Quick Trip to MSP

Special thanks to the gang at Kroll Ontrack and at Merrill, for taking time from their very busy schedules to meet with us this week in the Twin Cities. Our conversations were terrific, and nuanced. We talked about everything from how customer service will be a differentiator as the vendor wars escalate, to  how everybody's trying to position themselves to provide effective counseling to their clients who are struggling to grapple with e-discovery.

Kudos to Craig Levinsohn , Allison Guidette and Daniel Pelc at Merrill, and  Michele Lange and her team (including Christian Betancourt and Kaitlin Creager) for all their insights. We also had a chance to touch bases with Benjamin Green, operations manager of ComputerForensic Services. And we always enjoy a chance to feast at the St. Paul Grille with the Thomson West gang (Gretchen DeSutter, John Shaughnessy, Jeff Patrias, and Melissa Deml). (We'll be returning to Mpls in early June for a more extended visit to Eagan).

On the EDD front, both Kroll and Merrill "get" that the profession is in desperate need of education on the complex challenges they face. Toward that goal, among the many materials both vendors have been producing are white papers, surveys, podcasts and webinars.

Here are some samples:

From Merrill:
* Total Evidence Management: A winning Approach to Complex Litigation.
* Authenticating Digital Evidence: Identify and Avoid the Weak Links in Your Chain of Custody.

From Kroll:
* Electronic Discovery Filtering: Early Processing Metrics Technology: Download kroll_ontrack_early_processing_metrics.doc

* ESI Trends Report  Download 2008_esi_trends_report.pdf (Also, see next post).