On the Mark

As promised, here’s the recap of day two of the Georgetown Law Center’s very successful Advanced E-Discovery Institute 2007 program.

Friday morning kicked off with three substantive tracts and the Honorable Shira A. Sheindlin’s whirlwind recap of an onslaught of cases in the E-Discovery realm. The three tracts:

1) Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions — Is Rule 37 Having Any Practical Impact?

Jim Michalowicz moderated a panel of experts, lawyers, judges and ex-judges. Very impressive and very informative. Gilbert Greenman, Ron Hedges, George Socha and David Waxse brought their unique perspectives to the topic.  This writer’s opinion and the general observation of the panel was that Rule 37 is having an impact before sanctions are handed out.

2) Practical Advice Regarding the “Discovery” in “E-Discovery” –  Ariana Tadler, one of the most knowledgeable attorneys with respect to E-Disco issues on the Plaintiff’s bar (and my old Boss),  moderated a fantastic  discussion with panel members Judge Facciola, Judge James Francis, Jonathan Redgrave and Peter Spivack. 

3) Use of Automation to Reduce the Risks & Costs of E-Discovery –  In the session nearest and dearest to my heart, Deidre Paknad of PSS Systems moderated a thoughtful discussion on the use of various technologies, bringing panelists from diverse aspects of the provider community: storage, search and retrieval, legal hold, in-house counsel, law firm expertise and service provider.   The most obvious takeaway here was the huge cost savings and aid to process and best practices that automation can bring.

Re Judge Sheindlin’s list of decisions: I’ll see if I can get a copy for my readers.   Check back.

Georgetown’s Advanced E-Discovery Institute’s final afternoon offered three break-out sessions, giving attendees an opportunity to focus on any of these topics. I can’t say it enough. It’s for the “take-away” that organizations send their staff to these events, and break-out sessions can really help deliver that. Two of the three were moderated by judges. All brought some of the most experienced experts to the table.

The three break-outs:

E-Discovery in Regulatory Proceedings

E-Discovery in the Criminal Context

Admissibility of ESI (Electronically Stored Information).

The break-out sessions were followed by:

Electronic Document Review — Why Best Practices for Traditional Paper View Doesn’t Translate to ESI .

The program’s grand finale was the big payoff for those who really wanted to know what the judiciary is thinking about all of this.

Judicial Roundtable: Addressing E-Discovery  from the Judicial Perspective.

Moderated by John Rosenthal, (an expert in e-discovery and a litigation partner at Howrey, LLP) , the event closed with a roundtable composed of judicial heavy hitters in the field, including Judge Lee Rosenthal (former chairperson of the Federal Rules Advisory Committee), Judge Shira Scheindlin (former member of the Federal Rules Advisory Committee), Judge Kent Jordon (3rd Cir.), Judge Francis (S.D.N.Y.), Judge Facciola (D.D.C.) and Judge David Waxe (D. Kan). 

Rosenthal asked the panel whether perhaps the rules had expanding the scope of discovery too far and how they thought the amended rules were working.  Generally, the panelists felt the rules were a move in the right direction, codifying the reality that evidence today is in electronic form — not paper.  All of them, however, urged that courts and litigants need to pay heed to Rule 1 regarding the “just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action” (i.e., reasonableness and proportionality must be achieved in the application of these rules).

When asked for his impressions later, Rosenthal said the panel ought to give “great comfort to the attendees that the judges applying these rules understand how in application they can impose tremendous burden and cost and, therefore, must be exercised in a fair and reasonable manner.” 

The conference closed with the usual Conference Summary and Take-Aways.

All in all, a great CLE by Georgetown’s Law Center. We look forward to next year’s event in its new home.

Again, if you were unable to attend, for webcast replay information and audio CD, find an information link here.

It’s not often that the title of a Lovin’ Spoonful song comes out of a keynote speech, but for the kick-off of Georgetown’s Advanced E-Discovery Institutes 2007 program, Judge John Facciola conjured up the John Sebastian and Joe Butler song in regard to why judges love and hate E-discovery.

Furthermore, the judge made it clear that other rock ‘n’ roll imagery may also appear, citing new Bruce Springsteen music, too.

 ”It was a great keynote speech,” said David Downing.

Today, day one of the two-day CLE proved just how popular this event has become. Standing room only, a packed house, you’d have thought there really was a rock star in the house.   And if you were hip to the world of E-discovery (and since you’re reading this, you are!) you’d have seen the rock stars of our community, providing expert instruction on some of today’s most intricate E-discovery topics.

At the second session, titled The Federal Rules Amendments a Year Later - The Practitioner’s Perspective, the honorable John L. Carroll moderated an all-star panel composed of Tom Allman, Craig Ball and David Lender.  It was a very informative session with spirited dialogue highlighting plaintiff, defense and corporate counsel points of view.  

The Preservation: From Legal Holds to Preservation Methodologies  discussion was moderated by Adam I. Cohen, with Eric Schwartz, Tom Barnett, Dan Regard, Ed Wolfe, Eric Frieberg and I on the panel. We did our best to cover in one hour a topic that took me a full year at an earlier job in the financial sector.

The last two sessions of the day touched upon the risks and costs of E-discovery and how to respond when things go awry (and they ALWAYS do). 

The spirit of collaboration was obvious.

“The program is a testament to Larry Center’s effort and is evidenced by the fact that competing vendors can work so well together to the good of the program,” said Dan Regard.

With all the goodwill, collaboration and great efforts, the program has really matured. Now it endures the growing pains that come with becoming too big for the only home it has ever known, Georgetown Law Center’s Moot Court.  Next year’s event will have to be held in a hotel, as Larry Center indicated in his opening remarks.

As mentioned in my last blog entry, the remaining day of this CLE can be viewed live via webcast and webcast replays

Find an information link here.

and the entire two-day CLE will be available on audio CD’s, as well.

Day two will offer no less than 10 sessions on real take-away topics, all for the express purpose of giving the attendees answers to the questions and pain points they brought with them.

I’ll post a recap tomorrow.

By Mark Reichenbach  -  November 14, 2007

Georgetown Law CLE kicks off its2007 Advanced E-Discovery Institute program with intensive workshops Wednesday, Nov. 14 through Friday Nov. 16 on a range of E-Discovery topics.

I’ve had the pleasure of being on the Advisory Board for a few years, and I can recommend this event without reservation. It always delivers on its promise of significant takeaways for those who come seeking answers.

Larry Center, Bob Eisenberg and co-chairs John Rosenthal and Ariana Tadler have put together a great set of speakers and panelists. Larry Center’s amazing program has caused a great deal of excitement about future projects on the E-Discovery educational front.

While this program is being held at Georgetown Law Center’s campus, folks around the country/world can also benefit via a live webcast!

 Find an information link here.

The program is being offered online in four parts, morning and afternoon for the two days.

 See the official brochure on Georgetown CLE’s website here (click)

In addition to writing this irreverent e-discovery blog, believe it or not, I actually have a real day job.

While On the Mark readers know I usually attempt to remain vendor-agnostic and commercially neutral within the confines of my blog, guest articles and speaking engagements, I’m going to don an evangelist hat briefly to discuss the new MetaLINCS 4.0 software release today.

MetaLINCS 4.0 supports an important market trend with large industry implications as we soldier on into the new post-FRCP world.

Let’s face it, today there are simply more products and technologies available for EDD than ever before. And that’s an understatement. Some of those offerings are worthwhile and some are not. Some are first generation, struggling to remain relevant, and others are attempting to retrofit and enhance offerings to stay in the game.  

In an environment once dominated by a service-driven model, MetaLINCS and other forward thinkers recognize the obvious: This environment is giving way to packaged software across the whole EDD value chain.

Corporations are seeing EDD as a compliance issue that must be addressed and its out-of-control costs contained. And for good reason. As e-content continues to proliferate, technological advances are the only way to tame this beast. The question, of course, is how to consume it. And before anyone starts to crank up the flame throwers, stop and take a breath.

“With the recent changes to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, there has been a massive surge in market activity around E-Discovery. E-Discovery vendors are working to understand where the market is heading and to provide solutions based on their customers’ needs,” says Debra Logan, research vice president, Gartner.  “These solutions present enterprises with the potential to save huge amounts of money on the collection, processing, analysis and organization of the massive amounts of electronic data produced – and subpoenaed – each day.” 

OK. So I’m not alone. Let me underscore that in my humble opinion, this is not a software-versus-services question. Because it’s not. It’s a question of finding the right combination of the two.

MetaLINCS 4.0 is the first product to begin delivering an EDD software platform with the power and flexibility to control your own EDD destiny on a case by case basis – software or services.

So Mark, since you are showing no sign of stopping this sermon, what’s new about this product you like so much?

As an old Litigation Support guy, I may look at tools differently based on painful memories caused by older tools’  inadequacies. Being in the trenches will do that to you. The first really cool thing we’ve added to this version (the first major release since I came on board):

Scripting Engine and Interface –MetaLINCS 4.0 features a new scripting engine with a graphical user interface that allows common case management, data analysis and other tasks to be customized and automated. We’ve incorporated some very helpful scripts, and you now have the total power of being able to write your own. Just think of review assignments that can be refined based on search results and automatically created in bulk in a matter of seconds. This gets your team productively reviewing relevant data in moments.

You obviously feel compelled to enlighten me further. So what other features are you proselytizing about?

Why I’m glad I asked myself that border-line snotty, moist with sarcasm, question.

Graphical Query Builder– New search operators and a graphical query builder make all the search capabilities in MetaLINCS more powerful and easier to use. Features such as double-sided wildcards and proximity searches incorporating wildcards extend the flexibility of the MetaLINCS search engine. All of these search enhancements can easily be incorporated into scripts so they can be used in setting up review. The MetaLINCS Graphical Query Builder simplifies the creation of sophisticated searches and helps users take advantage of MetaLINCS’ rich set of search fields specifically designed for e-discovery. It’s the most powerful and easiest to use search tool I’ve ever encountered.

MetaLINCS Instant Clustering™– The new context search feature in MetaLINCS 4.0 allows reviewers to create custom clusters of documents around any document they uncover during early case assessment or review. This Instant Clustering™ capability allows large groups of similar documents to be assembled on the fly and reviewed together.

I’m going to close here before I’m forced to throw myself off the soap box. There’s more. Quite a bit more. But I’ll leave that to our marketing guys and website to tell you.

To get the full press release, click here: MetaLINCS 4.0 Press Release.

In short, as an organization we’ve been building momentum with each new client and each new release of our E-Discovery solution. This 4.0 release is major, and with what I know about the “Road Map” it’s also a good precursor of exciting things to come.

So many thoughts came out of Sedona’s Hilton Head meeting last week that I’m wondering where to start.

One of the first things that jumped out at me came up in a discussion on preservation and to what extent an organization is required to preserve ephemeral or transitory data. You know, the stuff that resides in RAM (Random Access Memory).   The heavy weights all discussed this. There was actually an attorney from the Columbia Pictures v Bunnell matter present. No less than six judges in attendance.  Great stuff, I assure you.

This goes to questions of what’s reasonably accessible, of course, and almost everyone agreed that the data in RAM actually must be pertinent to the matter– it must have relevance in order to be preserved. However, as this discussion took the normal twists and turns, the question was asked, ”So wait a minute, you mean an organization can’t turn off its computers?”  Well, in a very narrow example, no.

Here’s the rub. Imagine a good organization that wishes to do its share. You know, help with the green movement, change its light bulbs to those energy-saving kind and turn off computers and monitors (and lights and copiers, etc.). They’re trying, and go so far as to enact a company policy that says employees should turn off these electronics on their way out the door.

Have we gone so far that this is wrong to do?  That this is bad policy?  It’s a stretch.