Essays

The first two journal entries on autocoding definitely resonated with the market and generated a lot of on/offline responses. One of those responses was a call and subsequent briefing from my old colleagues at FTI Technology on their latest offering, FTI Acuity. [EDITOR’S NOTICE– Greg worked at Attenex prior to the FTI acquisition.] A quick visit to the FTI site leads one to believe that Acuity is just a packaged services-hosting offering with a fixed per-GB or per-Document pricing model that they term Integrated Document Review. DiscoverReady was one of the first Attenex partners to offer fixed-fee per document review pricing back in 2005. The FTI materials barely mention the new predictive coding and quality control functionality that has been added to the Ringtail-Patterns platform.

I was recently asked what training and certifications could help an attorney looking to break into contract work on eDiscovery projects. This is an attorney that has practiced for 20 years , but she still felt the need to put some technical alphabet soup behind her JD. The questions mostly focused on which software and what level of training would demonstrate overall competence. What it takes to ‘break in’ as an independent is a good topic for a full article, but I will start with my perspectives on software, training and certifications as they exist today. Although contract attorneys are primarily used as reviewers, I am going to assume that an experienced attorney or other professional wants to take a case or project management role for a corporate or law firm client. This role has traditionally been filled by the service provider, but with corporations insourcing discovery and firms taking more fixed fee engagements, I can definitely see a potential niche market for someone with the right skills.

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.