Essays

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Mikki Tomlinson. Published: 2011-12-13 16:21:27  I have spent countless hours over the last 5 years searching for the cure to many of my e-discovery ills: technology that will hold data in place for purposes of complying with preservation obligations in litigation.  I am not referring to sending legal hold notices to custodians of data or self-collection.  I am referring to actually locking [...]

One recurring topic that keeps popping up was Predictive Coding, or Technology Assisted Review (we’ll use the defined term "PC-TAR" to avoid controversy from this point on). We know that using PC-TAR will help save money in the overall eDiscovery process. Albert Barsocchini recently did an article on “Ediscovery Production Without Review” last week and quoted an attorney at a major law firm that said they are producing documents without any reviewing any documents in a linear review process. This immediately raised the mental flag in my head as this was the first that I’ve heard of someone going straight to production using PC-TAR technology without first doing a human review of the responsive documents.

What a year 2011 has been for the eDiscovery market. The Analysts at eDJ put our heads together and reviewed what transpired in 2011 and what kind of trends we will see in 2012. As a thank you for your support throughout the year, eDJ’s report “eDiscovery Trends: 2011 Year in Review and Forecasting 2012” is available for free download. 2011 saw trends around pragmatic ideas such as managing eDiscovery as a process and taking control of Information Governance (IG), while also hinting at forthcoming heat around “the Cloud” and predictive coding. We also saw the beginning of the rise of the “eDiscovery platform,” with vendors advertising solutions that could manage the full eDiscovery lifecycle. And, there was continued merger and acquisition (M & A) activity in the Discovery marketplace, with two acquisitions in the “bombshell” category given the premiums paid by acquirers. Symantec bought Clearwell in June, 2011 for close to $400 million (a premium of approximately 8x Clearwell’s revenues), while HP bought Autonomy for about $11 billion (a premium of more than 10x).

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2011-12-19 10:48:27  Today is the last day to enter the eDiscoveryJournal's holiday drawing for $250 in gift cards.  We are giving away $250 to five lucky people, so don't miss out.  Click here to enter!!!  The drawing will be held at noon EST so that we can get the $$$ to you for any last minute holiday shopping.  [...]

It seems that Congress feels the need to weigh in on the costs of eDiscovery. Articles from LTN, CMSwire, Law.com and many other bloggers take many different perspectives on the commentary and Q&A session. We went to the House report to try to extract some of the highlights. My biggest take away is that we really do not have any solid metrics and objective market data on the true cost of eDiscovery. The comments focused on the cost and burden of preservation, especially on matters that never become actual litigation. Republican subcommittee members stressed the costs while Democrats questioned the relevance and corporate donor origin of the hearing itself in light of the active rule evaluation by the Judicial Conference. So here are some of the notable statements with my own perspective on them.

There has been a significant amount of discussion, both formal and informal, surrounding whether the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should be amended as to preservation and sanctions. Some believe that the time is not yet ripe, while others have presented arguments to the contrary. There is, however, one common theme in the debates, blogs, papers and meetings: cooperation.

At eDJ, we’ve been thinking a lot about the recent Congressional Hearing on The Costs and Burdens of Civil Discovery. Being deeply involved in the eDiscovery market, we hear every day from companies seeking to make discovery a more efficient process. We also work with companies seeking to put in place proactive information governance (IG) initiatives with the ultimate goal of making eDiscovery less of a reactive, expensive burden.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2011-12-21 15:04:33  The team at the eDiscoveryJournal is excited to announce the winners for our annual eDiscoveryJournal holiday drawing a $250 gift card. We had many entries, but only a few can win.Here is our list of the 2011 winners: Jonathan O. Steen – Redding, Steen, & Staton Juli Sauer – Best Buy David Meadows – Kroll Ontrack [...]

One key element for transforming your eDiscovery from an ad hoc reactive fire drill into a mature, proactive business process is the development and implementation of formal Quality Assurance(QA) and Quality Control(QC). I have always viewed QA as tackling ongoing process improvement such as regular cross case comparisons, while QC tends to be checking on did the process perform properly. Basically, how can we make the process better versus did everything work right? When interviewing corporate client eDiscovery teams, everyone is conscious of the need for QA/QC, but the vast majority seem to feel that it is impractical or unrealistic given their tight deadlines, lack of resources and typical fire-fighter mentality. Some law firm clients have swung to the opposite extreme, with elaborate workflow, check lists, physical chain of custody forms and more. Their QC has grown out of reasonable proportion and their productivity suffers because their overall QA has been neglected. So how do we achieve a reasonable quality process without bringing the legal process to a halt?

Yesterday, EPIQ Systems announced its acquisition of De Novo Legal for $68 million. It’s a 2011 transaction, but look for it to be indicative of something to expect in 2012 – service providers getting bigger and broader geographic coverage via acquisition. While huge acquisitions on par with HP’s purchase of Autonomy or Symantec’s purchase of Clearwell are certainly a possibility, the real action is more likely to be in the service provider business.