Inside eDiscovery

Inside eDiscovery Digest - Weekly Top 3

Must see eDiscovery articles for the week of July 21:

Flying in the Clouds: A Safety Checklist by Peter Krakaur. Even in the most structured legal environment (law firm, corporate legal department, etc.), lawyers will gravitate to technology that makes their professional life easier even in spite of enterprise resources and often without considering its impact on risk, ethics, integration, etc. Krakaur provides an extremely helpful due diligence checklist for organizations/individuals considering cloud-based products to serve their legal practice. In large part, I think that this article expresses an important aspect of the intersection of law and technology (especially cloud-based technology); when representing a client, no product is used in a vacuum and holistic, practice-wide considerations must be made to safeguard our clients and the institution.

A Law Firm Cashes In on the Management of Data by Catherine Ho. It’s always interesting when/where eDiscovery goes mainstream. However, it is increasingly more evident to the broader business community that large law firms are struggling to evolve profitably and those in the know understand that competition from a growing legal services market further complicates a challenging future. Ho focuses her article on John Rosenthal’s internal eDiscovery team at Winston & Strawn as they unabashedly seek to profit from managing clients' data. It is refreshing for a firm to understand how eDiscovery integrates with substantive practice and to confidently market services that vendors openly monopolize and firms fear to push.

Beyond Legal: Harnessing Data Across the Enterprise by Jennifer Swanton and Laura Jungels. I love this article because it yanks eDiscovery professionals from their tunnel vision (which is rapidly happening anyway) and encourages us to look at organizational information as a tool and resource. In eDiscovery we often feel burdened by data (its volume, collection issues, hosting and review costs, etc.) however, the principles of big data and information governance are educating us (and reminding us) of the inherent value of information.

Inside eDiscovery Digest – Weekly Top 3

Must see articles for the week of April 7.

Here Come the Robot Lawyers - By James O’Toole. It’s not often that eDiscovery is highlighted in mainstream media. CNN Money published this article referencing Winston & Strawn eDiscovery evangelist John Rosenthal and harkening the widespread adoption of predictive coding and its effect on the ranks of law school grads.

Machine Learning and Law - By Harry Surden. Technology is affecting the practice of law and its processes and this recent Washington Law Review article does a “deep dive” into the technology and its uses.

Using TAR in International Litigation: Does Predictive Coding Work for Non-English Languages? - By John Tredennick. Meant to partner with my recent post regarding foreign language review available here, John’s article does a great job of walking the reader through the process and benefits of TAR along with exploring its use with foreign languages.