time. Marking up the billing rate for reviewers over 500 percent may or may not also be unacceptable, depending on who you talk to. But, everyone agrees that billing more hours than you actually worked is a bad thing.

According to a new article by Gina Passarella in The Legal Intelligencer (Are Contract Attorney Markups Of Any Concern to Clients?), a former Drinker Biddle & Reath contract attorney received a two-year suspension last week for overbilling a client on document review. The attorney worked for the firm from 2011 through 2012, where he was paid $40 an hour and charged out to a client at $245 an hour.

If you’re whipping out your calculator, I’ll save you the trouble – that’s a 513 percent markup (rounded up).

But, that’s not why he was suspended. It turns out that the attorney logged more time into the firm’s time accounting system than he was logged into the firm’s eDiscovery system and had overbilled for the 12 months he was at the firm. Drinker Biddle terminated the attorney within days of discovering the discrepancy.

But, according to Passarella’s article, “the legal community’s reaction focused not so much on the behavior as on the lawyer’s billing rate… Some have described a 513 percent markup as ‘stratospheric’ while others have said a firm’s internal profitability is none of the client’s business as long as the client feels it is getting the perceived value from the business transaction.”

Drinker Biddle chairman Andrew C. Kassner defended the markup, citing overhead costs and said that the firm works hard to ensure value for the client and provided a lower-cost option to the client by using a contract lawyer rather than an associate.

Unlike Mark Antony (the Roman emperor, not the singer), I don’t come to bury Drinker Biddle in this article, many law firms mark review up considerably. And, as Passarella notes, “Drinker Biddle was certainly an early adopter of the value proposition espoused by the Association of Corporate Counsel and others, becoming one of the first law firms to create a chief value officer position in 2010 and forming an associate training program post-recession that didn’t charge clients for the first four months of a first-year’s time.”

However, Passarella’s article does quote three individuals who questioned the current billing model: 1) a former general counsel who, while he was in-house, “decoupled” the use of contract attorneys from outside counsel, 2) a former BigLaw attorney who became disenchanted with the large-firm business model and created his own firm which focuses on providing better value to clients, and 3) an Altman Weil consultant who questioned the $245 value for document review, noting that “if it were really important they wouldn’t be using a $40-an-hour lawyer”. Perhaps we should revisit the discussion as to whether it’s time to ditch the per hour model for document review?

As for the overbilling, Kassner said the firm paid back the client all that it was charged for the overbilled time as well as for any time the attorney charged on the matter.

So, what do you think? Is it time to ditch the per hour model for document review? Or, is marking up reviewer billing two to three times (or more) an acceptable practice? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

For a Successful Outcome to Your Discovery Project, Work Backwards: eDiscovery Best Practices

May 22, 2015

Based on a recent experience with a client, it seemed appropriate to revisit this topic. Plus, it’s always fun to play with the EDRM model. Notice anything different? 🙂

While the Electronic Discovery Reference Model from EDRM has become the standard model for the workflow of the process for handling electronically stored information (ESI) in discovery, it might be helpful to think about the EDRM model and work backwards, whether you’re the producing party or the receiving party.

Why work backwards?

You can’t have a successful outcome without envisioning the successful outcome that you want to achieve. The end of the discovery process includes the production and presentation stages, so it’s important to determine what you want to get out of those stages. Let’s look at them.

Presentation

Whether you’re a receiving party or a producing party, it’s important to think about what types of evidence you need to support your case when presenting at depositions and at trial – this is the type of information that needs to be included in your production requests at the beginning of the case as well as the type of information that you’ll need to preserve as a producing party.

Production

The format of the ESI produced is important to both sides in the case. For the receiving party, it’s important to get as much useful information included in the production as possible. This includes metadata and searchable text for the produced documents, typically with an index or load file to facilitate loading into a review application. The most useful form of production is native format files with all metadata preserved as used in the normal course of business.

For the producing party, it’s important to be efficient and minimize costs, so it’s important to agree to a production format that minimizes production costs. Converting files to an image based format (such as TIFF) adds costs, so producing in native format can be cost effective for the producing party as well. It’s also important to determine how to handle issues such as privilege logs and redaction of privileged or confidential information.

Addressing production format issues up front will maximize cost savings and enable each party to get what they want out of the production of ESI. If you don’t, you could be arguing in court like our case participants from yesterday’s post.

Processing-Review-Analysis

It also pays to make decisions early in the process that affect processing, review and analysis. How should exception files be handled? What do you do about files that are infected with malware? These are examples of issues that need to be decided up front to determine how processing will be handled.

As for review, the review tool being used may impact how quick and easy it is to get started, to load data and to use the tool, among other considerations. If it’s Friday at 5 and you have to review data over the weekend, is it easy to get started? As for analysis, surely you test search terms to determine their effectiveness before you agree on those terms with opposing counsel, right?

Preservation-Collection-Identification

Long before you have to conduct preservation and collection for a case, you need to establish procedures for implementing and monitoring litigation holds, as well as prepare a data map to identify where corporate information is stored for identification, preservation and collection purposes.

And, before a case even begins, you need an effective Information Governance program to minimize the amount of data that you might have to consider for responsiveness in the first place.

As you can see, at the beginning of a case (and even before), it’s important to think backwards within the EDRM model to ensure a successful discovery process. Decisions made at the beginning of the case affect the success of those latter stages, so working backwards can help ensure a successful outcome!

So, what do you think? What do you do at the beginning of a case to ensure success at the end? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

For Better Document Review, You Need to Approach a ZEN State: eDiscovery Best Practices

May 6, 2015

Among the many definitions of the word “zen”, the Urban Dictionary provides perhaps the most appropriate (non-religious) definition of the word, as follows: a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. However, when it comes to document review, a new web site by eDiscovery thought leader Ralph Losey may change your way of thinking about the word “ZEN”.

Ralph’s new site, ZEN Document Review, introduces ‘ZEN’ as an acronym: Zero Error Numerics. As stated on the site, “ZEN document review is designed to attain the highest possible level of efficiency and quality in computer assisted review. The goal is zero error. The methods to attain that goal include active machine learning, random sampling, objective measurements, and comparative analysis using simple, repeatable systems.”

The ZEN methods were developed by Ralph Losey’s e-Discovery Team (many of which are documented on his excellent e-Discovery Team® blog). They rely on focused attention and full clear communication between review team members.

In the intro video on his site, Ralph acknowledges that it’s impossible to have zero error in any large, complex project, but “with the help of the latest tools and using the right mindset, we can come pretty damn close”. One of the graphics on the site represents an “upside down champagne glass” that illustrates 99.9% probable relevant identified correctly during the review process at the top of the graph and 00.1% probable relevant identified incorrectly at the bottom of the graph.

The ZEN approach includes everything from “predictive coding analytics, a type of artificial intelligence, actively managed by skilled human analysts in a hybrid approach” to “quiet, uninterrupted, single-minded focus” where “dual tasking during review is prohibited” to “judgmental and random sampling and analysis such as i-Recall” and even high ethics, with the goal being to “find and disclose the truth in compliance with local laws, not win a particular case”. And thirteen other factors, as well. Hey, nobody said that attaining ZEN is easy!

Attaining zero error in document review is a lofty goal – I admire Ralph for setting the bar high. Using the right tools, methods and attitude, can we come “pretty damn close”? What do you think? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Managing Email Signature Logos During Review: eDiscovery Best Practices

April 8, 2015

Yesterday, we discussed how corporate logo graphic files in email signatures can add complexity when managing those emails in eDiscovery, as these logos, repeated over and over again, can add up to a significant percentage of your collection on a file count basis. Today, we are going to discuss a couple of ways that I have worked with clients to manage those files during the review process.

These corporate logos cause several eDiscovery complications such as slowing page refreshes in review tools and wasting reviewer time and making review even more tedious. I’ll focus on those particular issues below.

It should be noted that, as VP of Professional Services at CloudNine, my (recent) experience in assisting clients has primarily been using CloudNine’s review platform, so, with all due respect to those “technically astute vendor colleagues” that Craig Ball referred to in his excellent post last week, I’ll be discussing how I have handled the situation with logos in Outlook emails at CloudNine (shameless plug warning!).

Processing Embedded Graphics within Emails

I think it’s safe to say as a general rule, when it comes to processing of Outlook format emails (whether those originated from EDB, OST, PST or MSG files), most eDiscovery processing applications (including LAW and CloudNine’s processing application, Discovery Client) treat embedded graphic files as attachments to the email and those are loaded into most review platforms as attachments linked to the parent email. So, a “family” that consists of an email with two attached PDF files and a corporate logo graphic file would actually have four “family” members with the corporate logo graphic file (assuming that there is just one) as one of the four “family” members.

This basically adds an extra “document” to each email with a logo that is included in the review population (more than one per email if there are additional logo graphics for links to the organization’s social media sites). These files don’t require any thought during review, but they still have to be clicked through and marked as reviewed during a manual review process. This adds time and tedium to an already tedious process. If those files could be excluded from the review population, reviewers could focus on more substantive files in the collection.

In Discovery Client, an MD5 hash value is computed for each individual file, including each email attachment (including embedded graphics). So, if the same GIF file is used over and over again for a corporate logo, it would have the same MD5 hash value in each case. CloudNine provides a Quick Search function that enables you to retrieve all documents in the collection with the same value as the current document. So, if you’re currently viewing a corporate logo file, it’s easy to retrieve all documents with the same MD5 hash value, apply a tag to those documents and then use the tag to exclude them from review. I’ve worked with clients to do this before to enable them to shorten the review process while establishing more reliable metrics for the remaining documents being reviewed.

It should be noted that doing so doesn’t preclude you from assigning responsiveness settings from the rest of the “family” to the corporate logo later if you plan to produce those corporate logos as separate attachments to opposing counsel.

Viewing Emails with Embedded Logos

Embedded logos and other graphics files can slow down the retrieval of emails for viewing in some document viewers, depending on how they render those graphics. By default, Outlook emails are already formatted in HTML and CloudNine provides an HTML view option that enables the user to view the email without the embedded graphics. As a result, the email retrieves more quickly, so, in many cases, where the graphics don’t add value, the HTML view option will speed up the review process (users can still view the full native file with embedded graphics as needed). In working with clients, I’ve recommended the HTML view tab as the default view in CloudNine as a way of speeding retrieval of files for review, which helps speed up the overall review process.

So, what do you think? Do you find that corporate logo graphics files are adding complexity to your own eDiscovery processes? If so, how do you address the issue? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Document Reviewers are People Too, Even in Canada, eh?: eDiscovery Trends

March 25, 2015

A couple of weeks ago, a $384 million class action was filed in Canada against professional services firm Deloitte LLP on behalf of hundreds of lawyers working at a document-review company it acquired last year. Even in Canadian dollars, that’s a lot.

As reported on by Canadian Lawyer’s blog Legal Feeds (Document review workers launch class action against Deloitte), on March 9, Canadian document review attorney Shireen Sondhi filed suit against Deloitte, which acquired ATD Legal Services in 2014, alleging document review attorneys were improperly classified as independent contractors (thereby exempt from protection under the Employment Standards Act).

Sondhi claims she and her colleagues were for years denied statutory labor protections, such as notice of termination. She also claims that they were also deprived of entitlements such as vacation pay and overtime – with even bathroom breaks docked from their overall compensation.

Despite the absence of statutory protections, the plaintiff alleges she and her class members agreed to the onerous conditions because they could ill afford to make demands of their employer amid Canada’s cutthroat legal jobs market.

“For many young lawyers, saddled with staggering student debt and desperate not to leave the field of law, document review is a last resort,” the statement of claim reads. “Deloitte is one of only a few document review companies in Ontario, and for many Class Members, represents their sole source of income.”

“These workers were supervised in Deloitte’s offices, they didn’t provide their own tools, or control their own schedules,” said plaintiff’s counsel Andrew Monkhouse in a statement. “It is simple logic that a lawyer, hired into a non-legal job, would be eligible for every protection under the law that non-lawyers are afforded.”

The conflict between Sondhi and her employer arose after Deloitte acquired ATD in January 2014. The claim alleges that, upon Deloitte’s acquisition, the new parent company imposed terms on document review workers that suggested a tacit acknowledgment of potential liability.

Deloitte required document reviewers to contract to an intermediary, Procom Consultants Group (also named in the suit), which then began withholding employment insurance (EI) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) deductions. The claim alleges this intermediary served to minimize Deloitte’s liability.

Procom then charged Deloitte a fee amounting to $3 per hour – a charge passed on to the document reviewers, who received no benefit from the arrangement. All told, the fee, along with the EI and CPP deductions, reduced the take-home pay of document reviewers from $50 per hour to just over $40 per hour.

A major part of the dispute is whether document review is considered legal work. As reported in Law Times earlier this month, Sondhi says an amended Deloitte contract later took out a clause that deemed the document review work to be non-legal but described it as a “data processing and computer services” function that still doesn’t require LawPRO liability insurance. At that point, Sondhi says she sent an e-mail to the management team expressing the concerns she still had.

“I got this e-mail back from an employee at Procom saying, ‘Deloitte is not prepared to change the contract any further. Either you sign the contract or you consider your relationship terminated. Don’t come into the office tomorrow morning,’” she says. “So I wrote back and said, ‘I’m not comfortable with this. You haven’t answered my question, and I will not be signing the contract.’”

“I was shocked that Deloitte went as far as terminating me for vocalizing opposition to the Procom contract,” said Sondhi in a statement. “The entire situation reinforced to me just how great the power disparity was between Deloitte and I.”

So, what do you think? Does the class of document reviewers have a case? Should the work that document reviewers perform be considered legal work? 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. eDiscoveryDaily 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Judge Peck Wades Back into the TAR Pits with ‘Da Silva Moore Revisited’: eDiscovery Case Law

March 12, 2015

In Rio Tinto Plc v. Vale S.A., 14 Civ. 3042 (RMB)(AJP) (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 2, 2015), New York Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck approved the proposed protocol for technology assisted review (TAR) presented by the parties, but made it clear to note that “the Court’s approval ‘does not mean. . . that the exact ESI protocol approved here will be appropriate in all [or any] future cases that utilize [TAR].’”

Judge’s Opinion

Judge Peck began by stating that it had been “three years since my February 24, 2012 decision in Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Grp., 287 F.R.D. 182 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)” (see our original post about that case here), where he stated:

“This judicial opinion now recognizes that computer-assisted review [i.e., TAR] is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases.”

Judge Peck then went on to state that “[i]n the three years since Da Silva Moore, the case law has developed to the point that it is now black letter law that where the producing party wants to utilize TAR for document review, courts will permit it.” (Here are links to cases we’ve covered related to TAR in the last three years). He also referenced the Dynamo Holdings case from last year, calling it “instructive” in its approval of TAR, noting that the tax court ruled that “courts leave it to the parties to decide how best to respond to discovery requests”.

According to Judge Peck, the TAR issue still to be addressed overall “is how transparent and cooperative the parties need to be with respect to the seed or training set(s)”, commenting that “where the parties do not agree to transparency, the decisions are split and the debate in the discovery literature is robust”. While observing that the court “need not rule on the need for seed set transparency in this case, because the parties agreed to a protocol that discloses all non-privileged documents in the control sets”, Judge Peck stated:

“One point must be stressed — it is inappropriate to hold TAR to a higher standard than keywords or manual review. Doing so discourages parties from using TAR for fear of spending more in motion practice than the savings from using TAR for review.”

While approving the parties’ TAR protocol, Judge Peck indicated that he wrote this opinion, “rather than merely signing the parties’ stipulated TAR protocol, because of the interest within the ediscovery community about TAR cases and protocols.” And, he referenced Da Silva Moore once more, stating “the Court’s approval ‘does not mean. . . that the exact ESI protocol approved here will be appropriate in all [or any] future cases that utilize [TAR]. Nor does this Opinion endorse any vendor . . ., nor any particular [TAR] tool.’”

So, what do you think? How transparent should the technology assisted review process be? 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Brad Jenkins of CloudNine: eDiscovery Trends

February 23, 2015

This is the first of the 2015 LegalTech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series. eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year and generally asked each of them the following questions:

What are your general observations about LTNY this year and how it fits into emerging trends? Do you think American Lawyer Media (ALM) should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year to minimize travel disruptions due to weather?
After our discussion last year regarding the new amendments to discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, additional changes were made to Rule 37(e). Do you see those changes as being positive and do you see the new amendments passing through Congress this year?
Last year, most thought leaders agreed that, despite numerous resources in the industry, most attorneys still don’t know a lot about eDiscovery. Do you think anything has been done in the past year to improve the situation?
What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

Today’s thought leader is Brad Jenkins of CloudNine™. Brad has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, as well as 15 years leading customer focused companies in the litigation support arena. Brad has authored several articles on document management and litigation support issues, and has appeared as a speaker before national audiences on document management practices and solutions. He’s also my boss! 🙂

What are your general observations about LTNY this year and how it fits into emerging trends? Do you think American Lawyer Media (ALM) should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year to minimize travel disruptions due to weather?

LTNY seemed reasonably well attended this year and I think it was a good show. I have noticed a drop in the number of listed exhibitors though, from 225 a couple of years ago to 199 this year. Not sure if that’s a reflection of consolidation in the industry or providers simply choosing to market to prospects in other ways. I guess we’ll see. Nonetheless, I thought there were several good sessions, especially the three judges’ sessions that addressed key cases, the rules changes and general problems with discovery. I liked the fact that those were free and available to all attendees, not just paid ones. Not surprisingly, those sessions were very well attended.

Overall, I thought the primary focus of this show’s curriculum in three areas: information governance (which had its own educational track at the show), cybersecurity and data privacy. With the amazing pace at which Big Data is growing, I expect information governance to be a major topic for some time to come, especially with regard to the use of technology to manage growing data volumes. And, as we discussed in this blog a couple of weeks ago, data breaches continue to be on the rise and we’ve already had a major one involving over 80 million records this year. That’s also going to continue to be a major focus.

One issue at the show that I think affected several attendees was the sudden lack of meeting space. The Hilton got rid of its lobby lounge, replacing it with a smaller executive lounge limited to hotel guests. And, ALM booked up the Bridges Bar for private events throughout the show. Meetings and discussions are a big part of LTNY and I hope ALM will take that into account next year and at least make the Bridges Bar available for meetings.

As for whether ALM should consider moving LTNY to a different time of year, there are pros and cons to that. As a person who missed the show entirely last year due to weather and travel issues and was delayed a few hours this year, it would be nice to minimize the chance of weather delays. On the other hand, I suspect that part of the reason that the show is in the winter is that it’s less costly to host then. Certainly, vendors would need an advanced heads up of at least a year if ALM were to decide to move the show to a different time of year. I don’t expect that to happen, despite the recent travel issues for remote attendees.

After our discussion last year regarding the new amendments to discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, additional changes were made to Rule 37(e). Do you see those changes as being positive and do you see the new amendments passing through Congress this year?

I’m not an attorney and am no expert on the rules, but, based on everything that I’ve heard, it sounds as though they should pass. I know that large organizations are counting on Rule 37(e) to reduce their preservation burden. I think whether it will or not will depend on judges’ interpretation of Rule 37(e)(2) (which enables more severe sanctions “only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use”). That section may result in lesser sanctions in at least some cases, but we’ll see. At eDiscovery Daily, we’ve covered over 60 cases per year each of the past three years, so at some point in a year or two, it will be interesting to look back at trends and what they show.

Last year, most thought leaders agreed that, despite numerous resources in the industry, most attorneys still don’t know a lot about eDiscovery. Do you think anything has been done in the past year to improve the situation?

I think it’s still a battle. We continue to work with a lot of firms whose attorneys lack basic eDiscovery fundamentals and we continue to provide education through this blog and consulting to attorneys to assist them with technical language in requests for production to ensure that they receive the most useful form of production to them, native files with included metadata. I think it’s imperative for providers like us to continue to do what we can to simplify the discovery process for our clients – through education and through streamlining of processes and process improvement. That’s what our corporate mission is and it continues to be a major focus for CloudNine.

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

Well, speaking of has “anything been done in the past year to improve the situation”, in November, we released CloudNine’s new easy-to-use Discovery Client application to automate the processing and uploading of raw native data into our CloudNine platform. Many of our clients have struggled with having data dumped on their desk at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon and having to fill out forms, swap emails and play phone tag with vendors to get the data up quickly so that they can review it over the weekend. With CloudNine’s Discovery Client, they can get data processed and loaded themselves without having to contact a vendor, whether it is load ready or not.

The application will extract data from archives such as ZIP and PST files, extract metadata, extract and index text (and OCR documents without text) render native files to HTML and identify duplicates based on MD5HASH value. The application will also generate key data assessment analytics such as domain categorization to enable attorneys to develop an understanding of their data more quickly. And, we are just about to release a new version of the Discovery Client that will enable clients to simply process the data and retrieve the processed data to load into their own preferred platform (if it’s not CloudNine), so we can support you even if you use a different review platform.

Our do-It-yourself features such as loading your own data, adding your own users and fields, accessing audit logs and setting user rights gives our clients unique control of their review process and makes it easier for them to understand eDiscovery and feel in control of the process. Simplifying discovery and taking the worry out of it (as much as possible) is what CloudNine is all about.

Thanks, Brad, 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

DESI Wants Your Input! – eDiscovery Trends

January 20, 2015

It’s not Desi Arnaz who wants it, but the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (DESI) VI workshop, which is being held at the University of San Diego on June 8 as part of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (ICAIL 2015).

The DESI VI workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore innovation and the development of best practices for application of search, classification, language processing, data management, visualization, and related techniques to institutional and organizational records in eDiscovery, information governance, public records access, and other legal settings. Ideally, the aim of the DESI workshop series has been to foster a continuing dialogue leading to the adoption of further best practice guidelines or standards in using machine learning, most notably in the eDiscovery space. Organizing committee members include Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Douglas W. Oard of the University of Maryland.

Previous DESI workshops were held in places like Palo Alto, London, Barcelona, Rome and Pittsburgh (maybe not as exciting as the other locales, but they don’t have six Super Bowl championships 🙂 ).

DESI VI invites “refereed” papers (due by April 10 and limited to 4-10 pages) describing research or practice. After peer review, accepted papers will be posted on the DESI VI website and distributed to workshop participants. Authors of accepted refereed papers will be invited to present their work either as an oral or a poster presentation. They also invite “unrefereed” position papers (due by May 1and typically 2-3 pages) describing individual interests for inclusion (without review) on the DESI VI Web site and distribution to workshop participants. Submissions should be sent by email to Doug Oard (oard@umd.edu) with the subject line DESI VI POSITION PAPER or DESI VI RESEARCH PAPER. All submissions received will be acknowledged within 3 days.

Participation in the DESI VI workshop is open. Submission of papers is encouraged, but not required.

For more information about the workshop, click the Call for Submissions here (or here for the PDF version). The Call for Submissions also includes a References section which includes papers and cases useful as background reading for the focus of the workshop – even if you don’t plan to go, it’s a good list to check out. I’m happy to say that most of the cases on the list have been covered by this blog (including Da Silva Moore, EORHB v. HOA Holdings, Global Aerospace Inc., et al. v. Landow Aviation, L.P. and others.

So, what do you think? Are you going to attend? Submit a paper? 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. eDiscoveryDaily 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Three “C”s, Cowboys, Cannibals and Craig (Ball) – eDiscovery Best Practices

January 14, 2015

They say that a joke is only old if you haven’t heard it before. In that vein, an article about eDiscovery is only old if you haven’t read it before. Craig Ball is currently revisiting some topics that he covered ten years ago with an updated look, making them appropriate for 1) people who weren’t working in eDiscovery ten years ago (which is probably a lot of you), 2) people who haven’t read the articles previously and 3) people who have read the articles previously, but haven’t seen his updated takes. In other words, everybody.

So far, Craig has published three revisited articles to his terrific Ball in your court blog. They are:

Starting Over, which sets the stage for the series, and covers The DNA of Data, which was the very first Ball in your court (when it was still in print form). This article discusses how electronic evidence isn’t going away and claims of inaccessible data and how technological advances have rendered claims of inaccessibility mostly moot.

Unclear on the Concept (originally published in Law Technology News in May of 2005), which discusses some of the challenges of early concept searching and related tools (when terms like “predictive coding” and “technology assisted review” hadn’t even entered our lexicon yet). Craig also pokes fun at himself for noting back then how he read Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Joyce Carol Oates in grade school. 🙂

Cowboys and Cannibals (originally published in Law Technology News in June of 2005), which discusses the need for a new email “sheriff” in town (not to be confused with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola in this case) to classify emails for easier retrieval. Back then, we didn’t know just how big the challenge of Information Governance would become. His updated take concludes as follows:

“What optimism exists springs from the hope that we will move from the Wild West to Westworld, that Michael Crichton-conceived utopia where robots are gunslingers. The technology behind predictive coding will one day be baked into our IT apps, and much as it serves to protect us from spam today, it will organize our ESI in the future.”

That day is coming, hopefully sooner rather than later. And, you have to love a blog post that references Westworld, which was a terrific story and movie back in the 70s (wonder why nobody has remade that one yet?).

eDiscovery Daily has revisited topics several times as well, especially some of the topics we covered in the early days of the blog, when we didn’t have near as many followers yet. It’s new if you haven’t read it, right? I look forward to future posts in Craig’s series.

So, what do you think? How long have you been reading articles about eDiscovery? 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. eDiscoveryDaily 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. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

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