More from Wortzman on Early Case Assessment

Susan Nickle and I have spent a busy week meeting with vendors and assessing litigation support tools on behalf of several clients.  The new built-in features to several of these tools allow organizations and law firms to conduct their own early case assessment in-house. This became the focus of many of the meetings we had this week.  This really ties into Nickle’s post last week with respect to in-sourcing and how much of the e-discovery process should be conducted in-house by large Canadian organizations.  As the tools are developing so rapidly, we see many ways for our clients to put themselves in a position to conduct early case assessment efficiently and in a very cost effective manner.

 Despite an initial collection of hundreds of thousands of e-mails for review, early case assessment tools have allowed us to manipulate our searches and the data to cull the collections down to very manageable review sizes.  Coupling that with the review tools that allow for clustering, threading, boolean and other types of searches, we are identifying manageable review sets of data that can be triaged in a matter of days.  Trial counsels are then able conduct a serious assessment of their case.

 Susan and I  continue the quest to find the best tools to allow our clients to manage their e-discovery reviews, both in conjunction with external support and in-house.  The reaction from our clients has been overwhelmingly positive as they see the results of the early case assessment work

Social media not just for teenagers anymore

It used to be that when lawyers turned their minds to the use of social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) it was at the request of a client looking for help with a corporate policy. Times have changed. Now lawyers themselves are turning to social media due to its extraordinary power as a marketing tool.

Not convinced?

This week, in an effort to teach lawyers how to effectively utilize this “emerging new media” the Canadian Bar Association hosted a webinar called “Social Media for Lawyers”.

Consider the following:

-          the emergence of law-targeted sites such as Legal OnRamp, JDSupra, MH Connected, and others;

-          the decision of Ontario’s Chief Justice to allow live blogging and “twittering” from the courtroom of the Ottawa mayor’s bribery trial;

-          court decisions which take note of, or actually rely on, evidence from Facebook;

-          numerous law schools (Harvard, U of T) and Canadian law firms (the “seven sisters” are represented) are engaged in the use of social media, including Twitter and Facebook;

-          the prevalence of large Canadian corporations on various social media sites – business development anyone?

Still not convinced?  During the webinar, the following statistics were provided:

Facebook: the #5 top global website boasts 132 million unique visitors per month and 300 million active users

Twitter: the fastest growing social network

LinkedIn: 43 million strongly business-oriented users

With targeted, consistent, appropriate use (lawyers must ensure they are compliant with their Rules of Professional Conduct), social media is an invaluable marketing tool – particularly for those practicing in a niche legal market (like Wortzman Nickle!).