eDiscovery Journal

Minimizing Risk in Separation of Employment

We are living in an age of unprecedented layoffs, work stoppages, downsizing, and general unemployment. I frequently call out weak corporate termination policies/protocols during discovery health assessments. It is a complicated process with many players, data sources and heightened emotions. Most people hate confrontations or making a scene. Any fuzziness in your separation protocols may result in former employees walking away with corporate data [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-10T16:40:03-05:00August 10th, 2020|Info Gov, Essay, Regulations, Preservation, Compliance, Legal Holds, Privacy, Security, Expiration|0 Comments

Separation of Employment: Risk Assessment Workflow

Session workflow or check list to review separation of employment policies and protocols from a discovery readiness perspective. This is not actual policies or protocols. Instead, it is an extended bullet list of separation scenarios to consider and decision elements that your policies/protocols should cover. Every work environment has unique data systems, business models, risks and corporate cultures that must be considered when developing [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-10T15:54:44-05:00August 10th, 2020|Info Gov, Regulations, Compliance, Privacy, Research, Security, Management|0 Comments

Not So Simple Messaging?

Far too many of the marketing emails that wind up in my feeds or Inboxes do not convey the ‘simple’ functionality of the product or service. It is frustrating to have to go to a web site to figure out that SimpleLegal is a cloud based legal billing management platform. eBilling is a reality for corporations with any real litigation profile. Since Mitratech seems [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-06T16:35:43-05:00August 6th, 2020|News, Matter Management, Management|0 Comments

The New Buzzword – New Law?

Always interesting to see a new marketing term floated to see if it will stick. Zack provides good context and differentiation of the ‘New Law’ solutions being spun out of firms. We have known that the traditional partner track firm model has been slowly eroding. The days of massed associates pulling 12 hours coding shifts to plow through millions of documents are ending. Many [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-05T11:59:00-05:00August 5th, 2020|Provider, News, Firm, Analysis, Review|0 Comments

eDiscovery Consolidation – HaystackID & NightOwl

The eDiscovery market continues to stratify into global players and boutique shops. The merger of HaystackID and NightOwl does seem to have potential synergy since both focused on corporate managed services at different phases of the eDiscovery lifecycle. It will be interesting to see if we have a small round of layoffs after the dust settles. Can the merged company successfully pull market share [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-04T17:02:53-05:00August 4th, 2020|United States, Provider, News|0 Comments

Pricing Bait and Switch Games

Refreshing blog calling out classic eDiscovery sales/billing/pricing games. Our industry is rife with reps who are pressured to bid low and bill high. I do not recall being called an ‘ediscovery wonk’, but if the hat fits I will wear it. Since RFP engagements regularly follow up my typical strategy assessment or health check engagements, I see these games all the time. Cat’s basic [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-04T10:30:20-05:00August 4th, 2020|Provider, Platform, News, Processing, Analysis, Review, Production|0 Comments

PII in Your Discovery?

Epiq’s “Ruyk” ransomware attack in February cut off customer access to their hosted discovery matters for roughly three days. This outages constitutes a major service interruption and violation of normal Service Level Agreements for one of the largest global legal service providers. Beyond SLA penalties, missed production deadlines and unhappy customers, Epiq is now facing a potential class action suit under the new California [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-03T17:20:38-05:00August 3rd, 2020|Provider, News, Privacy, Security, ESI Sources|0 Comments

Are You an ESI Hoarder? Discovery Lessons from the Big Tech Hearings

How long should you keep ad hoc internal communications? That is the question that bubbled up while listening to the four Big Tech CEO’s trying to explain a few of their 1.3 million emails and internal documents obtained by the House Antitrust Subcommittee's investigation that kicked off June 2019. The vast majority of those exhibits dated from 2010-2012 M&A strategy discussions. We have no [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-08-03T16:41:25-05:00August 3rd, 2020|Caselaw, Essay, Regulations, Compliance, Privacy, Analysis, Content Management|0 Comments

Yet Another ‘New EDRM?’

For the past 15 years I have seen providers modifying, revising and ‘updating’ the EDRM model to better suit their products or services. A fast image search for ‘New EDRM’ brings up some lovely examples. I view Zapproved model as being more aspirational than practical based on what I see in most corporations. Zapproved’s EDMM imagines that discovery takes place inside corporate info governance [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-07-29T11:41:43-05:00July 29th, 2020|Info Gov, Investigation, News, Preservation, Collection, Processing, Analysis, Review, Production, Presentation, Expiration, Management|0 Comments

Trump’s Litigation Skeletons Refused to Stay In the Closet, How About Yours?

As I listened to an interview with Mary Trump about how she turned over financial documents to the New York Times it got me thinking about all the incredibly sensitive information just parked at firms world wide for inactive/settled matters. Fred Trump’s contested will was settled in 2001. Those 19 boxes of documents sat at her law firm for roughly 17 YEARS before she [...]

By Greg Buckles|2020-07-28T18:02:46-05:00July 28th, 2020|Essay, Matter Management, Expiration, Management|0 Comments

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