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Orange Legal Technologies has released its OneO Discovery Platform for e-discovery analysis, processing, and review. Delivered under a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, the OneO service helps to decrease data set sizes, and streamline first and second pass reviews. Press release here.
Mimosa Systems -- a content archiving provider -- reports that its NearPoint platform now supports Extensible Markup Language standard developed by the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).http://www.mimosasystems.com/html/news_PR_62408_2.htm
Quick last minute reminder that Thursday in LA we'll be hosting a Bloggers' Breakfast, in room 508 of the LA Convention Center, where we will celebrate J. Craig William's new book, How to Get Sued (Kaplan Publishing). Do stop by! Everybody's welcome -- bloggers and readers of blogs. I will be doing my Vanna White hostess
impression!
If you are a
non-vendor blogger, you can get a free full conference pass -- (and we even have
some EVDO cards to lend) -- just give a holler to John Bringardner at legalblogwatch@alm.com
Also, both vendor
and non-vendor bloggers are invited to send John links of your posts (also at legalblogwatch@alm.com) because we're
dedicating the Legal Blog Watch to LTWC Thursday and Friday, and he wants to
link to YOUR coverage!
And in all the
conference session rooms the first two rows will be reserved for bloggers with
electrical outlet strips.
Speaking of the seminars, content is truly king, and our LTN edit board
is front and center with EDD tracks by Craig Ball and George Rudoy,
among others. And Friday is FutureTech! (Room 503), LTN's all day track featuring Craig Ball, Doug Caddell, Judi Flournoy, and a host of other top industry leaders.
Hope to see you there!
Mon, hoping United won't fold between now and July 2. (Yeah!!! Star Alliance deal with Continental -- the first piece of goooood news from UAL in ages. :)
I turn the mic over to Tom O'Connor, and his TechnoGumbo blog:
Ernie Svenson has a post on his blog today with pointers to the Linn County Bar Association which includes Cedar Rapids, a city hard hit by the recent flooding and location of the Linn County District Court. Despite the flooding, the Linn County Bar is still planning to proceed with its annual meeting this coming Thursday, June 26 and several members of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA, led by Jim Calloway of the Oklahoma Bar, J.R. Phelps of the Florida Bar, Catherine Sanders Reach of the ABA LTRC and myself, are planning to participate via video conference.
Jonathan Nystrom, vp of sales at Cataphora, checks in with this alert:
I thought you might be interested to know that Cataphora's CEO (my boss), Elizabeth Charnock, was invited by National Public Radio's Morning Edition to participate in a series they are running this week entitled "The E-Mail Age.".
She was part of their coverage of legal issues and e-mail. There are a number of interesting pieces that you might want to check out here.
You can directly access the recording of Elizabeth's interview with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep using this link.
I suppose it says something about your status in life if you are pleased or appalled to see Wall Street titans with eight-figure incomes taken away in handcuffs and booked. It's a bit like the lawyers in Qualcomm v Broadcom: we can identify with them until the lying starts, and then we no longer see ourselves in their moccasins.
This time it's two Bear Stearns brokers who ran a subprime hedge fund. Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin did the perp walk in Brooklyn early yesterday morning. In a New York Times article this morning, the case against them is described as built upon e-mail exchanges where they confide grave misgivings about the integrity of their fund while making rosy projections to their clients. Enron's Ken Lay lives on in the minds and hearts at Broad and Wall.
What caught my attention were the misgivings expressed in the article about the ability to secure convictions based on e-mail (pointing to the Frank Quattrone debacle).
Is e-mail evidence really less persuasive to juries?
The second tidbit that put matters in perspective for me mens rea-wise was this one:
A few days later, Mr. Tannin, who was known within the group as a worrier, sent an e-mail message to Mr. Cioffi in which he suggested closing down the funds after a report showed that the securities they were holding were rapidly losing value. “If the report was true, the entire subprime market was toast,” he wrote to Mr. Cioffi. The subprime market looked “pretty dam ugly,” he wrote from his home, early Sunday morning.
It was a radical proposition from one of the funds’ managers, and Mr. Tannin took the precaution of not using Bear’s e-mail system, prosecutors said. He sent the note to the e-mail account of Mr. Cioffi’s wife.
Orange Legal Technologies, a provider of litigation, audit, and investigation support services for law firms and corporations, has announced its certification under the Safe Harbor Framework between the United States Department of Commerce and the European Commission, with respect to personal data transfer from Europe to the United States.
Press release here.
The Masters Conference 2008 will address "Viewing e-Discovery Through the Corporate Veil." Judges, corporate counsel, and consultants will speak. The conference will be held October 16-17, 2008, in Washington, D.C. Registration is now open.
Bob Ambrogi reports on our LegalBlogWatch:
Is it ethical to search for metadata in a document you receive from opposing counsel? As we've reported here in the past, the American Bar Association says yes but the New York County Lawyers' Association says no. Maryland and the District of Columbia have also sided with the ABA on the issue, while Arizona, Alabama and Florida agree with New York.
Judges are seen as a circumspect and guarded lot, but there are few topics they enjoy discussing more than the art of litigation and e-discovery. Some advice on handling EDD matters: Don't ask a judge "for everything and a pony" and don't treat meet and confers like a "drive-by conference."
On June 24, ALI-ABA will be conducting a live webcast titled "e-Discovery Developments in Employment Cases." Two federal magistrate judges--Paul Grimm from the District of Maryland and James Francis from the Southern District of New York--will be facilitating the course. The judges will discuss, analyze, and practice tips on:
...and more. Go here for more info and to register.
The Federal Judicial Centers has made available the guide "Managing Discovery of Electronic Information: A Pocket Guide for Judges." The guide was created to help federal judges manage the e-discovery portions of their cases. Written by Barbara Rothstein, Ronald Hedges, and Elizabeth Wiggins, the guide includes how judges:
From Joe Howie, of the ALSP Update:
"According to the state of Michigan Web site, Michigan House Bill 5274, “the professional investigator licensure act,” was signed into law by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on May 28.
According to the terms of the act, it becomes effective immediately (Sec. 29) and it is now a felony punishable by up to a four-year prison term and a $25,000 fine for a person to engage in computer forensics in Michigan unless that person is licensed under the act or falls within one of its exemptions (Sec. 3(3))."
Continue reading "Forensics in Michigan? Prepare to Go to Jail " »
CaseCentral has named Steven d’Alencon as vice president of product management and marketing and Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to joining CaseCentral, d'Alencon was vice president of product marketing at Kazeon Systems, and is the co-chair of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Evergreen working group. Read more here.
The annual Sedona Conference On Antitrust Law And Litigation will be held September 17-18, 2008, in Florence, Italy. It will address the globalization of antitrust enforcement. Topics will include:
The conference, limited to 45 people, is accepting applications for invites here.
FTI Consulting is holding a webcast titled "Are you REALLY Ready For eDiscovery?" The webcast will take place on Thursday, June 19, at 1:00 pm EDT. Vivian Tero, Research Manager for Compliance Infrastructure at IDC, will discuss how organizations are preparing for litigation events, including their current initiatives, challenges, and near-term priorities.
Go here for more information and registration.
Editor's Note: This unedited review is submitted by Tusker Group. Comments are encouraged.
Document Reviewers’ Perspective of Inference’s Accelerated Legal Review Software
New version expands clustering and search capabilities; lacks reporting tools
By Dario Olivas
VP/GC, Tusker Group
Evolving Document Review Technology
Since the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were implemented in late 2006, controlling litigation costs today means bridling the expenses of electronic data discovery (e-discovery) and document review.
Continue reading "Tusker Group Review of Inference's ALR " »
Sherpa Software has released Discovery Attender for Notes 6.4c. It now allows users to read .nsf files without the need to install IBM Corp.’s Lotus Notes. It also provides e-discovery functionality for .nsf files, such as content retrieval, culling and annotation. Press release here.
CA's Peter Pepiton reports that CA and Microsoft Corp. are hosting a series of eDiscovery and Compliance Executive Conferences in three cities: June 17 in NYC , June 24 in D.C., and June 19 in San Francisco.
During the sessions CA reps will talk about its information governance roadmap; Microsoft's team will discuss EDD using its 2007 Office software. Other presentations will address best practices and centralized control issues.
How does a business enterprise in the United States reduce its litigation costs in an era when the country's legal system, and especially the litigation process, involves profound dysfunction and spiraling costs? Joseph F. Speelman, associate general counsel at Lyondell Basell Industries, offers five tips for a holistic approach to tackling the issue. During his tenure at Lyondell, the company's litigation costs have been reduced by 80 percent.
Electronic Evidence Retrieval, a computer forensics and e-discovery firm, will use Equivio’s technology for near-duplicates and e-mail threads to reduce the time and effort required for document review. Press release here.
Guidance Software
Inc. has allied with HBGary Inc., a provider of security assessment software and services. HBGary's live memory (RAM
and volatile data) analysis software helps users preserve volatile memory data, analyze the content and report on all
live memory activity across a network. Users conducting e-discovery can use it to detect, diagnose and respond to potential security incidents. Press release here.
The Allegheny County Bar Association has selected bit-x-bit to provide computer forensic and e-discovery consulting services to the ACBA’s members. Bit-x-bit’s services include: the capture of business documents, recovery of deleted information, back-up tape restoration, and helping to establish in-house e-discovery processing and review.
Press release here.
In case you haven't seen it lately, Clearwell Systems has a blog called "e-discovery 2.0: thoughts about the evolution of e-discovery." Currently, it's featuring recent posts by Aaref Hilaly on FTI's acquisition of Attenex and on e-mail archiving. Go here to read.
Autonomy Corp.'s Zantaz has announced a new hosted e-discovery service. It includes analytics for Early Case Assessment, automatic categorization for prioritizing e-discovery Review, and language independence for international cases. Press release here. (See also, Solutions Penalty Box in right nav bar).
From the June issue of Law Technology News:
By Ari Senders
Working for the last eight years in three major international law firms based in different parts of the country has given me a perspective on the evolving roles of trial support teams. I began my career as a paralegal and eventually moved into litigation support when it became clear that my technical knowledge was better suited to the developing field of electronic data discovery.
While each firm had strengths and weaknesses within its corporate bureaucracy and legal practice, there was a common phenomenon: the traditional trial team responsibilities have been disrupted, and firms are re-examining staffing needs and position criteria.
From the June issue of Law Technology News:
By Alysia Solow & Alan Schwartz
Your case has entered the discovery phase and you are faced with the daunting task of reviewing millions of pages with a tight deadline for production to your adversary. Your firm does not have the resources to get through all of these materials in a timely manner. What are you going to do?
Whether you use a temporary attorney staffing agency to provide a pool of contract attorneys or hire directly, the same tips for hiring will apply. With a soft legal job market, there are plenty of bright, ambitious attorneys who will want to work on your project. The trick is learning how to select them.
Claire Duffett, now with The American Lawyer, and formerly LTN's news editor, spotted this report by Dan Slater on The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog.
It starts as follows:
In the Bratz-Barbie throwdown in Riverside, defendant-MGA’s case hit a snag yesterday when it was revealed that the designer of the Bratz doll used a program called “Evidence Eliminator” to scramble his hard drive days before its data were to be copied for the lawsuit.
Continue reading "Bratz, Barbie & Scrambled Eggs, Oops, Hard Drives" »
FTI Consulting Inc. has partnered with Endeca Technologies Inc., an information access software company. FTI will use the Endeca Information Access Platform to create new applications for the search and discovery of financial information, transactional databases and other electronically stored information. Press release here.
The consolidation continues as e-discovery service provider FTI announced today that it signed a merger agreement to acquire Attenex Corporation, one of the pioneers in graphical analytics for ESI. If you enjoy press releases, you can learn more here.
CT Summation is holding a webinar titled "Discovery Taskforce 101: The Nuts and Bolts of Setting Up an e-Discovery Taskforce." It will take place Wednesday, June 12, at 10:00 am EST. Go here for more info or to register.
CT Summation will be holding a free Best Practices Summit in New York City, on June 19 from 8:30 to 4:30. Sessions will include:
...and more. Go here for more info and registration (deadline today).
The Informative Graphics Corp. is is launching the Redact-It Enterprise Server 6.0, which can detect and automatically remove privacy information such as social security numbers, names and phone numbers. The press release is available here.
Fios Inc. has released info on upcoming webcasts, including:
Index Engines has published a trends report finding that many enterprise customers are moving the ability to process and extract tape data in-house. The company has identified ten reasons as to why, including:
The full report can be read here.
iConect Development has integrated Equivio's near-duplicate document analysis into iConect’s Document Groups feature. The company says that the integration will help create faster, more consistent reviews. The press release can be read here.
A story on Law.com entitled "Outbound
E-Mails Spell Inbound Legal Trouble for Corporations" points to a recent study from Proofpoint.com on how corporations are
concerned about the content of their outbound e-mail.
The study received responses from a total of 424 "IT decision makers" including CIOs and IT directors from the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia.
Ari Kaplan Advisors, in conjunction with underwriter Fios Inc. has issue a white paper with the results of Kaplan's research conducted with 28 professionals at corporate law departments at Fortune 500 corporations.
Kaplan, who has written for Law Technology News (see "The Damaged Heart," Technology on Trial, October 2006) interviewed 26 associate general counsel and senior counsel. Among his findings:
* 39% of respondents say their GC has little or no involvement in management of EDD.
* 89% of respondents say their legal dept has an EDD response team in place.
There’s a double standard in e-discovery. Keyword search is deemed "good enough" for identifying responsive ESI; yet when privilege is on the line, lawyers insist on page-by-page review. It’s a tacit recognition that keyword search is a blunt instrument--a point artfully made earlier this year by Magistrate Judge John Facciola in U.S v. O’Keefe and Equity Analytics v. Lundin and emphatically underscored lately by Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm in Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc.
It’s assumed that lawyers are qualified to review documents and decide their relevance, responsiveness and privileged character. But are we qualified to craft proxies for our judgment in the form of keyword searches?
Estorian Inc. has
announced a reseller and hosting agreement with Mastermind Productions.
Mastermind, a hosted service provider of exchange,
archival, and IT services, will resell, host, and support Estorian's
LookingGlass e-discovery software to customers in North America. The press release is here.
A slight diversion from EDD, if you will indulge me for a moment, to share my excitement about a great program and podcast:
Our June edition of Law Technology Now podcasts features Doug Caddell, CIO of Foley & Lardner, who discusses "Sell Your Tech" -- how law firms can no longer just market their lawyers, they must use their technology tools as well to win, and keep, clients.
Caddell wrote this cover story last year, on this topic, which will also be the cornerstone of our upcoming "FutureTech" track at LegalTech West Coast. The FutureTech track will also include a Green Law panel; and a "TomorrowLand" (with a hat tip to Disneyland) program featuring six industry leaders, whose presentations will be recorded for a special "six-pack" Law Technology Now podcast series in July.
The FutureTrack program, as well as the June and July podcasts, are sponsored by BlueArc, a San Jose, Calif.-based company that offers
Electronic Evidence Discovery Inc. has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to purchase Daticon, LLC. (Daticon was earlier purchased by Minnesota's Xiotech.) Press release here.
During a recent case, DLA Piper needed to meet an opponent's discovery request for more than 570,000 e-mail messages in only five days. Mary Pat Poteet, director of litigation support, describes how, with the right vendor and the right platform, the firm met its EDD challenge.
Cover Story: May 2008
Law Technology News.
By Tom O'Connor
One of the most challenging problems facing litigation attorneys is how to work with the massive volume of digital documents produced during the discovery phase of a case.
For years, they have relied on a system of scanning and sequentially numbering individual document pages, extracting the text electronically and producing single-page .tiff files as the standard method. But that process is simply not effective when dealing with terabytes of data.
To address the sheer volume, many vendors are advocating a new way of working with electronic documents that can reduce costs as much as 65% — by eliminating the need for text extraction and .tiff-ing in the processing phase.
Beyond immediate cost savings, this approach also provides cheaper native file production, reducing .tiff-ing costs for production sets and saving up to 90% of the time needed to process documents. How? By not using Bates numbers on every page.
From Bizunesh Scott, of Patton Boggs:
Beware when crossing borders with your laptop! The Ninth Circuit seems to be creating tools for the federal government to use U.S. borders to gather evidence from your laptop and data storage devices. The Ninth Circuit recently held that a customs officer can examine the electronic contents of a passenger's laptop computer without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Arnold, 2008 WL 1776525 (9th Cir. April 21, 2008).
Alysia Solow of Constantine Cannon forwards this Memo & Order in Victor Stanley v. Creative Pipe, Download VictorStanley052908.pdf , with a summary of key points, written by Ilana Goldfarb of Constantine & Aborn Advisory Services.
(See also, Craig Ball's prior post here).
In Victor Stanley, Inc. (“Plaintiff”) vs. Creative Pipe, Inc., et al (collectively “Defendants”), Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland found that the Defendants waived any privilege or work-product protection for the 165 electronically stored documents at issue in this case by disclosing them to the Plaintiff.
Continue reading "More about Victor Stanley v. Creative Pipe " »
The American Lawyer's senior reporter Drew Combs forwards this proposed order for termination sanctions in the Todd v. Guidance Software dispute. Download Guidance.pdf.
Says Combs: "Where it now stands is that Guidance is being given an opportunity by the arbitrator to remedy the discovery infractions. If the arbitrator concludes at a June 20th status conference that Guidance has appropriately remedied the infractions then the sanctions stand and the case will move to an arbitration on the merit. If Guidance has not remedied the infractions then the case will proceed to the damages stage in favor of the plaintiff. "
We'll keep you posted on developments.
CT Summation will be holding a webinar demonstration of Discovery Cracker 5.1, on Wednesday, June 11, at 10 am PDT. The webinar will also introduce Discovery Cracker for Legal Professionals, a new option for law firms and corporate legal departments managing small to mid-sized projects. Go here to register.
Integreon, a legal process outsourcing provider, has acquired Datum Legal, a New York City-based electronic discovery and litigation support provider. According to the company, with the acquisition of Datum Legal, Integreon now offers all of the key elements of the discovery process: data analytics, processing, hosting, reduction and offshore/onshore attorney review. More information here.
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In this new monthly podcast, editor-in-chief of Law Technology News Monica Bay interviews key experts of the legal technology community on top issues confronting the legal profession.
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