Legal TechBase Editor's Corner

CT Summation's 3.0 New Redaction Tools ROCK!

So today I had an issue come up where I needed to redact incorrect Bates numbers from some images in a CT Summation database and “burn-in” the correct Bates numbers. Then I remembered the webinar CT Summation gave a week or so ago on their iBlaze 3.0 release. It had new redaction tools and guess what one of the main tools is…GLOBAL REDACTION for just my situation so I decided to try it.  Now, I’ve worked with Summation since 1993 and have been an SCT for almost as long so I know that there can be some “hiccups” in new features in the first release so I was skeptical that it wouldn’t work. But guess what? It worked like a charm! In seconds I had redacted the wrong Bates number from a 149 page document. I went through and checked the redactions and only had to adjust a few – one being a number that had been put on vertically instead of horizontally. It worked that well for all 202 pages. The entire process of redacting, adding new Bates numbers, and Briefcasing was done in 15 minutes.  I’m in love, ooh, I a believer! Oh and I love the way I can see under the redaction by moving the cursor over the redaction. Awesome!

One note, it appears that by default the redaction automatically selects the text “Redaction” and places it on the redacted area at the time of Briefcasing (burn-in).  I didn’t think to check it since I obviously hadn’t selected the text option so I had to redo that part.

John Christiansen Has Re-emerged

John Christiansen (AKA "JC") has re-emerged from his four month sabbatical as Vice President of Sales for Zapproved/Legal Hold Pro.  Visit LTB’s Industry Who’s Who to find out what he’s up to.

Discussion: Legal Hold Notification Software

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about Legal Hold Notification Software. I then posted it on some of the LinkedIn® groups of which I'm a member and received some great feedback. Provided below is the feedback I received from the e-Legal LinkedIn group. Please feel free to add additional comments.

November 2, 2009

Richard Rodney

Director, Litigation Support
SiteLogic, Inc.

“My thought is that while the technology is not new, few people spend the time necessary to understand how legal hold technology or other technology with these features can help the process. I believe part of the problem is the belief their is an eDiscovery silver bullet. I believe you need to have more than one type of bullet. The products mentioned all do some form of Legal Hold ESI sequestering and notification amongst other things but approaches are different because their core clients and markets are different. You add in compliance concerns, and data migration concerns, maintenance of digital chain of custody, and convergence of these service requirements and you have a quagmire of products, that overlap and often times are attempting to be everything to everyone.

For the person or group who is attempting to properly vet these options, sometimes, my sense is they are trying to figure what hammer to use before they have figured out what project they are going to use the hammer for, putting up drywall or hanging a Romare Bearden original. There are few developers that get that and are trying to streamline the message, but when you have many things that are alike and a budget, how do you decide which one is best quickly? Then the process of vetting, acquiring and implementing gets tabled for another few weeks or months. I think it is not for lack of information being out there, rather there may be too much information to disseminate mainly on the view of who's hammer can do the most.

Well those are my $0.02”

Julie Laboe
Editor-In-Chief
Legal TechBase

“Thank you for your $0.02 Richard. I totally agree. We've got to get to a point where we can educate buyers enough so that they can make these decisions. I think that we really need to think of the vendors and their products as more of a smorgasbord than a five course meal. I just find it interesting though that in all of the discussions about the different technologies needed for "litigation readiness" that I just haven't heard much of anything about the Legal Hold notification type products.”

November 9, 2009

Andrea Woronuk Collins

Strategic Account Manager
Bridgeway Software

“Julie,

I think you raise an interesting question. As seen in a number of recent court cases in which companies have been fined millions of dollars (Prudential and Philip Morris among others) for destroying documents or erasing emails, the risks of spoliation are significant and the penalties are high. This has led many in-house corporate legal departments to begin investigating and implementing software in order to mitigate this risk and replace less reliable manual spreadsheets and email reminders processes.

The challenge is that very few Legal Hold solutions actually have built-in noticing. Many software vendors that claim legal hold are actually focused on data preservation rather than notice generation. For corporations that are purely trying to handle the generation, distribution, and tracking of their legal hold notices, this presents a challenge because these software applications are convoluted with additional functionality and thus require a hefty investment and lengthy implementation. So, to answer your question, you might say that the reason you don’t hear a lot about Litigation Hold software is because many of the eDiscovery vendors offering legal hold functionality are focused on data preservation rather than legal hold noticing. Their marketing initiatives are focused on raising the preservation issue, not solving the specific notification need.

As a software vendor to the corporate legal community, Bridgeway began researching the litigation hold and eDiscovery needs of our clients about 3 years ago. Based on our conversations with General Counsels and eDiscovery Managers for the Fortune 500 and representative client base, we built a legal hold application that focused on meeting the specific noticing need rather than an overly complicated application that expanded well beyond noticing into other areas of preservation. For more information on Bridgeway’s Legal Hold application, please visit: http://www.bridge-way.com/products/legal-hold.

I look forward to further discussing this topic.”

November 11, 2009

Chris Bright

VP of Marketing
Zapproved

“I think the notification side of legal holds is just now coming to the forefront due to a raft of recent cases. It is becoming a hot topic in the industry right now.

The challenge is that the term "legal hold" is being used in many different ways which has confused the issue. To date, most of the products using this term have focused on data retention. Those that address the issue of custodian notification have been add-ons to larger enterprise packages and not the primary focus. That is changing and more attention will be given to this part of the smorgasborg.

Effectively implementing holds is an emerging area because GCs and attorneys are realizing the weakness of their existing process. Building a better workflow process is a big component, so I think products like Legal Hold Pro will be getting more attention going forward.” 

Kyle Holley

Corporate Sales Representative
Autonomy

“I'm aware here at Autonomy they just came out with anuodated version of Aungate Legal Hold and Aungate Archiving Digital Safe.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Autonomy-Unveils-New-prnews-3493156139.html?x=0&.v=1”

John Martin

CTO
RedFile

“I've always thought that "faith-based" preservation is never a good idea, mainly because sometimes - you are guilty (the "you" being a corporate employee). Noticing via email with no method to enforce data preservation directly is a weak method at best. People don't delete/obfuscate information 6 months before an investigation, they do it 5 minutes after they know.

My $0.02,

John”

November 12, 2009

Chris Bright

VP of Marketing
Zapproved

“John,

I think both aspects (notification and preservation) are important. A vast majority of legal holds are routine matters that are needed to instruct custodians of the need to preserve data. They are designed to prevent deletion or alteration of records/files and do not involve any bad behavior. These are important to show good faith by the company that proper procedures were in place and executed after a trigger event.

Spoliation is still likely to occur, but this provides an important "safe harbor" for the company. (Judge Peck was explicit about this at LTWC in June.) Even if there is a "bad actor," the company still is protected. Time is of the essence, so acting quickly is critical.

In instances when there is the potential for incriminating evidence or a suspected "bad actor," then protecting the evidence by "locking it down" is absolutely imperative. However, most of the time that is overkill.

The two components are complementary. To Julie's comment above, they are part of the e-discovery smorgasborg.

Chris”

November 14, 2009

Dan Fischler

President and CEO
Digital Strata, Inc.

“I agree with the overarching point that legal hold notification software is not emphasized in the overall discovery process. The idea that notification and actual data preservation are separate themes is crucial to the value proposition for companies that offer either a full legal hold solution (that possibly includes notification) or for companies that offer a legal hold notification solution.

Our approach at Digital Strata is to use our tool (Discovery Agent) to generate tracked, audit-worthy legal hold notices with automatic reminders, managerial escalation, and custodian interaction in the form of acknowledgement or surveys. We can then both inform the custodian of their duties to preserve data, hence creating a safe harbor for the company, and gather information that can better inform our process for preserving data down the road. It is the response to the notice that helps us develop a collection and preservation strategy specific to a given case.

We've found that the tools that try to do everything in one package tend to not effectively cover the needs of the more niche tools, and they also tend to be far more expensive. We believe that a niche tool for composing and tracking hold notices and reminders combined with a solid process and targeted collection strategy for preservation presents our clients with a more cost-effective yet defensible solution.”

Email Not Protected by 4th Amendment?

I ran across this article and wanted to share it with you.

http://www.thedigitalforensicgroup.com/blog/2009/10/e-mail-not-protected-by-4th-amendment-judge-say/

Legal Hold Notification Software: Why don't we hear more about it?

A friend of mine recently told me about a company called Legal Hold Pro and as I researched them I realized that there are several other companies out there providing similar solutions. It seems like an obvious product: software that establishes a repeatable, cost effective, and defensible legal hold process and includes notification demonstrating compliance and a “good faith effort”. 

But I can’t tell you how many seminars I’ve attended with attorneys and vendors alike talking about implementing “litigation holds” but never once mentioning legal hold notification software. And all of the list servs and LinkedIn® groups I monitor – not much discussion about it there either. Why?  Are people generally not aware of it? 

Here’s basically how it works:

The “legal hold” is initiated by identifying custodians and potential data sources, the due date for responses, and the company’s legal hold policies. Second, the custodians are notified electronically and are required to take action acknowledging receipt of the hold. Notices are sent periodically, either manually or automatically, reminding the custodian(s) of deadlines. Third, compliance is logged by tracking interactions with custodians including conversations, interviews, and collection procedures. Because all of the information is saved and tracked in the legal hold software an audit trail is automatically created. No doubt there is more to it than this so I’ve asked some experts on the matter to blog for us to help educate us. I very much encourage any feedback you may have.

Other companies who provide similar solutions: Autonomy, Exterro, Guidance, PSS Systems, and Case Track.

Wow, time flys...

LTB has just celebrated its first anniversary as the largest and most comprehensive online directory of legal technologies. Thank you to all of our bloggers, writers, and members. We look forward to adding our OnDemand Tradeshow, additional expert bloggers, and surveys of technologies. As always we appreciate and encourage your input (since this is your community site). We look forward to another year serving the litigation technology market.

Meet Joshua Hochberg, Compliance Speaker at the Roadmap to Litigation Readiness

Joshua Hochberg will be a featured speaker at the Roadmap to Litigation Readiness conference. Joshua's practice focuses on individual and corporate white collar defense, internal investigations, and compliance. Since joining McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, Hochberg has served as Examiner in the Refco Bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York.  Read more...

Meet Dave Chiulli, Roadmap to Litigation Readiness Conference Chair & Speaker

Dave Chiulli is the of Director of Information Technologies (IT) for NMB Technologies Corporation (Minebea), NMB (USA), and New Hampshire Ball Bearings (NHBB). Mr. Chiulli has worked for NHBB since 1981, and has worked with Minebea’s world-wide IT organization since 1986.

About four years ago, Mr. Chiulli, NHBB In-House Counsel, and the Vice President of Operations formed a committee to tackle the issues that evolving technology and mobility present in business.  A couple of members of the IT department were sent out to attend a class on computer forensics and imaging using a laptop they had selected from a recently departed employee.  During the class they discovered (to their dismay) that this long-trusted employee, who had recently moved to a competitor, had misappropriated trade secrets over a fairly long period of time. Once the case was brought to court, it was found that a great deal of spoliation also took place on the part of the ex-employee and others to “cover their tracks”.  Read more...

Legal TechBase Announces New Expert Blogger - James Berriman, Esq.

Legal TechBase announces the newest member of our expert blogging team, James Berriman, Esq. Jim joins LTB’s Expert Bloggers and will be blogging on topics to help legal practitioners understand the benefits of litigation technology in the context of what they already know about the traditional practice of law.

Take a look-we've updated our categories

We listened to our community members and updated our category list. Please make sure your company is listed in the appropriate categories. The new categories are as follows:

·         Animators & Graphics

·         Business Intelligence

·         Court Reporting & Videography

·         Courtroom Technology

·         Data Loss Prevention

·         Digital Forensics

·         Enterprise Search

·         Experts

·         Facility Hosting

·         Job Boards & Referral Networks

·         Jury Research

·         Litigation Readiness Consultants

·         Litigation Software

·         Litigation Technology Consultants

·         Message Archiving

·         Professional Organizations

·         Records Management

·         SaaS

·         Service Bureaus

·         Software Trainers

·         Trial Consultants

·         Trial Presentation Software

Legal TechBase Announces Robert Fitzgerald as Expert Blogger

Legal TechBase announces a new member of our expert blogging team, Robert Fitzgerald. Rob joins LTB’s Expert Bloggers and will be blogging about his thoughts and ideas on Digital Forensics and Data Security.

Robert Fitzgerald is a computer forensics expert and the President of The Lorenzi Group. Read more about Rob on our Industry Who's Who page.

Even Online Ads Prompt Online Search

Is your organization spending money on online advertising? That's not a bad thing, but you should probably invest in search engine marketing for its counterbalancing effect. Potential customers are nearly as likely to see your online ad and then search that ad's contents in a search engine as they are to click on the ad itself.

More than half of Internet users actively respond to online display advertising, finds the Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study, research commissioned by iProspect and conducted by Forrester Consulting. In other words, online advertising remains effective. But here's the kicker: According to the same survey of 1,575 adult users of the Internet, the percentage of viewers of online advertising who immediately perform a search of the content seen on the advertising display is nearly as high (27 percent) as the percentage that cuts right to the chase and clicks on the ad (31 percent).

What are the implications? Even if your company is justifiably spending money on online advertising, it's a big mistake to neglect investing in search engine marketing that optimizes for the search engines the many keyword phrases found in your online advertising.

Excerpts taken, with permission, from the TMT Editor's Corner blog by Brent Skinner, Editor-In-Chief of TalentManagementTech.com.

Organic Search Tastes Better -- And It's Better for You

Where are your customers immediately before they're your customers? That's where you want to be. What are they thinking about? That's what you want to be about. What do they need? You want to be that solution. Think about the very first thing you do when you need something. After possibly asking your colleagues and friends for leads and ideas, you probably go straight to a search engine and type in some keywords that, to you, seem relevant to your need. Are you any different than your potential customer? Chances are your customers were on a search engine just before they decided to buy from you. And chances are that, at the time, they were thinking about their need for a solution just like yours; in fact, chances are they needed one pretty badly.

What do you pay attention to, by the way, once you've entered the keywords and then pressed "enter"? More than likely you look at the top ten entries on the very first page of results and determine which one speaks most directly to what it is you're seeking. These are the organic, or natural, search results. Organic results comprise all entries on the search page that someone or some company did not actually pay the search engine to display. As early as 2005, JupiterResearch found that 87 percent of commercial traffic online originates with organic search. Surely this number remains the same or has increased; search engines have only grown in prominence since. Plus, paid search traffic (stuff like pay-per-click, PPC -- basically, all those other links on the search results page) has seen a precipitous decline over the past year (a 26 percent contraction, to be exact). It all adds up to the dominance of organic search. The plausible conclusion is that the importance of organic search is at the zenith of its flight and showing no signs of descending. Indeed, the vast majority of your potential customers rely on natural search engine results as they begin their buying process. These results are just more trustworthy in the consumer's eye. Why? Because search engines themselves are perceived to be trustworthy, third-party vetters of information.

Your brand needs to be in these organic results, and the good news is that proper search engine marketing (SEM), and close cousin to search engine optimization (SEO) will improve your presence in the organic results. And an excellent way to get there is to participate in the LTB Spotlight, an article about your brand that includes LTB's logo and seal of approval -- yet more third-party endorsement of your technology. The LTB Spotlight helps you to get ranked highly in organic search results associated with keyword phrases pertinent to your solution. Not only will you be vetted organically by the search engines, but you'll also have the additional benefit of a third party -- LTB itself -- further vetting your worthiness. Most importantly, you'll be where your potential customers are before they buy.

Excerpts taken, with permission, from the TMT Editor's Corner blog by Brent Skinner, Editor-In-Chief of TalentManagementTech.com.

Legal TechBase is excited to bring you Michael Boucher

Legal TechBase is excited to bring you Michael Boucher, Managing Partner of Trial Consulting Services, LLC. Michael joins LTB’s Expert Bloggers and will be blogging on topics that will center around Trial Research and the Electronic Presentation and Management of Evidence for trials.

Michael Boucher is the Managing Partner of Trial Consulting Services, LLC and has been involved in trial consulting and applied courtroom technology for over fifteen years. Read more about Michael on our Industry Who's Who page.

Announcing Chere Estrin, a Legal TechBase Expert Blogger, on Marketing in Today'

We are very proud and excited to announce that Chere B. Estin has agreed to be an expert blogger for Legal TechBase. She will be providing a weekly blog on “Marketing Yourself and Your Company in Today’s Climate”.

Chere B. Estrin, is the Editor-In-Chief of two magazines for the legal field:  SUE, for Women Litigators and KNOW, The Magazine for Paralegals. Read more about Chere on our Industry Who's Who page.

The truth is companies are still hiring qualified professionals

This discussion was posted by Kate Potters in the Women in E-discovery LinkedIn group. Nice for someone to provide a positive focus. Thank you Kate!

“The truth is companies are still hiring qualified professionals. I wanted to share some good news on the employment front, from a NY Times article I just read:”

Everyone knows the grim news — unemployment in the United States has jumped to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high, and is racing toward double digits. Since November, the nation has lost more than three million jobs.

But not everyone knows the brighter side to the equation: deep in the maw of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, millions are still being hired.

Read More... http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107040/Bright-Spot-in-Downturn-New-Hiring-Is-Robust?sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=

The Verdict Is In...Legal TechBase Stays

After a fair amount of market research, the overwhelming consensus is to keep Legal TechBase and make some revisions to improve its usability.  The first wave of improvements are as follows. First, LTB intends to improve the Technology and Services categories as follows:

• Animators & Graphics
• Computer Forensics
• Courtroom Technology
• eDiscovery Experts
• Job Boards & Referral Networks
• Enterprise Management
• Enterprise Search
• Jury Research
• Litigation Readiness Consultants
• Litigation Readiness Technology
• Litigation Technology Consultants
• Litigation Technology Software
• Message Archiving
• Professional Organizations
• Other
• Service Bureaus
• Software Trainers
• Surveys
• Trial Consultants
• Trial Presentation Software

Second, LTB plans to add surveys, through the use of Survey Monkey, to company profiles in which customers can rate the company’s technology or service. 

Third, LTB will have industry experts providing monthly blogs on litigation readiness (from the in-house perspective), Computer Forensics, Enterprise Search Strategy, Message Archiving, Enterprise Management, eDiscovery consultant, Trial Consultant (trends in the courtroom), and Marketing in Today’s Industry. These experts are being assembled and will be announced shortly – look for them on LTB’s Industry Who’s Who.

Finally, LTB is making improvements to become a better resource for in-house counsel (more detailed information to come).

This is just the first wave of improvements with even more to come…so stay tuned!

LegalTech Base becoming eDiscovery Base - What do you think?

I envision a community site where litigation support professionals can go to search for a specific type of eDiscovery related service or technology within a given radius and then find out what others’ experiences have been with those providers. In addition, community members can build profiles for themselves and their company. This utopia stemmed from my frustration in locating a reputable and knowledgeable company to provide eDiscovery technology and/or services.  This frustration has been fueled, in part, by an overabundance of self-proclaimed “experts” who lack the knowledge, skill and expertise needed in this highly technical area.  The ListSupportServs are constantly inundated with requests for skilled providers of technologies and services in specific geographic localities.  Also many businesses (and legal professionals) fail to understand or appreciate the importance of preserving electronic data before becoming embroiled in litigation.  Thus, there is a tremendous need for businesses that provide technology and services in the areas of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Business Intelligence (BI) – now commonly referred to as “Litigation Readiness” in addition to those companies who provide solutions once involved in litigation. 

To illustrate how vast the industry is, consider that approximately 80% of all information in business is living electronically in emails, text, voice and video.  According to a United States Postal Service (“USPS”) study done a few years ago, there is more email sent in one day than the USPS handles in an entire year.  It is also estimated that the volume of documents will continue to grow by about 35% every year.  It is becoming more and more evident that “electronic discovery” affects almost every type of litigation.  As an example, a law firm client of mine became involved in a breach of contract case.  Their client had a total of three employees.  After obtaining the data from their client, the law firm ended up with a terabyte of data.  A terabyte of data is roughly 438,000,000 documents or 146,000 boxes of paper.  Using only a couple of components of Enterprise Searching technology made it possible to reduce the terabyte of data (438 million documents) to 71,000 relevant documents.

Companies who have “learned the hard way” about Litigation Readiness agree that being proactive (before the hint of litigation) is the most important phase of “eDiscovery”. The front end costs ultimately are much cheaper than having to reconstruct and track down electronic data related to a legal action. And although Litigation Readiness technology (DLP and BI) can often be hard to sell to the powers that be, there’s no dispute that it’s an easy sell after becoming mired in data retrieval in response to discovery requests.  Many companies don’t have the budget to spend a lot of money on Litigation Readiness and may not know where to start.  As technology grows in sophistication, so will the technology required to maintain and locate the needed data. 

 To date, there has not been a single source for the legal industry that provides the necessary information about Litigation Readiness technologies.  Litigation Readiness is often touched upon in articles but those articles fail to address the important protocols/technology that needs to be in place long before the threat of litigation is raised.  Just as important they fail to educate people on where to find such technology.  Since experts agree that “the best defense is a good offense” and because courts are not swayed by claims of ignorance (e.g. the “Pollyanna defense”), there’s a definite need for a single source that provides information and resources for Litigation Readiness as well as the litigation and trial phases of eDiscovery.

eDB will provide the solution to the need in five ways:

1. A single source where all facets related to eDiscovery come together (Litigation Readiness, Litigation, & Trial).
2. Most comprehensive directory of eDiscovery technology & services.
3. Community members discussing their needs, frustrations, and experiences.
4. Community driven surveys.
5. Bloggers Corner – group of experts in their respective areas providing educational information.

•       IT manager within a corporation – Litigation Readiness – Steps to Follow & Advice

•       Computer Forensics Expert

•       Enterprise Search Expert

•       Message Archiving Expert

•       Enterprise Management  Expert

•       Attorney’s prospective

•       Paralegal’s prospective

•       Litigation Support Specialist’s prospective

•       eDiscovery Consultant

•       Trial Consultant

•       Marketing expert in “Marketing in Today’s Industry”

The success of this type of site hinges on community participation. PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

Meet Charlene Agnew LTB's Industry Who's Who

Meet Charlene Agnew LTB's Industry Who's Who. Charlene has proven to be the best of the best for training and consulting on Summation and TrialDirector.

Wow...Look How We've Grown

Since the beginning of 2009 our directory has grown to list over 750 companies specializing in prevention and preservation, litigation and trial technologies, and related services. Currently, our directory includes the following categories:

• Animators & Graphics
• Business Intelligence (BI) Preparedness
• Court Reporting & Videography
• Courtroom Technology
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
• eDiscovery Services (including Forensics)
• Jury Consultants
• Litigation Technology Consultants
• Litigation Technology Service Bureaus
• Litigation Technology Software
• Litigation Technology Trainers
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Trial Consultants

Thank you for helping make this happen.

Some Comic Relief

I personally enjoy reading the Case in Point comics. I'm sure it helps that I can totally relate - or maybe that's scary. Anyway, it is nice to have some humor in such a stressful industry. So if you haven't read them lately, here you go. http://casecentral.typepad.com/case_in_point/. Enjoy.

Thank you all for your overwhelming response

Thank you all for your overwhelming response to Legal TechBase (“LTB”).  Since we are a new site, we encourage and greatly appreciate any and all constructive comments you may have.  Furthermore, LTB is unique because it is a site that is built and maintained (for the most part) by the community.  Our goal is to provide a valuable platform where members can populate, locate, evaluate, rate, and/or provide meaningful commentary regarding specific businesses who offer goods and services that fall within the crossroads of litigation and technology.  Therefore, your input is invaluable. Please let us know what you do and do not like, what you’d like to see in the future, etc. by commenting on this blog. Also provided below is a list of improvements already in the works. 

Coming to LTB:

·    Radius search for Technologies and Services - being fixed

·    Ability to review technologies/services including comments and rating out of five (up to five “fires”).  With this rating system, when you do a search of Technology and Services not only will you to see what other users experiences have been but the ranking of the companies in the search results will be determined by those ratings (number of fires) - find out how others have rated the service and quality of those companies.

·    Improvements to the user interface.

Please feel free to contact us directly as well.

We are looking for the industry's who's who

We are looking for recommendations for Litigation Support Professionals who are excellent in their field and go above and beyond the call of duty.  I will write an article about the top contenders and feature them on our website.  If you have any recommendations please provide them.  For an example please visit the link below for our current Who’s Who.

http://www.legaltechbase.com/community/articles/1025_contact_us.html

LTB is built on the power of Web 2.0 - wait what's Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 technologies allow users to contribute website content by way of profiles, uploading videos, uploading photos, posting comments, posting press releases and blogging. Examples include LinkedIn® and MySpace®. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web".  This stands in contrast to traditional websites (Web 1.0) that limit visitors to viewing only and whose content can only be modified by the site's owner. For example, LTB offers the traditional viewing of content by way of our directory of litigation and trial technologies. Then we add Web 2.0 capability that allows vendors to send out press releases via our site, blog about their technology, create and enhance their own directory listings, upload white papers and other files, and connect with litigation support professionals. At the same time the litigation support professionals who utilize the technologies can comment on and rate these vendors. 

LTB is what Wikipedia describes as “Web 2.0”-oriented because we exist only on the Internet. This style significantly reduces bias found in many other publications, and makes it very difficult for any group to censor and/or impose bias. Because LTB has a very short editorial cycle, any content reported as inappropriate or inaccurate can very quickly be reviewed, corrected and/or removed.  So unlike traditional publishing (either printed or provided in a “traditional” website format) that stays the same until the next edition, contributors (you) can update LTB constantly, ensuring that it stays abreast of the most recent events and knowledge.

As a side note in a posting by DiscoveryResources.org Editor (http://www.discoveryresources.org/technology-counsel/sound-evidence/top-20-e-discovery-predictions-for-2009/) number 16 on their “Top 20 eDiscovery Predictions for 2009” they stated, “Web 2.0 will start to emerge as the next technical/legal challenge (dynamic, multi-company content).”  Stay tuned…

What's the Good News for eDiscovery in 2009?

Wow, it’s already 2009 and everyone has already made their “2009 eDiscovery predictions” and those predictions have already made their way around the web. So what’s the good news about eDiscovery? The Industry is maturing which is causing standardizing which leads to a reduction in costs and new and better technologies. Here are the two main themes, (1) Companies (clients) are realizing that they have to take proactive measures in-house both as a smart business practice but also in anticipation of litigation. This proactive approach makes the ability to locate and supply eDiscovery when requested much more efficient and less costly; and (2) Lawyers and law firms are continuing to attain a better level of competency with eDiscovery and hopefully will do so long before they and their clients venture into the litigation arena.

(1)  Companies (“the Clients”) are becoming more proactive:

Albeit learning the “hard way”, companies are learning that it is unrealistic to hold their outside counsel wholly responsible for eDiscovery litigation costs if they haven’t taken the proactive measures in-house themselves. Best practices are the type of prevention and preparedness that has been the “white elephant” in the room for the past few years. But any company who has been drug through the “litigation eDiscovery mud” will tell you this is the most important step in cost cutting measures and should become part of your business practices. In Sonya Siger’s blog, 2009 Predictions and Trends (http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/2009-predictions-and-trends/) she talks about “Defensible processes”. Processes or best practices are only defensible if they are outlined in writing by the company and the company can show that they follow these best practices. This is not outside counsel’s responsibility because it begins before litigation is ever commenced. In a December 11, 2008 press release, Dean Gonsowski, vice president of EDiscovery Services, Clearwell Systems said, “As enterprises increasingly treat e-discovery as a business process, we will see a shift toward methodologies that are repeatable, standardized and measurable.” Most companies agree that this is something they need to do but many don’t know where to begin or what steps are involved. Therefore, we here at LTB will be offering a weekly blog series, “LTB Prevention and Preservation” that will describe these steps and help you get started. Contributing to the weekly blog series will be experts who have been through this with their own company or those who are experts in the technologies themselves.

(2)  Competency Level of Lawyers and Firms:

It’s been made clear through blogs, articles, judge opinions, and list servs that part of the frustration experienced in the eDiscovery arena has stemmed from intelligent lawyers who just haven’t put much thought or stake in eDiscovery and seem to ignore the way technology affects practically every aspect of life. This sentiment was illustrated by Sonya Siger in her blog, 2009 Predictions and Trends (http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/2009-predictions-and-trends/. She stated, “I think Ken Withers speech at Georgetown’s Advanced eDiscovery Institute this November was spot on when he suggested that there are too many lawyers who think they know how to litigate in this “electronic” day and age. They may know how to litigate, but they don’t know how to find the information, review it effectively, and keep out privileged information in a cost effective way. Competence - in knowing where to look for information, what types of information, how to analyze it, etc. - are all skills that lawyers (or someone on their staff or team) need to develop in order to be truly competent. You may not find all of these skills in one person, but surely you can assemble a team to be competent in all of these areas.”

For example, generally knowing the power of email, would you really choose not to use it in practice? Do you think documents like email can be that beneficial in practice but not in litigation? Would you use a program other than one created for email for your own business use? Given the numerous attachment levels that can exist in email you have to be sure to use the right programs for handling them for litigation.

I’ve had attorneys receive data on a hard drive that they had asked for in discovery requests and then couldn’t use because it was stored in a proprietary format. Now first of all this is eDiscovery so know what you’re asking for before you ask for it. The opposing party is certainly at an advantage if they know more about what you’ve got than you do. Second, get educated about what your client has, what you think the opposing party has, what technology you’re going to use when you get it, and how you are going to review it.

Part of educating yourself is generally understanding how to get the relevant data you want from stores of data. This is where you’ve probably heard about “keyword searching” and “concept searching”. I think the reality of searching for relevant data is summarized in this comment by Jeff Schott, Business Development Manager of The Digital Group, “Personally I do not believe that any one technique [for searching eDiscovery] can be recommended as the singular approach or that the human factor should be or can be completely removed. I agree…that technologies should be utilized to minimize the number of documents and decisions that have to be manually handled.” So once you’ve received the right universe of documents it’s a combination of search techniques that will divulge the data for which you’re looking. Some of the techniques that may be used between you and the client are conceptual, clustering, parametric, scoped, and de-duplication.

As technology continues to become more sophisticated so will the searches required to locate the data you need. So if you haven’t already, you will be hearing about Enterprise Searching. Enterprise Searching, like that offered by The Digital Group, is the wave of the very near future and is something clients and law firms alike have to become educated about. Jeff Schott of The Digital Group said, “Enterprise search is the present and future of a well rounded approach to information retrieval in E-discovery. The components that comprise an Enterprise Search Strategy are going to expand at a tremendous rate over the next several years as emerging technologies give way to unprecedented types of analysis. Imagine being able to categorize and review tens of thousands of documents within a case and collate them based on emotional tone and not just data relevance.” 2009 is the year to become proactive instead of continuing to be reactive.

It's easy to become a member of our LTB Community

As a litigation support/service professional you can build your very own legal technology professional profile promoting your own abilities – your “Linked In®” in the legal industry. Start a blog, post a press release or white paper, and browse our directory to locate companies and provide reviews of their technologies and/or services. These reviews are then available to potential customers in search of litigation-related technology and/or services.

Simply go to our Registration page. If you have any questions please feel free to contact our Editor-In-Chief, Julie Laboe at jlaboe@legaltechbase.com or our directory editor, Kim Glover at kglover@legaltechbase.com.  

Caroo Media launches online directory of litigation & trial technology

December 4, 2008

Caroo Media, the online division of Tarsus Group plc, has launched LegalTechBase.com (LTB), the world’s largest independent and most comprehensive searchable directory of litigation and trial technologies, including prevention and preservation and related services. It is also the only place where buyers can obtain and provide unbiased reviews of litigation-related technologies and services. Two key features of LTB are provided absolutely free. First, professionals can build their very own legal technology professional profile – their "Linked In®" in the legal industry. Second, vendors can also build their very own company profile – their "My Space™" in the legal industry.  We give them the keys to drive so they can post a press release or white paper, start a blog, and browse the database.  We also encourage firms to direct their customers to LegalTechBase.com so they can provide reviews of their technology and/or services.  These reviews will be available to potential customers in search of litigation-related technology and/or services. The community created by LTB will improve search engine optimization for all who participate. Thus, even if a search is performed using a search engine like Google, the company will be listed much higher in the "hit list" due to its presence on LTB.

"LTB really is much more than an online directory. In fact, it's a one-stop Web 2.0 destination for litigation support professionals, law firms, and the companies that provide litigation technology products and services" said RD Whitney, founder of LTB and CEO of Caroo Media U.S. "Now, in an online business community devoted to their industry, litigation support professionals and companies providing services and software can send out press releases, blog about their technology, create and enhance their own directory listings, upload white papers and other files, and connect with their peers. Plus, the entire environment is designed with SEO in mind. The possibility of participants generating optimal visibility for themselves in the search engines is very real. What's more, LTB boasts the most comprehensive searchable online directory of litigation support and trial technologies and services."

"Because we proactively research companies for our directory and encourage them to update their profiles, many of this industry's hundreds of companies offering relevant technologies and service are already in the LTB Directory," said Julie Laboe, Editor-in-Chief of LTB. She continued, "litigation support professionals can search for a specific technology or service, in a specific location, and find out how others have rated the service and quality of those companies."

In addition to many free activities, LTB offers yet more capabilities with the LTB PR Boost Campaign. By harnessing the power of public relations for Web 2.0, the LTB PR Boost Campaign can dramatically improve a company's search engine presence through PRSEO (Public Relations Search Engine Optimization). LTB utilizes "Spotlights" to promote certain companies on the LTB website. Our editor-in-chief will work with law firms and companies to draft a marketing statement that best describes their business and to draft an article that puts their business in the best possible light – the "spotlight." They will be featured on the front page of LegalTechBase.com for two weeks. We also take care of the PRSEO.

"Two weeks after its LTB Spotlight becomes live," said Whitney, "the participating firm receives a report confirming that their news was picked up by search engines' news aggregators. With the push for free content and interactivity online, PRSEO is the new vehicle for promoting products and services. The LTB PR Boost Campaign embraces this fundamental shift in how firms create awareness around their brands in the online environment. LTB itself marshals the totality of Web 2.0 to provide the litigation support community with benefits not seen before in the industry."

Nice resource on automated federal courtrooms

Trial Consulting Services, LLC based in Florida has provided a nice resource on their website of federal courtrooms that have been automated, user’s guides for the courtrooms, and contact information.  Visit Trial Consulting Services, LLC at www.trialcs.com or access the “Court Listing” resource at http://www.trialcs.com/court-listing/.

Think You Don't Need to be Educated About eDiscovery - You're Sadly Mistaken

This week I attended an online CLE provided by iVize and CT Summation.  The presenter was Josh Gilliland of iVize.  I really liked the message he was providing – (in my words) even the smallest and basic cases are now affected by eDiscovery and anyone who doesn’t think that they need to be educated about eDiscovery before engaging in litigation is sadly mistaken.

What if I decide e-Discovery is not important?

Attorney Gilliland brought up a situation where an attorney had approached him and stated that he did not want to deal with eDiscovery.  Basically, this lawyer wanted to dismiss electronically stored information (“ESI”) without consulting his client on what existed, email archiving polices, litigation hold, nor was he interested in collecting/reviewing ESI.  I empathize with attorney Gilliland’s frustration when it comes to this type of cavalier attitude towards a very serious topic.  As with all other technology in the litigation arena, the large cases dictate the rules relating to the use of ESI which, in turn, trickle down to all types of cases.  In the eDiscovery arena, most have heard about the Qualcomm v. Broadcom case.  In that case the court commented that “[a]ttorneys' ethical obligations do not permit them to participate in an inadequate document search and then provide misleading and incomplete information to their opponents and false arguments to the court.”  Given this proclamation, no one can afford to remain in a reactionary mode.  Now is the time to be proactive and start playing offense.  Let’s also educate ourselves about Business Intelligence and Data Loss Recovery. 

What if I’m not educated about eDiscovery?

In the recent 2008 case of Perfect Barrier LLC v. Woodsmart Solutions Inc. , the Plaintiff claimed they wanted emails as TIFFs because it was “more convenient”.  The court stated that “[c]onvenience is not a basis for requiring electronic discovery to be produced in a different format than normally maintained.”  The reality is that TIFFs are not more convenient.  Bottom line, attorneys need to get educated – get educated or surround yourself with those who are educated.  You can’t make an informed decision about this important topic until you understand the basics – especially searching email.

Okay, so here’s one scenario attorney Gilliland provided, in the Whitlow v. Martin case, the plaintiff supplied search terms to the defense counsel and therefore the information produced was found by the plaintiff’s search terms.  Later, the plaintiff claimed incomplete production because, "[t]he only search was one using the terms Plaintiffs supplied."  Plaintiffs failed to explain how a search with search terms provided by Plaintiffs' counsel was insufficient.  On the flip side, in the 2008 case Spieker v. Cherokee,Plaintiffs initially served defendant with a series of specifically defined document requests (not search terms).  The court found that the burden of producing documents responsive to those requests remained with the defendant.  Since the documents were created, stored, and/or maintained by the defendant, the defendant was in the better position to develop the most appropriate list of search terms capable of producing the requested documents.  Defendant cannot escape its burden of production by arguing that plaintiffs' suggested search terms are "not specific enough."  If the search terms need to be more specific to answer plaintiffs' production requests, defendant should modify the terms accordingly. The court rejected defendant's argument that plaintiffs' requests were "not specific enough.“  And finally, in United States v. O’Keefe the court stated that “…for lawyers and judges to dare opine that a certain search term or terms would be more likely to produce information than the terms that were used is truly to go where angels fear to tread.”  You can’t rely solely on your client for search terms either because they may not think about all the ways the information can be used, including to show integrity or lack of or personal issues.  For example, in a case I worked on recently the client failed to mention that he had emails containing correspondence with his psychiatrist and, as a result, they were inadvertently produced. Opposing counsel then tried to use them against the client in his deposition. 

So what do you do? 

You hire someone who knows what they’re doing, preferably someone who wants to educate you as they go, a computer forensics consultant. In Equity Analytics, LLC v Lundin, citing United States v. O’Keefe, Magistrate Judge Facciola stated, “[d]etermining whether a particular search methodology, such as keywords, will or will not be effective certainly requires knowledge beyond the ken of a lay person (and a lay lawyer) and requires expert testimony that meets the requirements of Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.”

Make sure the computer forensics consultant you select is reputable, writes well, and has experience testifying. Search the computer forensics category of our directory for computer forensics specialists in your area and see what others have to say about them.

What about DLP & BI?

As LTB has evolved, I have realized that there is a key component missing –prevention and preservation technology information for the legal community.  These are most commonly referred to as Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Business Intelligence (BI).  To date, I haven’t been able to find a source for the legal industry that provides the necessary information about DLP and BI – let alone a source that provides DLP, BI, and the technology available to manage such information in the context of litigation.  DLP and BI are often touched upon in articles but those articles fail to address the important protocols/technology that need to be in place long before the threat of litigation is raised.  Since experts agree that “the best defense is a good offense” and because courts are not swayed by claims of ignorance (e.g. the “Pollyanna defense”), we should be talking more about how to be prepared for or prevent litigation. 

It is becoming more and more evident that “electronic discovery” effects almost every type of litigation and from my research it appears that the largest percentage of cases using eDiscovery is in the area of employment law.  Since employment law effects virtually every type and size of company, this is a big issue.

The companies I’ve worked with who have “learned the hard way” about the prevention and preservation of evidence agree that being proactive (before the hint of litigation) is the most important phase of “eDiscovery”. The front end costs ultimately are MUCH cheaper than having to reconstruct and track down electronic data related to a legal action. And although DLP and BI can often be hard to sell to the powers that be, there’s no dispute that it’s an easy sell after becoming mired in data retrieval in response to discovery requests.  Many companies don’t have the budget to spend a lot of money on DLP and BI and may not know where to start.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to explore the steps that any company can take to safe guard against spending a fortune in litigation along with advice from those who have experienced it firsthand.

Wiki style collaborative web site

Locating a reputable and knowledgeable company to provide litigation technology and/or services has been a real source of frustration for me.  So many companies have emerged in this field in recent years.  Thus, it is difficult to determine which are knowledgeable, effective and efficient – and those which are solely self-proclaimed “experts.”  This has been an especially sticky point for me as a consultant in the position of making recommendations.

When chance connected me with the online media division of The Tarsus Group plc (the founders of LegalTechBase.com) I was extremely excited about their new service model. The model is a Wiki style collaborative web site that provides the most comprehensive directory in the legal industry for locating companies providing specific litigation technology products and services.  Moreover, the information is provided in an open source format. The open source format provides a location for the large number of experts and users in the industry to provide reviews of the companies, blog about their own knowledge and subject matter and have others contribute to it as well.  This style significantly reduces bias found in many other publications, and makes it very difficult for any group to censor and/or impose bias. Because Legal TechBase has a very low "publishing" cost for adding or expanding entries and has a very short editorial cycle, any content reported as inappropriate or inaccurate can very quickly be reviewed, corrected and/or removed.  So unlike traditional publishing that stays the same until the next edition, contributors (you) can update Legal TechBase constantly, ensuring that it stays abreast of the most recent events and knowledge.

Welcome to LTB

Welcome to Legal TechBase (LTB), the world’s largest independent and most comprehensive searchable directory of prevention and preservation, litigation and trial technologies, and related services.  It is also the only place where buyers can obtain and provide unbiased reviews of these technologies and services.

Professionals come build your very own legal technology professional profile – your “Linked In®” in the legal industry.  Vendors come build your very own company profile - your “My Space®” in the legal industry.  We give you the keys to drive - so post a press release or white paper, start a blog, and browse our directory.  Think of us as a business community where you create the content and get the benefit of SEO without the cost. We also encourage you to direct your customers and colleagues to LegalTechBase.com so they can provide reviews of your technology or service.  These reviews will be available to potential customers in search of the type of technology and/or service that you provide.  We are “Where Litigation and Technology Meet”.