o, what does it mean to take eDiscovery in-house? The way I see it, the movement in-house consists of the acquisition of tools for information management, identification, collection, preservation, processing, and some element of review and analysis (the left side of the EDRM) and active participation in managing the cost of review.
The 2009 economic downturn created a boom in the offshore review industry. The cost of review still dominates the eDiscovery lifecycle and is the top target for budget conscious corporate legal departments. Corporate counsel tends to start with the actual hourly wages of reviewers because that does not change their current workflow. Some work with pools of contract attorneys to bring the hourly rates down to $25-$80 per hour. But this still requires outside or inside counsel to manage the review and invest in the review platform to host the data. Outsourced service providers have traditionally handled the large, multiparty matters and supplied both project management as well as offshore contract reviewers. This is the root of the new Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) service model. Integreon, one of the largest LPO players, announced that it had been named in a writ for unlicensed practice of law to the Madras High Court in India.
I believe a good argument can be made there is much similarity between operating a traveling circus and operating a small to mid-sized law firm. And much to be learned from the former by the latter.
Transparency – it’s a word we hear often now. Merriam-Webster defines the term transparent as being “free from pretense or deceit,” “easily detected or seen through,” or “readily understood.” The Obama Administration talks about transparency and government; about how government should be accountable and able to share information about its operations with the public. The FRCP Amendments aim to hold organizations accountable for transparency, for being able to share information when required. And, we at eDiscoveryJournal aim to enforce transparency within an industry shrouded in complexity (and peppered with non-standardized terms and phrases).
Although my consulting practice focuses on corporate legal departments and Biglaw firms, expert work does not discriminate against small firms. Following a recent consultation, an attorney from a small three man firm reached out to me for advice on basic software to handle their modest needs. It had been a while(quite a while) since I had checked the options and pricing for technology appropriate for this part of the market. I was seriously out of touch on the per seat pricing for CT Summation’s iBlaze and the firm definitely did not want any volume or subscription based licensing. They wanted to buy software, learn to use it and get on with practicing law. This exercise reminded me of Craig Ball’s EDna Challenge back in January. My challenge was about equipping a small or solo firm with basic eDiscovery technology without breaking their budget.
Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Barry Murphy. Published: 2010-04-05 16:16:23 From time to time, you get asked a question so many times that it makes sense to just go find the answer. If only it were that easy, but I’m going to try. Lately, I’ve been asked about the need for forensic collection a lot. Organizations want to know how forensic collection fits into their [...]
In several recent posts, Barry and I have called out the challenges of collecting dynamic content from web based collaboration platforms, focusing on Sharepoint as the market leading platform. It is definitely on the minds of corporate legal departments and providers alike. Our articles prompted the team at Kiersted Systems to request a demo and briefing on their newest Sharepoint collection and review offering. Although we do not do classic product ‘reviews’ at eDiscoveryJournal, I do like to explore the implications of new methodologies and technologies. Sharepoint 2010 itself is new to the market and brings new capabilities to manage legal holds on records as well as more robust search and export features. The new ability to make a ‘preservation copy’ within Sharepoint is probably the highlight feature to take note of. They have wrapped a bit more workflow and specific action templates around holds, search and export, but the basic item level functionality seems unchanged.
eDiscoveryJournal will be at the AIIM Expo from April 20-22, 2010. The conference will highlight how information management professionals can take leadership roles in eDiscovery initiatives.
I had a chance to speak with Lance Sloves, a Director at Computer Forensic Services, Inc. about forensic collection. He points out that, first, it’s fairly rare for any organization to have well-rounded or proper policies and processes in place for good, defensible collection – that is just the way it is. Second, few organizations possess the expertise in proper data and forensic collection that is required in today’s eDiscovery market. The fact is that many litigators are getting smarter and smarter about collection – and some can smell blood when something has not been properly vetted. And I’ve yet to meet an IT manager who relishes the thought of being an expert witness.
When you consult on discovery issues, you cannot avoid running into retention management initiatives, no matter how hard you try. One of the first Interrogatories on almost every matter asks for a copy of the corporate retention policy and supporting documentation concerning record systems. The problem is that records are no longer boxes of old files kept in offsite storage. In the modern business environment, every piece of ESI has the potential of being considered a ‘record’ or at least evidence. One of my more frequent client conversations starts with, “We need to have a system to apply retention periods so that I can get rid of anything that I do not absolutely need.” Counsel views the seas of unstructured ESI as potential evidence that will cost $1-3 per item to review. So the motivation behind legal’s push for retention management is to reduce discovery cost and risk. The actual goal is to destroy non-record ESI as fast as possible. To that end, I have come to the conclusion that trying to define records and apply retention periods is tackling the problem from the wrong end of the equation. A program of ‘Destruction Management’ that categorizes and destroys non-records seems to be a much more practical initial step toward overall information lifecycle management.