Essays

When headlines, press briefings and client requests on the same topic all hit at once, you have to pay attention. I recently wrote Mobile Discovery – Are You Ready For It? in reaction to a story about how Michigan and three other states may be capturing cell phone images during traffic stops. Then a sharp client asked for a market perspective on mobile preservation obligations in the wake of the BP criminal charges. The final straw was a briefing request from Cellebrite’s CEO James Grady on the release of their new UFED Touch product line. That was enough motivation to steal the time for a fast briefing. The primary goal was to determine how easily a corporation could acquire, train and integrate a mobile extraction device into their legal hold process. Mr. Grady indicated that although government and security customers still dominate their sales revenue, corporate eDiscovery sales took off last year and is one of the fastest growing market segments. Every corporate decision maker is effectively chained to their iPhone, Blackberry or Android smart phone. Moreover, iPads have become the executive toy-du-jour for meetings and travel with apps that allow them to edit presentations, email and MS Office documents (all discovery request targets). So what does it take to preserve and process cell phones?

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Kevin L. Nichols. Published: 2012-06-20 09:00:36  By: Kevin L. NicholsEarlier this year, I wrote an article on the Executive Counsel Institute in San Francisco and mentioned some key takeaways, including best practices and vendors that excelled in various phases of the EDRM. Surprisingly, I was contacted by one of the vendors referenced in the predictive coding section of the piece [...]

One of the great things about managing a syndication feed is that we get to see virtually everything written about eDiscovery on a daily basis. Granted, only about 5% of what comes through is truly newsworthy, but the constant reminder of what is happening is very valuable. For example, I came across a blog by Christopher Spizzirri that presented some data I otherwise would likely not have become aware of – that 75% of General Counsel rank outside counsel not providing adequate support for eDiscovery requirements as a top frustration of the past year. And, 63% of GCs rank the same issue as a top concern for the next year.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2012-06-26 10:45:21  Yesterday we lost a good friend and mentor to the litigation technology community, Jeff Isenberg.I met Jeff about ten years ago when he did an onsite inspection at our facility in Austin, TX when he was still at Milbank.  I think we spoke more about music and food than we did about eDiscovery for the next [...]

My recent piece on Mobile Discovery – Are You Ready For It? seemed to hit a nerve with eDiscovery providers and practitioners alike. It generated a wave of article requests, product briefings, analyst inquiries and even hands on training and kit offers from market leaders. The volume of the response tells me that ready or not, it is time for civil eDiscovery to accept the fact that mobile devices are a real source of ESI. So I am reprioritizing my research schedule to survey mobile device solutions and best practices from the corporate and firm civil discovery perspective. The first step is a fast six question survey launched today on mobile device discovery. Please take a minute and see how you compare to others. The next step is a look at the history of mobile device forensics to understand where the wide array of current offerings come from.

The summer season is officially underway so the last thing anyone wants to think about is school, right? Well, in the eDiscovery market, that is not true – education and certification is a hot topic. eDiscovery professionals are constantly asking eDJ analysts which programs to attend. eDJ launched a survey last month to understand what eDiscovery professionals think about training and certification in our industry and the preliminary results create some food for thought.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Amber Scorah. Published: 2012-07-02 08:00:50  INTERVIEW WITH Sheryl Thierry, Director of Records Management, URS Infrastructure & EnvironmentRetention schedules can be an important tool for eDiscovery, but it’s important they include a few key components.  I recently spoke with Sheryl Thierry, Director of Records Management at URS Infrastructure & Environment, to get a road map of what an effective records management [...]

Relevance and privilege review dominates the expanding cost of eDiscovery. Controlling that cost has focused innovation to create Technology Assisted Review (TAR) software and service offerings, but the various TAR approaches can be applied to almost every stage of the eDiscovery lifecycle. The trend to consolidate point products into broader eDiscovery platforms provides a pathway to spread TAR methods beyond review. Our recent briefing with FTI on their Ringtail 8.2 release is a good example how a mature product can leverage clustering, machine learning and other analytics to increase quality and efficiency across matter and global workflows. Like several other solutions including CaseCentral, Ringtail 8.2 implements a unified, Single Instance Storage (SIS) repository that gives their analytic data cubes and mines access to collections that span multiple matters. These global analytics support ECA, culling and QA scenarios upstream and downstream from the actual review.

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Mikki Tomlinson. Published: 2012-07-10 11:05:18  Legal hold has been a hot topic in litigation since the Zubulake case rocked the discovery world in 2003.  Since that time there have been a number of products developed to manage the legal hold notice process.  I recently had the opportunity to review several of these applications via a Request for Information (“RFI”) project [...]

At the recent ECI event in Chicago, David Kessler (Fullbright & Jaworski Partner) made an interesting observation that 95% of all civil cases end in settlement while moderating our discussion on project managers in eDiscovery. That ratio was a bit lower than the typical discovery assessment metrics from my Fortune 500 clients, but it peaked my curiosity to see if real published study data existed. I found numerous unattributed comments purporting the rate to be 95-97% cases closed via settlement vs. trial, but the best recent study was a Florida Bar Special Committee report on the declining rate of jury trials. Even if you assume that the trial disposition rates below only correspond to the 11th Circuit and the Florida County courts, the trend is obvious. That 95-97% settlement rate was appropriate 25 years ago, but over 99% of all current cases now are disposed without trial. Despite that low trial rate, a much larger percentage of filed civil litigation will require some or full discovery effort prior to settlement. My question is, does the overwhelming settlement rate discourage litigants from investing in a thorough, defensible eDiscovery process?