11 April 2012 – As information technology and information management and the EDD business model have advanced at an expotential rate these past two years, we have changed our focus a bit on how we cover e-discovery events.  We have been spending more time at the big enterprise information management and innovation/technology conferences hosted by Deloitte, The 451 Group , EMC,  and Gartner.   Often brushing up against the guys and gals with the Big Checks who are jumping into the EDD space.   

As we stated in our LegalTech 2012 coverage (click here) data is the new asset class on so many levels.  As the Gartner Group, McKinsey and DealLogic have all reported, venture capital and private equity firms have invested something like $5 billion last year in companies built around big data, information management, database management and data processing.  

At LegalTech this year we had the chance to attend several presentations being made to  a private equity group whose advisory board includes the founder of The Posse List.  Some companies were seeking funding, or who were just out right “on the block”.  And although technology vendor suite reservations at The London and The Warwick and The Hilton were  down from last year (ask the concierge desk or the bellhops for the scoop; they know everything going on at a hotel) that was probably off-set a bit by the army of VCs and PE folk and analysts who certainly increased in number this year.

And it continues.  Today’s Law Technology News has a piece on the VC investment in John Tredinnick’s Catalyst Repository Systems (with who we work in Asia) and the hiring of former Clearwell Systems CEO Aaref Hilay.   This all comes on the heels of the LexisNexis sale of Applied Discovery to Siris Capital, the Symantec purchase of LiveOffice, and the Guidance Software acquisition of CaseCentral.

For the full LTN post click here.

23 March 2012- We all know the drumbeat: as the volume and complexity of data continues to grow exponentially within the enterprise, so do the risks and costs associated with managing it. For most companies, this risk is very difficult to quantify efficiently, and management often crosses the internal borders between Legal, Compliance and Information Technology.

And along with the volume of data, the variety of data sources is increasing as well, with the ever growing percentage being unstructured data.

Early Information Assessment® (“EIA”) is eTERA Consulting’s cross-discipline methodology for bridging the responsibility overlaps and gaps between Legal, IT and Compliance stakeholders.  Their Early Information Assessment service delivers a proactive, data analytics approach to integrating the management of corporate information.

They have written an excellent white paper on the subject which you can access by clicking here.

28 February 2012 – In Barcelona, the digital onslaught has begun.  Mobile World Congress 2012 opened yesterday.  To give you an idea of the size, it runs for 4 full days and this year some 60,000+ people are registered to attend.

It’s our third year in a row here and we have a ball.  So far the talk of the town is NOT digital.  It’s transit.  At the last minute the threatened dispute, which would have shut down the metro network, was called off.  And if you know the layout of the city you know that the hotels are spread out and most folks take the metro and not taxis.  But in all fairness, Microsoft and Nokia put on a nice presentation yesterday on their new phones and OS.

We normally attend via our digital/intellectual property sister company EAM Capital Partners because all of their telecom clients are here.  But this year we are also attending with our sister media company, as Project Counsel Media.   There are a lot of legal vendors and law firms attending the Congress and we are working with MWC to add an e-discovery component next year.

E-discovery vendors are here already.  Not presenting but attending.  Last year we encountered 3.  This year at least 12+.  Last year was rather cool because we had an off-the-floor presentation of how an ediscovery/forensics expert breaks out a mobile phone and extracts the data.  We hope to see more “lessons” this year.

All in all, this event is about revenue-building strategies for mobile-phone operators, financial services in a mobile world and how to capture more of the connected consumer’s time and money, convergence and the battle for dominance across a range of other telecoms-sector-related channels from smartphone operating systems.  We’ll be reporting on that post-conference on our EAM Capital Partners site.  That will include some chats with IBM and Symantec, two of the vendors here with substantial e-discovery assets and some pretty big staffs here at the show.

And the big gorilla not in the room is Apple (who just announced their new iPad presentation date).    The  smartphone and tablet poster child will stay the course with its tradition of eschewing the trade-show circuit and not make an appearance in Barcelona.

But it leads us to a point we made in our extensive LegalTech 2012 review (click here) and why so many e-discovery vendors are here:

 “Mobile First”.   At LegalTech this year we saw two e-discovery data processing/data review presentations on iPads.  The future.  One of the technology trends that can no longer be ignored is the rise of the Apple platform across all enterprises, a trend I wrote about in January (click here). In one of the conference sessions at this year’s LegalTech, the sentiment from the floor was that the Apple iPad was now the device of choice for attorneys.  And we encountered e-discovery vendors who have developed a niche product line dealing with data collections from Apple products.

No surprise.  It’s a “mobile first” world.  As the folks from Forrester said at their presentation “companies need to realize that mobility is the new front end for engagement systems. Apps are increasingly context aware, fed by the cloud, sensors, history and social data. That requires companies to reconsider how they deploy apps for customers, partners … but especially employees around this enhanced form of engagement”.  Bravo.  Mobile apps from companies can’t just log data, they need to harness all the power of mobile and social to help people get specific jobs done in any particular industry. 

And so it will be for e-discovery applications based on the “industrial strength” presentations we saw.  All you need to see is Microsoft’s purchase of Skype, Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility and Deloitte’s acquisiton of Ubermind to realize that technology’s next phase will be those firms that boast the most compelling ecosystems of devices and cloud-based services.  And it also explains why e-discovery vendors last year attended the Mobile World Congress and learn more about technolgy, platforms and “industrial strenth” apps.

Apple has had something of a head start in this race thanks to the visionary Mr Jobs, and they are clearly winning hearts and minds in the enterprise, but Amazon, Google and a host of other companies are now hard on its heels.

But this marvelous convergence of diverse technologies and applications and the “what is possible” makes attendance at events like the Mobile World Congress mandatory.

20 January 2012 -  One of the side-benefits to The Posse List is we receive almost weekly feedback from members, law firms and corporations on the good, the bad and the ugly on almost every document review software and information management software out there in Technology Land.   In any given week, on average, there are contract attorneys and staff attorneys reporting back on 15-20 technologies.  In addition, our beta teams (when permitted under their NDAs) report on various software.  Plus our own learning on our projects at our sister company Project Counsel.

And two software vendors gaining more and more market share are Nuix and kCura (Relativity).  And not just among law firms, accounting firms and corporations.  As we have reported, Nuix has been in beta at DG COMP in Brussels, and both at the S.E.C. in Washington.    

But we have discussed a basket of vendors with corporate counsel and law firm counsel.  This past year our focus has been at the top table corporate counsel and law firm events such as the IQPC Corporate Counsel Exchange, the Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting, and the International Bar Association technology events — all of which seem to be attracting more and more information management vendors.   Recurring questions to us?  What technologies do you see out there, what are you using, what’s been brought in-house.

So we’ll start with “What are the main differences between Nuix and Relativity, and how are you using them?”   The following is based on our experience via Project Counsel, plus feedback from our corporate and accounting firm partners. 

NOTE:  we have no relationships with either Nuix or Relativity and our guess is they may dispute a few of these points    but hey … just call it a report from the e-discovery war zone.

The two technologies can be best explained by looking at the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (“EDRM”):

Nuix is strong on the left side of the EDRM. Nuix addresses parts of the collection and excels in processing (and indexing) large volumes of data at high speeds.  With regards to review, Nuix is excellent for “early case assessment” (ECA) and ad-hoc searching and “exploring” the data.  There is some built-in “linear review” capability within Nuix (which we used several times this year) but this is pretty basic.  Production and especially redaction can be a wee bit difficult in Nuix but not impossible. 

Relativity on the other hand is focussed more on the right side of the EDRM (review, redaction and production).  It has no processing capabilities, so you cannot ingest raw data (office files, e-mail boxes, etc) as-is into Relativity. You will have to do an intermediate step for this.   A number of clients we work with use Nuix for ingestion, processing, indexing and the creation of so-called “Load Files” via the Concordance legal export function within Nuix.  These “Concordance Load Files” are then used to ingest the data into Relativity.

The review advantages of Relativity are that it is extremely scalable.   Last year we were  were involved with a project that started with 5 reviewers and ramped up in one day so there were 75 concurrent reviewers.  Not a hitch.  

Relativity has review and production features that Nuix is lacking.  It for example can track who has reviewed which document for how long, etc. Also, what you can do and where you can click in Relativity can be entirely defined by the administrator. In Nuix, every reviewer has access to everything. 

We propose the following: 

Nuix (for processing AND review)

-          If you expect a simple and straightforward project

-          If you do not exactly know what you are looking for (ie. there are no keywords yet available, you need to explore the data, etc.)

-          If there are no redaction needs and if you expect an “easy” production (ie, few cycles of production, no or simple bates stamping, etc.)

-          If the number of reviewers are limited … <15

-          If you have a very good e-discovery project manager (a lawyer with good IT skills, or IT expert with legal knowledge; we are told Project Counsel has the best)

-           If the reviewers are more experienced and IT savvy

-          If the budget is rather limited 

Nuix (for processing) + Relativity (for review)

-          If you expect a project growing in complexity and with several phases

-          If you expect lots of additional data to be added during the project

-          If you expect more than 15 reviewers to be needed

-          If you expect important redaction and production needs

-          If you will have inexperienced and IT-illiterate staff in the review

-          If you have a larger budget 

As is the case for any project, do your homework.  Before you start “shopping” and comparing pricing and working a budget you need to determine if your project is being run behind the firewall of the ultimate client (are you the law firm or the end client?).   And the reality is that most clients cannot really estimate the volume of data you will end up with (compressed/uncompressed, new custodians, new data sources, extra data, etc.) leading mostly to negative surprises.  So you need to do that homework.  Because a vendor (any vendor) will need to know:

-          Estimated duration of the project

-          Number of reviewers expected

-          First estimate of data volumes

-          Type of data (e-mails, server data, computer images, etc.)

-          The need for advisory and project management from the e-discovery vendor side; will the vendor be actively involved in the project?  At Project Counsel, we always work closely with the vendor and the law firm client or corporate client, advising and assisting them and always looking for opportunities to improve productivity and efficiency where possible.  [End of promotional plug]

We’ll finish with two video interviews we did last year at LegalTech with Nuix and Relativity.

The first is a chat with Morgan Sheehy, CEO of Nuix, about how the company started, e-discovery, early case assessment, and more:

We also spoke with Andrew Sieja, founder and CEO of Relativity, about the company’s rapid growth:

18 December 2011 — As we reported a few weeks ago, the A.B.A.  has been peppered of late with a number of accusations over its failings, not least of which is that it has not done enough to prevent law schools from overstating the current job prospects of graduates.  As expected, it caved into the demands of law schools with a watered down proposal.  We reported on this in an earlier post with several links to the law schol debt issue and the economics of law school.  For that earlier post here.     

Further, there has been a heated exchange between Cooley Law School and the organization Law School Transparency about the economics of going to law school.  You can see those links by clicking here.

And in today’s New York Times a brilliant piece on the incestuous relationships between the A.B.A., the law schools and the legal community.  As you read it we are sure you will feel like you are reading the story of Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code, the history of the House of Medici, the workings of Tammany Hall and the Spanish Inquisition … all rolled into one.  For the full New York Times piece, click here.

5 December 2011 – It was a lovely press release:

      “The [ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission] is fully committed to clarity and accuracy of law   school placement data.  As a result of these changes, future law students will be better informed about their prospects than ever before.”

They even approved a new annual questionnaire intended to gather more detailed information about where recent law grads find work.  But the new questionnaire does not include all the changes that transparency advocates have been pushing for.  Law School Transparency — a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve consumer data for law students — has called upon the ABA to publish school-specific salary data that would allow prospective law students to see how much graduates of each school earn.  As with the old questionnaire, job and salary data will not be reported together and school-specific salary data will not be released publicly. Instead, each school will report the three states in which the largest number of its graduates finds jobs.

For a review of the ABA action from the National Law Journal click here.

For more about Law School Transparency click here. 

And for one of our previous posts which addressed many of these issues click here.

This is an element of the argument that law school is a bad decision which rests on two givens: the enormous debt incurred by most lawyers, and the lack of opportunity.   People rack up an average $92,000 in debt because of the implied promise of a high-paying job at the end.  For most pundits, a massive portion of law school applicants are extremely ill-informed about the career prospects resulting from a law degree.  

We covered all of these points in a post last year which you can access by clicking here.

And for a recent article on the law school debt bubble from AmLaw Daily click here.

15 November 2011 – As we have written before (our most recent post is here) the most common complaints from the contract attorney world is that the work is mind-numbing and monotonous, affording none of the intellectual stimulation that a lawyer should expect.  There is often little or no quality control.  What supervision reviewers get usually has more to do with the schoolroom than with the law office, and generally focuses on production levels, tardiness, talking, number and length of breaks, etc.  Under those demoralizing conditions, mistakes are inevitable, and careless, unprofessional work is common. The result is the infamous McDermott case which has become a prime example of the myriad ethical problems in modern, assembly-line document review.   

Expanding on this theme, but with much more detail and with positive suggestions about what can be done and should be done, is Lawrence Chapin, an attorney with forty years experience in the law who has been working, for the last eighteen months, as a contract review lawyer on projects in New York City and Richmond, Virginia.  He is also a recent graduate of the e-Discovery Team Training program run by Ralph Losey.

In a special post on Ralph’s blog, Larry emphasizes that contract reviewers should become/can become more valuable to a project when they are wisely employed in a project.  Their talents and potential contributions to a project are often wasted.  

We all know that technology is driving much of the drudgery in document review.  But technology has become so important to the industry.  We recently attended the two premier corporate counsel events of the year, the IQPC Corporate Counsel Exchange in Amsterdam  and the Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting in Denver which we will detail in two lengthy posts in the next two weeks.   Between the two events we had the opportuntity to chat with 35+ corporate counsel (we’ll include some video interviews in our upcoming posts) and discussed everything from the new role of corporate counsel, the overall need to reduce corporate legal spend, third-party funding of litigation, privacy issues and social media, and … most importantly … the technology they have brought in-house to control e-discovery cost and the technology their outside attorneys and consultants use overall for e-discovery.   One of the overriding themes from both events was:  “yes, we need lawyers (both in-house and temporary) but lawyers who are data geeks!!”  And by that they meant attorneys who can handle the technical aspects of modern legal data analysis, who have some computer science background, statistics and math skills, who have or can learn the skills for legal data visualization, imaginative ways to turn legal data into actionable intelligence. 

So could technology help to redeem the contract attorney industry?  Larry seems to think so.  He makes numerous excellent points and we urge you to read his full analysis.  For the full post click here.

Electronic Evidence Consultant

Company Overview

Kroll Ontrack provides technology-driven services and software to help legal, corporate and government entities as well as consumers recover, search, analyse, produce and present data efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition to its award-winning suite of software, Kroll Ontrack provides data recovery, advanced search, paper and electronic disclosure, computer forensics, ESI consulting, and trial consulting and presentation services.  Kroll Ontrack is a technology services division of Kroll Inc., the global risk consulting company. For more information about Kroll Ontrack and our offerings please visit: http://www.krollontrack.co.uk/.

Position Overview

Working within the Kroll Ontrack Legal Technologies group and working on Electronic and Paper disclosure projects this role will have responsibility to analyse, scope, price, follow-up and play a key part in presenting solutions for customers of Kroll Ontrack’s Legal Technologies business.  Coordinate strategy and activities with Legal Consultants.  Prepare business opportunities for a smooth transition to the Legal Technologies Project Management group.  Perform other duties as required such as demonstrating software and associated benefits.

Essential Functions

• Analyse, scope and price business opportunities in the Legal Technologies business
• Present and explain our service offerings to clients in a consultative manner
• Provide technical guidance in evaluating business opportunities
• Coordinate with Legal Consultants in opportunity analysis
• Represent the Legal Technologies business as the key technical liaison between various stakeholders:
  • Customers
  • Project Management Group
  • Operations Group
  • Computer Forensics Group
  • Legal Consultants
• Consult as needed with internal departments including engineering, sales and business developmen
• Provide technical consultation as needed for Legal Technologies clients
• Create and follow up on proposals and coordinate with appropriate stakeholders in closing business opportunities
• Develop and deliver proposals and cost/time estimates
• Follow up on proposals and coordinate with Legal Consultants in closing business opportunities
• Be proactive in helping Legal Consultants develop deeper relationships with Legal Technologies customers
• Assist with and participate in trade shows as needed
• Meet with clients and travel onsite as needed.

Required Business Travel Requirements 

• Up to 20% UK and foreign travel maybe required. 

Skills and Experience 

• Ideally a degree in related I.T. technical or business field, or equivalent work experience
• Demonstrated track record of accurately scoping and pricing technology projects
• Experience of working in a solutions professional services environment
• A knowledge of Electronic Disclosure principles (desirable but not essential)
• Experience of working within the legal profession (desirable but not essential)
• Advanced analytical and oral communication skills
• Strong writing and public speaking/presentation skills
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervison
• Ability to handle multiple projects and manage conflicting priorities
• Ability to effectively communicate with business leaders and collaborate with cross-departmental representatives
• Advanced time management and organisational skills
• Advanced communications skills, including listening, written, spoken, presentation and influencing
• Ability to make effective and persuasive speeches and presentations on controversial or complex topics to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors
• Advanced PC skills utilising various software applications
• Ability to respond effectively to the most sensitive enquiries or complaints
• Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, interest, commissions proportions, percentages, area, circumference and volume

Ending Statement

Job descriptions are not intended, and should not be construed to be all inclusive lists of responsibilities, requirements, or working conditions associated with a job. While the job description is intended to be an accurate reflection of the job requirements, management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties from particular jobs as it deems necessary.

 Please submit CVs to: recruitment@krollontrack.co.uk and in the Subject line of your email note “Electronic Evidence Consultant – Presales”.

 

Business Development Consultant

Company Overview

Kroll Ontrack provides technology-driven services and software to help legal, corporate and government entities as well as consumers recover, search, analyse, produce and present data efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition to its award-winning suite of software, Kroll Ontrack provides data recovery, advanced search, paper and electronic disclosure, computer forensics, ESI consulting, and trial consulting and presentation services.  Kroll Ontrack is a technology services division of Kroll Inc., the global risk consulting company. For more information about Kroll Ontrack and our offerings please visit: http://www.krollontrack.co.uk/.

As a result of continued growth, Kroll Ontrack seeks a dynamic Business Development Consultant to join our Business Development Team in Farringdon, London.

Position Overview

In this high profile role you will initiate and manage direct sales/marketing efforts with targeted large law firms and corporations to increase revenue and build brand loyalty around our E-Disclosure products and services. This individual would also be responsible for generating new legal and technical contacts in law firms and corporations to foster relationships and assist in project strategy and consultation on electronic evidence industry updates.

Responsibilities

• Sales and marketing activities are broad-based and include new business prospecting, management of existing accounts, networking, and occasional public speaking.
• Using established lead generation methods, and developing and implementing prospecting methods, generate and close new project opportunities in order to achieve revenue goals and personal objectives.
• Management of customer expectations and ensuring that the highest level of education and consultancy is available.
• Facilitating and conducting on-site seminars and presentations at prospective or current customer sites.
• Liaison with all internal departments to ensure that opportunities are maximised with customers.
• Attend industry exhibitions, conferences, seminars and networking events.
• Ad-hoc duties as may be required.
• Some UK and foreign travel maybe required. 
• Previous account management and business development experience
• Experience in a consulting environment or capacity is a plus
• Direct knowledge and/or experience in litigation, regulatory investigations/disputes, insolvency, competition and anti-trust law would be an advantage as would an understanding of Electronic Disclosure software tools
• Strong presentation skills
• Strong computer skills with a good working knowledge of customer relationship management software
• Must have listening skills with the ability to clearly understand needs and discuss business value propositions
• Effective and assertive communicator, with strong relationship building and excellent interpersonal skills
• Strong introduction skills via telephone and face-to-face meetings 

Required Business Travel Requirements 

• Some UK and foreign travel maybe required. 

Skills and Experience 

• Previous account management and business development experience
• Experience in a consulting environment or capacity is a plus
• Direct knowledge and/or experience in litigation, regulatory investigations/disputes, insolvency, competition and anti-trust law would be an advantage as would an understanding of Electronic Disclosure software tools
• Strong presentation skills
• Strong computer skills with a good working knowledge of customer relationship management software
• Must have listening skills with the ability to clearly understand needs and discuss business value propositions
• Effective and assertive communicator, with strong relationship building and excellent interpersonal skills
• Strong introduction skills via telephone and face-to-face meetings 

Ending Statement

Job descriptions are not intended and should not be construed to be all inclusive lists of responsibilities, requirements or working conditions associated with a job. While the job description is intended to be an accurate reflection of the job requirements, management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties from particular jobs as it deems necessary.

Please submit CVs to: recruitment@krollontrack.co.uk and in the Subject line of your email note “Business Development Consultant – E-Disclosure”. 

10 August  2011 — One of the more contentious issues in e-discovery is the value of e-discovery certification.  Rebecca James, Esq. (Program Manager at Fios, Inc.) has been running a series on that topic.   As she points out while “there was skepticism and a lack of consensus on the importance of credentialing … minds were generally open to this growing trend.”  The series covers all views, pro and con, and includes all the leading experts and pundits in the e-discovery world. 

Part 1 queried lawyers on the topic (click here) 

Part 2 queried litigation support leaders (click here)    

Part 3 is the feedback from the leaders of the credentialing organizations and a look inside the e-discovery certification programs (click here).

And for a good source of e-discovery material access the Fios Knowledge Center (click here).