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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The headline got me excited that this new MSFT O365 package might enable my clients to better monitor policy and data management compliance. The reality seems pretty weak. Agentless monitoring of desktop and MS Edge actions such as downloads, forwards to banned domains, etc. We have been able to see those in logs for years and to create custom log based alerts. The new [...]
The above snippets are just two good examples of how preservation language and issues have evolved since Craig wrote his first exemplar preservation letter for the community back in 2006. I frequently review client preservation/record management policies, protocols and compliance practices to spot issues such as those called out above. I just wish that every plaintiff wrote their interrogatories and preservation demand letters in [...]
Ideally case studies lay out enough information about the challenges, pain points, approach strategies and metrics to calculate a decent ROI and give readers a peak into solving a particular problem. This SEC inquiry case study focuses on search/review/production issues for new generation collaboration systems like WhatsApp. Deduplication and conversation thread reconstruction is indeed a pain point, especially when execs were using multiple mobile [...]
I would guess that 80-90% of all eDiscovery articles, blogs, webinars, white papers, etc. are directly or indirectly paid PR pieces. I do not have issues with vendor backed content as long as the financial relationship is clearly disclosed so that the reader can watch for any hidden bias or agenda. When Barry Murphy and myself started the eDiscoveryJournal blog back in 2008 it [...]
While I am happy to see nimble cloud eDiscovery providers tackling the processing/review of mobile device ESI, I still want to see practical solutions for ongoing mobile device preservation and remote collection.
The relatively low rate of COVID-19 work safety lawsuits is not surprising while we are in the midst of the pandemic. I expect an inevitable surge in personal injury advertisements after we have an effective treatment or vaccine. “Were you or a loved one infected at work? Let the tough, smart lawyers at Acme Firm fight for your fair compensation!” I am not saying [...]