eDJ Migrated

In case you could not make THE legal technology conference, LTNY 2012, I thought that I would bring the show to life for you. The eDJ Group’s day kicked off far too early with our eDJ Peer Group breakfast, but we had good attendance and great participation in the open discussion. The team then dove into analyst/press briefings on many (but not all) of the new product releases, which we will boil down for you in the days following the show. I decided to try to abandon my laptop and Moleskine notebook this time. I tried out every iPad note taking app I could pay for that promised to accurately recognize my sanscrit scrawl and render it into searchable text. Utter failure. For those of you from the early EDD days, remember the first generation of OCR programs and wince. That’s about how bad they are. To make it worse, I became obsessed with ditching the ever-present backpack or LTNY trash bag. So I actually shopped for an iPad ‘holster’ and bought an STM sleeve that promised to provide easy, safe storage without the ever present shoulder strap. However, my fashion faux-paux was quickly spotted by my kind team-mates who reminded me that I was wearing a geek man-purse.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2012-02-01 19:54:19  Whew!!  I’m sitting down for the first time in hours…I have a glass of cabernet sitting in front of me next to a significant stack of business cards and marketing materials.  The whirlwind known as LegalTech NY is over and it’s time to decompress and absorb all of the information that I’ve taken in over the [...]

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Mikki Tomlinson. Published: 2012-02-02 18:04:13  The Honorable Andrew J. Peck, United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York, graciously allowed me to interview him after the LTNY Man vs. Machine:  The Promise/Challenge of Predictive Coding & Other Disruptive Technologies session in which he participated as a panelist.  Judge Peck shared the panel with industry luminaries Maura Grossman [...]

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Amber Scorah. Published: 2012-02-06 17:23:55  The line of transparency and privilege is a difficult one to walk.  In part two of this interview, we discuss more issues faced by outside counsel, including some insights into asserting attorney client privilege for electronically stored information, where the line of transparency lies, and how to ensure that reasonable steps were taken to prevent [...]

Today, Guidance Software announced the acquisition of CaseCentral, a provider of EDD processing and review. According the press release, “under the terms of the agreement, Guidance Software will acquire CaseCentral for upfront consideration of approximately $17.1 million, consisting of $8.3 million in cash, $8.3 million in Guidance Software common stock, and the assumption of $0.5 million of debt, net of cash. Depending on CaseCentral’s SaaS revenue growth, Guidance Software may pay up to an additional $33 million in cash over the next three years.”

This was my first LegalTech where I could put on my analyst hat without needing to manage corporate clients or speaking panels. It brought home to me just how hard it was to switch mindsets and reminded me of the 2010 PBS special, “Digital Nation” that shattered my personal myth of multitasking. It is safe to say that I brought more to my hectic briefing schedule this year and took a lot more out of them as well. The other new element was taking digital notes on the iPad. Barry liked the Penultimate app, while I finally settled on PhatPad with the hope that I could leverage it’s handwriting recognition, photo and audio recording features.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Lynn Frances Jae. Published: 2012-02-09 07:00:01  Predictive Coding, or Technology Assisted Review (TAR) was the subject of five sessions at LegalTech. Even when it wasn’t the focus of a session, it was often mentioned. Why? Probably because so many of the eDiscovery experts have been busy reminding us of how ineffective our traditional means of identifying relevant documents actually are. [...]

It has been stated over and over in discussions around PC-TAR, that it is imperative to have a well-defined workflow that includes solid processes for purposes of defensibility (e.g., sampling, documentation). In Part One I pointed out that we had these same conversations around acceptable, defensible practices when using key terms and all human review. Yet, there are still a number of practitioners that are not making use of solid, defensible practices. For example, I continue to see attorneys blindly selecting key terms and proceed directly to process, review, and production with no sampling and minimal documentation along the way. My question, then, remains whether the discussions surrounding PC-TAR will prompt practitioners to employ better practices no matter what method of collection/search/review is. Or, will we maintain the status quo: those that understand the need for and importance of solid processes and project management, and those that don’t?

Behind our firewall, eDJ has a custom Google search engine based on the top 1,000+ eDiscovery related sites and search terms. I was ‘working’ on this engine over the weekend, as we all know that relevance is a moving target and searches must be optimized to stay relevant. A strange headline from my local paper caught my eye, “Falkenberg: Housing authority’s snoop had eye on others” from the Houston Chronicle. A quick scan revealed that the local county housing authority hired an eDiscovery service provider, Pathway Forensics, to make an open records request for emails, phone records and credit card statements of the local county judge and his staff. That same county judge has questioned recent large salary adjustments and pet projects of the housing authority’s top officials. The short article explains the almost comic plot to get some kind of dirt on an elected official who is trying to mind the public coffers. More relevant to our eDiscovery community is the questionable role that an eDiscovery service provider plays in this comedy of errors.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2012-02-13 18:06:26  The eDiscoveryJournal has been growing in both readership and content over the past few months (thank you to all of our wonderful readers).  Our goal is to provide as much possible insight on the issues and trends related to the eDiscovery and Information Governance spaces.  In order to expand that insight, we have three more independent [...]