LegalTech West Coast: Day One

As LegalTech West Coast rolled into Los Angeles Tuesday at the Westin Bonaventure, it's a good opportunity to bring your e-discovery knowledge up to date from exhibits and educational sessions.

In a track sponsored by Kroll Ontrack Tuesday, "Litigation Technology: Trends, Technology & Innovations," two panels piqued my interest. The first, titled "A 'Stormy' Subject ... Exploring Cloud-Based E-Discovery," was moderated by Wayne Wong, (top right) managing consultant at Kroll, and features Scott Sachs, (left) e-discovery attorney for Atkinson Andelson, and Adam Sand, (front) associate general counsel for Ancestry.com and former general counsel of ZL Technologies, an e-discovery and compliance software provider. The 10:30 a.m. discussion examined both sides of e-discovery in the cloud: the issues involved in collecting and preserving data stored in cloud-based models as well as using software as a service-based e-discovery tools versus on-premise software.

With Da Silva Moore, Global Aerospace, and Kleen Products bringing predictive coding into the courtroom, "Under Fire: Defending and Challenging Technology-Assisted Review" at 1 p.m. is topical. It was moderated by Andrea Gibson, product director of Kroll Ontrack, with speakers Tom Werner, associate at Irell & Manella, Jeffrey Fowler, partner at O'Melveny & Myers, and Pallab Chakraborty, director of e-discovery at Oracle. This is the year predictive coding stormed into the courtroom and the technology continues to stir controversy. Even proponents of the technology at law firms and discovery service providers I've spoken to have said they'd limit the technology to first-pass review or even culling the opposing side's production -- but not yet for full review. The panel addresses this, as well as other technologies that assist the review process, watch for my report on www.lawtechnologynews.com.

The track's third panel at 3:30 p.m. was "Exploring Hot E-Discovery Trends: FRCP Amendments, Social Media, and Emerging Case Law."

Photo: Monica Bay