We finished our three days at LegalTech and have safely returned to Toronto. Our general impression was that there have not been any monumental changes in the e-Discovery technology industry since last year. While there was some consolidation of products and vendors, the software systems available to litigators to deal with electronic records are pretty much the same as last year. We did see some refinements and improvements in previous year’s new innovations, but nothing stood out to us as the next e-discovery solution.
While products were not much changed, we did note a change in the way the products were promoted. Many vendors began their sales pitch by telling us why their competitors’ products did not work, and only their own products could meet our requirements. Perhaps this was due to it being a primaries year in the U.S., or it was a result of the lack of progress in software design since last year. Whatever the reason, it did somewhat dampen our overall experience. We most appreciated the vendors who proudly demonstrated their own wares without slamming the product next door.
The lack of real innovation may be due to a maturing e-Discovery industry. But, we are still optimistic as both products and processes continue to improve. The goal remains to develop solutions to reduce the cost and effort to identify, collect, review and produce electronic information.
Tags: Document Review, e-discovery, e-discovery Canada, e-discovery conference, e-Discovery Costs, e-discovery processes, e-discovery software, e-discovery solutions, ediscovery Canada, LegalTech, review platforms, Technology
Blog | admin February 2, 2012 | 
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The annual e-discovery and legal technology show kicked off yesterday morning. WortzmanNickle were there to see what’s hot, what’s not and what’s the same.
As expected, Predictive Coding led the charge of buzz words once again this year. Many vendors offered their flavour of machine learning technology. However, some vendors appear to have realized, as we have, that Predictive Coding alone will not solve the dilemma of ever increasing e-discovery volumes and ever decreasing budgets and timelines. These forward thinking software developers are now integrating Predictive Coding into a package that includes all the tried and true e-discovery technologies, such as concept clustering, near duplication, email threading, and our trusted friend, keyword searching.
While there are many claims of unique Predictive Coding approaches, they all generally fall into one of two main categories – either quickly teach the computer up front what you’re looking for and then have it find your relevant documents, or let the computer observe as you search and find relevant documents using other methods, so that it can subtlety influence the result and present you with more likely relevant documents to review. Both methods should theoretically end up with the same results.
Wortzman Nickle will be exploring these two approaches over the next couple of months and report in upcoming blogs and papers on the costs and benefits of each methodology.
Tags: discovery, Document Review, e-discovery, e-discovery Canada, e-discovery conference, e-Discovery Costs, e-discovery processes, e-discovery software, e-discovery solutions, early case assessment, ediscovery, ediscovery Canada, predictive coding, review platforms, Technology
LegalTech, e-discovery solutions, early case assessment, lawyer review | admin January 31, 2012 | Comments (0)
On Monday, September 19, 2011, Sedona Canada, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Bar Association, the Advocates Society and the Ontario e-Discovery Implementation Committee collaborated to present “The Ontario e-Discovery Institute: e-Discovery for All Cases and All Lawyers” in Toronto, Ontario. Reported to be the largest e-discovery conference in North America, over 610 people attended in person or by live webinar. It was a very diverse audience from across the country, illustrating a very real interest in all things e-discovery.
Susan Wortzman and Susan Nickle participated on panels on “e-Discovery Negligence” and “Cost Containment and e-Discovery”, respectively. Other panels featured Canadian and American judges and masters, members of the Bar from across Canada and the United States, vendors and litigation support professionals. This multi-perspective approach led to interesting and spirited discussions about privacy, cost-containment, emerging technologies, and other topical e-discovery issues.
Stay tuned to our blog as we feature some of these issues in upcoming posts!
Tags: costs, discovery, discovery plan, e-discovery, e-discovery Canada, e-discovery conference, e-Discovery Costs, ediscovery, ediscovery Canada, managing e-discovery costs, Sedona Canada Principles, Sedona Canada Principles ®
Blog | admin September 20, 2011 | Comments (0)
This year, the Georgetown University Law Center is holding its 7th Annual Advanced e-Discovery Institute in Arlington, VA. The line up of speakers includes a who’s-who of e-Discovery in the U.S., including the Hon. Paul W. Grimm (Victor Stanley) and the Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin (Zubulake and Pension Fund).
The topics discussed on the first day ranged from a review of e-Discovery rulings in 2010 (at last count, there were over 250 cases this year with specific e-Discovery rulings), Proportionality, the Business of e-Discovery, and a compelling discussion about International e-Discovery.
The first session was a roundtable discussion by six judges. It was generally felt that this year could easily be branded the year of e-Discovery sanctions. While the number of sanctions related to e-Discovery negligence was not great (the four most well known were Pension Fund, Rimkus, Southern New England Telecom and Victor Stanley), the number of cases where sanctions were considered has increased dramatically. Other topics included cooperation, proportionality, obtaining ESI from outside the U.S. and obtaining ESI from third parties (particularly ESI hosting vendors, i.e. the cloud).
A session on the nature of the e-Discovery industry was extremely interesting. The panel and audience agreed that in-sourcing e-Discovery will continue, but will in all likelihood not become the norm. While e-Discovery software certainly makes in-sourcing easy enough, the big stumbling block was viewed as the lack of sufficient qualified people to perform the work. Most of the session centered around the question of whether the market can deliver “cheap and correct” e-Discovery. The general consensus was that the status-quo will continue until the decision makers realise that e-Discovery is as much an IT process as it is a legal process.
Although it wasn’t discussed in any great detail due to lack of time, one forecast of the e-Discovery landscape in 2020 was that it would no longer exist. Of course, discovery would still be around, but by 2020, organizations would have a good handle on the management of their records, and the documents needed for litigation would be available at the click of a mouse…assuming mice are still around in ten years!
Tomorrow’s discussions look to be just as interesting. Stay tuned for part two of this special blog report.
Corporate Counsels’ Guide: Developing a Strategic Approach to Containing the Costs of eDiscovery
Well-positioned on the heels of the G20 Summit in downtown Toronto comes Legal IQ’s (a division of IQPC) conference to assist corporate counsel in curtailing the rising costs of discovery. From June 28th to 30th, e-discovery experts (and those wanting to be in the know) from across North America will meet at the Sheraton Toronto Centre to address this very timely issue.
What is interesting about this conference is its very balanced speaker mix of in-house and external counsel from private and public organizations, judges, and e-discovery vendors, from across both Canada and the United States. Primarily conducted in workshop and panel format, this conference emphasizes a very practical approach to minimizing the costs of e-discovery.
Topics will include:
- Overcoming eDiscovery and informational challenges
- Conquering new sources of eDiscovery: Facebook and other social media
- Aligning the interests of in-house counsel, outside counsel and IT teams
- Building cutting-edge programs with a winning team that will reduce costs
- Solving eDiscovery problems in M&A and departing employees
- Using eDiscovery in criminal, fraud, tax and white collar crime cases
- Implementing the Rules of Civil Procedure to contain costs for corporations and governments
As a member of the Advisory Board for this conference, our Susan Nickle is co-facilitating a workshop on “Early Case Assessment Strategies and the Pitfalls of Disjointed Collection”.
We’ll keep you posted on key (perhaps contentious?) issues arising at this interesting conference
Tags: containing costs, e-discovery Canada, e-discovery conference, e-Discovery Costs, e-discovery U.S, e-discovery workshop, external e-discovery counsel, in-house counsel, IT teams, solving e-discovery problems
Blog | admin June 22, 2010 | Comments (0)
