Category: eDiscovery 101

What to Consider When Buying Legal Tech

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101

The world of legal technology can be a confusing, intimidating place. The solutions available can look similar on the surface, but provide dramatically different outcomes. This begs the question, how do you figure out what solutions are best for your organization?

In today’s blog, we walk through some of the key factors to consider when shopping for new technology.

Functionality

Start by zooming out beyond the type of technology your organization uses and ask… what are we solving for? What kinds of projects do we work on? What clients do we serve, and what are their expectations? What practice areas do we work in, and do they require any nonstandard data populations beyond email? How many users work on our projects, and how do they best communicate with each other? 

If you specialize in eDiscovery litigation, your requirements differ from those working with contracts. eDiscovery and transactional law present different challenges that aren’t always served by the same technology solutions. eDiscovery requires massive data populations, and the ability to search and refine those populations as a project progresses. Contract lifecycle management often focuses on specific clauses or extracting repeatable key data points, but usually doesn’t require the sheer computing power needed for the dataset in a discovery project.

In many organizations, litigators collaborate closely with transactional attorneys, and decision makers are required to balance the needs of both groups when selecting the appropriate technology. Another consideration is how large the organization is. Smaller firms where attorneys work in the same office daily may not need collaboration platforms that are essential for a large multinational corporation.

In addition to “must haves”, it’s often helpful to make a list of “nice to haves.” Maybe it’s not 100% necessary that you be able to automatically integrate any new tool with a solution you’re already using, but it should be a consideration.   

The best place to begin is by considering what sorts of projects the organization must complete on a consistent basis, and where you find the most roadblocks in your current process. Once you’ve defined these parameters, you can better guide your search for technology in the right direction.

Usability

Technology that checks all your functionality boxes isn’t worth much if it lacks usability. Maybe a solution technically can do what your team needs, but if it’s buried under five layers of dropdown menus, users will struggle to use it. Good technology isn’t just functional, but intuitive to the team using it. When it isn’t, it could result in costly, preventable user errors, or lack of adoption that renders your investment a waste.

There are tradeoffs to going too usable. Sometimes, technology is intuitive precisely because it lacks functionality. A menu of ten options will always be more user-friendly than a menu of 100 options. It’s similar to how the “sticky notes” tool on a computer is easy to use with no prior experience, but is ill-suited for well-formatted documents. A word processor can create such documents, but the array of fonts, colors, and spacing options may make it difficult to create exactly what you’re after without some knowledge of how that tool works.  

Reliability

Reliability can be a challenging consideration. It’s something the organization will require, but can be difficult to determine based on a sales demo or marketing material. How often does this tech need to be updated? How long do those updates take, and how easy is it to run them without disrupting your organization’s productivity?

If your organization has dedicated IT staff or more tech-oriented litigation team members, it is worth consulting them before you commit to a solution. They can tell you what technical specifications to look for, and what questions to ask a potential software company or service provider.

Scalability

It’s easy to focus on your existing challenges , but ideally a technology solution will also help solve or prevent problems in the future. All too often, organizations identify the most economical solution, but quickly outgrow it. This could be because adding a few additional users beyond their initial agreement results in exponentially higher costs. Alternatively, their workload triples, leading to unbearable load times when processing the extra data. Either way, yesterday’s ‘solution’ becomes today’s problem. We encourage you to think beyond what can solve your most pressing needs at the best price and consider what’s likely to serve your needs when you scale.

Security

Security concerns are a non-negotiable requirement with legal technology, and buyers and sellers alike have a good comprehension of the importance. But what does it actually mean? How can we assess a tool beyond just looking for the word “secure” in the marketing collateral?

Like many things in our space, there’s a technical and regulatory angle to this. A good starting point is looking for solutions that are already compliant in jurisdictions where you operate. While almost any solution can claim to be “secure” without specifying what they mean by that, “GDPR compliant” describes a strict set of security and privacy criteria that are required within the European Union. Of course, if you operate within the EU it’s imperative to have technology that adheres to its regulations, but even if you don’t, shopping for GDPR compliant solutions ensures that higher standard of security that may not be met by a noncompliant solution. Other standards to look out for could indicate different jurisdictions’ regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), or voluntary standards that still require a third party audit, such as ISO 27001.

From a technical standpoint, it’s important to follow the fundamentals of cybersecurity. Does the solution support multifactor authentication? Does it allow you to set different permissions levels for each user to ensure that they only have access to what is required to perform their responsibilities?

New technology presents new vulnerabilities in cybersecurity as more solutions rely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLM). It’s important to make sure the sensitive data  fed into the language models is contained within a secure environment, not shared with third parties, and not being used for training other models outside this environment.

Still have questions?

The Contact Team is happy to help you find the technology solutions that suit your organization.

Reach out today!

Is Your eDiscovery Team Up to a “2-Minute Drill?”

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Just For Fun, Legal Service Providers

The 2-minute drill. It’s a do-or-die scenario where teams can step up and show what they’re truly made of, and all the best teams are known for how well they can execute in this pressure cooker scenario. Likewise, the best eDiscovery teams are at their best when asked to face near-impossible challenges with somehow-even-more-impossibly-tight deadlines. So, with that in mind, what can we learn from the best football teams, and how do we apply it to eDiscovery teams? How can legal teams figure out if their vendors are set up for a successful 2-minute drill before they actually need one?

The Team Has Multiple Skillsets at the Ready

When a team has both a strong passing game, a strong running game, and a QB who can scramble, it keeps a defense on their toes. The best “2-minute drill teams” of eDiscovery likewise have different skillsets at their disposal. A good eDiscovery team has a lot of different experts across many different disciplines, trust and respect between those disciplines, and effective communication at all levels.

The Team Knows How to Work Together

Imagine a 2-minute drill where the quarterback, O-line, receivers, running backs, and tight ends all came from different teams. Even if they were all great at their respective positions, they’re not going to work the same way as a team that is practicing/playing together all year long.

This is why it’s not just important to have a variety of top-tier experts doing your discovery, but a team that knows how to work together. If your vendor is great at processing, but farms out all their forensics to a sub-contractor, they might have a hard time getting those forensics answers they need when they need them, even if it’s a great forensics contractor! A team that can quickly get the right experts on board right away is preferable to a team that has the experts, but they’re siloed off and not used to working together. This is also where having a consistent, trusted partner in eDiscovery pays dividends, as legal teams that are constantly switching between a long roster of vendors may face more challenges.

They Lay a Strong Foundation From the Beginning

The 2-minute drill is only relevant in close games. Therefore, being good at a 2-minute drill is useless if you go into the last 2 minutes already down by 30 points. Too often, legal teams overestimate what kinds of last minute changes can be made. For example, a production is more than just clicking “native” or “image” on a menu; it can take hours for teams to prepare documents for production, and changing your mind after you’ve started the process takes even more time.

Part of why eDiscovery practitioners are constantly stressing the importance of looping us in as quickly as possible is that the more we can do in those early stages, the better chances of success in the 2-minute drill if one is needed. Not to mention that in an ideal world, you keep your 2-minute drills to a minimum. If you do a good enough job in the earlier stages of your project, you hopefully don’t need one at all because YOU’RE the one that’s winning by 30 points with 2 minutes left.

The Team Knows How To Calculate Risk

There are certain plays that are just bad ideas regardless of how desperate you are. We’ve all seen games where a team got sloppy and turned the ball over because they tried to force a play that wasn’t there.

So much of eDiscovery is about managing risk. It’s often not a choice between “the right way” and “the wrong way,” but a choice between “Plan A that has THESE tradeoffs” and “Plan B that has THOSE tradeoffs.” The same is true in a 2-minute drill. The people who are good at calculating risk during “normal” times are going to be good at calculating it during the 2-minute drill. Part of those calculations include knowing which plays come with too much risk and avoiding them, even if you’re desperate.  

They’re decisive enough to go “no huddle” if necessary.

One of the first things football teams let go of in a 2-minute scenario is the huddle. Is the huddle nice? Sure! There’s a reason that they’re commonplace when there is time to spare. But when the game is on the line with 2 minutes left, teams have to rely on instincts and experience to carry them. What looked like “careful consideration” before suddenly looks like “overthinking” now. Someone has to make a decision, and they probably have to make it with less information than they wish they had.

If a team has a solid foundation of eDiscovery fundamentals, including varied expertise, good risk calculation, and seamless communication, they are more likely to be able to make quick, yet informed decisions if they find themselves in the 2-minute drill scenario.

4 Rookie Mistakes of eDiscovery Processing

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Legal Service Providers

Within eDiscovery, Processing comes after collection but before review. This step is all about taking the data and extracting metadata such as who created that document, when they created it, the file format and size, etc. Such metadata helps legal teams organize a seemingly endless sea of data into the right buckets so they can make informed decisions about what to do next.

Unfortunately, there are many things that can go wrong within the processing stage that an untrained eye wouldn’t notice. Some teams load data into a program, click a few buttons, and tada! They get their coveted metadata. Without a forensics data engineer dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s, you could be missing out on mission-critical information and not even realize it until further along in the discovery process.

Data Engineers have the ability, knowledge, and understanding of how to identify, isolate, and apply various remedies to a vast variety of processing errors. Handling these errors appropriately will ensure the maximum amount of text and metadata is extracted from the source data. Keeping an eye out for these common rookie mistakes can help you mitigate them early, saving time and money.

Mistake 1: “If there was an error, I would’ve gotten an error message!”

Errors can exist in an imaging set even when the processing tool does not throw any error message. A data engineer can identify these types of documents based on fielded metadata and remedy the imaging issues using 3rd party applications. Proceeding without isolating these errors can result in incorrect OCR text or blank OCR text for documents.

Potential Fixes:

To avoid some of these mistakes, familiarize yourself with all available system fields and error messages and when to look at each. This will be a huge help in isolating incorrect imaging/OCR (optical character recognition) results.

Additionally, an experienced Data Engineer will recognize when they see the same issues on the same file types over and over again. To remedy having to manually search every time data is processed, set up saved searches by keying on metadata fields (File Type, File Description, Doc Extension, etc). That will display documents that likely have errors without needing to sift through the system fields and error messages.

Mistake 2: “Maybe I did get an error message, but the data’s still all here. I should be able to move onto review now.” 

Well…. Not exactly. ZIP files are a common format within forensics, and so extracting ZIP files in a forensically sound manner is a big part of processing. Oftentimes, there’s an exorbitant number of ZIP files in a case, so it’s easy for a few corrupt files to fall through the cracks.

Much the same way that a large haystack with a needle in it is identical to a haystack without one, the output of 10,000 perfectly converted files can look very similar to the output of 9,999 perfectly converted files plus one corrupt file. Data Engineers will know how to confirm if all of the data was actually extracted or if there are some files missing. They can also check to see if the content extracted is intact or corrupt. For a few files, this may be very obvious to even the inexperienced but when dealing with thousands of files it is easier for issues to slip by unless you know exactly what to look for.

Potential Fixes:

A good place to start is by running a “Sanity Check” by comparing the properties (File count, folder count, and file size) from within the zip file prior to extracting against the same properties of the extracted data. This comparison can either help confirm that you’ve done everything right, or shed a light on corrupt files and inconsistencies before they make it any further in the discovery process.

Mistake 3: “We’ve removed all the duplicates thanks to our metadata. Now we can throw the dupes out and move onto review.”

All eDiscovery professionals are familiar with deduping (or least the good ones are). Figuring out which documents are duplicates allows teams to better understand the scope of their review needs. How many attorneys are needed to review the necessary documents before a deadline? How costly will that be? In some cases, it may help determine if a client is better off litigating or settling out of court, so having accurate ideas of how many documents are duplicates is crucial.

However, discarding duplicates too early in the process can sometimes come back to haunt you. Some clients ask us which documents exist in the workspace that other vendors or internal team members have labeled as duplicates. Understandably so, since incorrect dededuplication can lead to drastically different decisions than what a team would make if they had the correct information.

Potential Fix:

The solution is to run custom SQL scripts that are able to scan an eDiscovery environment and find these documents that a rookie might have thrown out. We can double check this metadata to confirm whether or not these documents are in fact duplicates.

Ensuring your team is familiar with the backend SQL tables of your processing tool is an extreme benefit. The more comfortable and familiar a data engineer is with the backend, the more flexibility and time efficient custom solutions will be.

Mistake 4. “My role is eDiscovery processing. When it comes time for production, that’s someone else’s problem.”

An all-too-common issue for both legal professionals and eDiscovery professionals is not taking a holistic approach towards their discovery. They focus solely on the piece of the puzzle they’re responsible for without a strong sense of how that piece fits into a bigger picture. Data processing pros understand that it will eventually come time to produce this data, and those productions have to adhere to specific, previously-agreed-upon requirements. That could mean customized slipsheets, metadata formatting, production field creation, custom file-naming procedures and much more.

Potential Fix:

Make sure you’re communicating with the people on your team who will be handling the rest of discovery after you’re done with processing. Ask about what kind of file formats they’ll need, and learn as much as you can about the “big picture” goals of the case. Constantly learning and “getting into the weeds” on both the front end and back end of your processing tools will expand the number of tricks up your sleeve. With those tricks, data engineers are able to get the job done in a timely fashion where less experienced processing specialists may find limitations to what they’re able to achieve and spend more time than they have.

Why Mobile Data eDiscovery Is Different Than Email eDiscovery

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Legal Technology Innovations, mobile data discovery

It’s 2021, which means it’s highly unlikely that this is the first blog post you’ve read saying you need a mobile data eDiscovery plan. Most of us get that by now.

However, you can’t always take the same technology and approaches you’re currently using for email and superimpose them on mobile data. It just doesn’t work that way. Unfortunately, it can be hard to wrap your head around just how different texting and email really are until you’re neck deep in a project.

Today, we wanted to walk through some of the main things you need to account for while collecting, processing, and reviewing mobile data. By understanding the differences between these channels, you can not only ensure that you’re including mobile data in your eDiscovery strategy, but that you’re doing it right.

“Texting” is actually 3 different things that LOOK like 1 thing.

Generally speaking, emails are emails. After the initial collection, it doesn’t really matter much if those emails came from Macs or PCs, or if the company ran their emails through Microsoft 365 or Google Drive. Emails can be imported into a review platform, and reviewers don’t really have to care that much about where they initially came from.

What a layperson thinks of as “texting” is actually a combination of as many as three different types of communications: SMS, MMS, or iChat. We act like they’re the same thing because generally, our phones make them look like one thing. I don’t have a separate app for sending SMS messages vs. MMS messages. My phone doesn’t yell at me when I reach the character limit for an SMS, it just automatically converts it without me having to think about it.

During data processing, these messages that seem identical on the front end often get sorted out into different buckets on the back end. That means that if custodians were iChatting, lost wifi, and then switched to SMS, that single conversation may get ripped apart and reviewers have to piece it back together.

When you’re identifying potential sources of data, it’s important not to just ask about “texts.” If possible, try to figure out how texts break down into SMS, MMS, and iChat. The best mobile data eDiscovery technology can thread these messages together, and depending on how many phones you’re collecting, it might be worth that investment. At the very least, making sure you know how texts break down into SMS, MMS, and iChats helps you better assess how long review should take.

Mobile Communication Has No “Subject Line” 

Most work emails have a subject line; generally, emails in that same conversation also have that subject line. Sure, sometimes conversations naturally flow away from that initial subject, but at least it’s a valuable starting point that helps discovery teams understand what messages belong together, and which ones might be duplicates; this is the basis of how review platforms utilize email threading.

Not only does texting lack a “subject line,” it’s also a place where users simply don’t even try to sort their conversations out into multiple threads the same way. Earlier today, I frantically texted my mother about a jacket I left at her house, and within minutes she was asking me to text her a recipe for banana cake.

Those two conversations coexisted in the same thread, with messages right on top of each other. That’s just how a lot of us text. I pity any review team that would have to go through my phone and find messages relevant to their case with so many less relevant messages randomly scattered across my conversations. (On the bright side, they might get a nice banana cake recipe out of it!)

Threading messages into conversations is one of the most important things that any good review platform does for reviewers; it’s even more important when users aren’t naturally “threading” their conversations together by default.

Mobile Communication Usually Requires More Redactions

On a related note, professional communication is more likely to co-mingle with personal communication in text messages compared to email. That’s especially true in companies where employees still use their personal device for company business. With email, we tend to have a dedicated work account apart from our personal email account. Users understand that there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy in their work emails. That’s not always true in mobile, particularly at companies that don’t issue company-owned phones or have clear Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies.

What if that thread where two work friends texted about trade secrets also mentioned things like doctors’ appointments or included pictures of their kids? Legal teams need to be able to redact irrelevant personal information in order to protect custodians’ privacy. That irrelevant personal information rarely shows up in emails, so redacting isn’t a concern to quite the same extent.

Some review platforms support redactions more easily than others. A cumbersome redaction process might not be the end of the world when you’re primarily dealing with emails, but it can seriously hinder progress when there’s a lot of mobile communication and redactions are needed more often.

When there’s a lot of mobile data in your eDiscovery project, it’s important to consider how technology and user behavior shapes this data. This is nowhere near an exhaustive list of the reasons why texting and email are different, but we hope it’s enough to get your wheels turning. What kinds of stumbling blocks have are tripping up your mobile data investigations? Reach out today and let us know!

Curious to know more about how Contact Discovery attacks mobile data investigations? Check out MobileRev™!

Contact Discovery’s MobileRev™ solution turns text messages into near-native images for review

4 Questions to Ask During an International eDiscovery Project

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, international eDiscovery

eDiscovery is often unpredictable. The variables only multiply when you introduce an international component. Knowing what questions to ask is crucial, and the sooner you get the answers to those questions, the better off you are. By anticipating those additional challenges ahead of time, you can build the right strategy that sets you up for success.

1. What are the laws that govern data privacy?

One of the first things you’ll want to consider is likely pretty obvious already: different countries have different laws! Sometimes an organization can simply hand over the personal data of its employees, but you certainly shouldn’t take that for granted. Sometimes, an organization’s ability to transfer that data in the first place is limited by local policies.  

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most famous of such regulations. The GDPR establishes standards of what data organizations can store on an ongoing basis. Compared to the U.S., there’s much stricter standards governing the level of consent that an organization must get from the employee in order to keep their information on file, or more importantly, share it with a third party. Organizations can incur hefty fines if noncompliant.

However, even if your project falls outside the purview of the GDPR, you still can’t assume that you should approach data the same way you would domestically. Jurisdictions all over the world are still hashing out their data privacy policies. Japan has their Act on the Protection of Personal Information, with new amendments set to take effect in 2022. Stateside, the most well-known is also have the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), but we’re already seeing other states use that as a blueprint for their own rules. Virginia’s governor signed the Virginia Comprehensive Data Privacy Act earlier this year, and it will go into effect in 2023. A similar bill was also introduced in the New York State Senate.

There are fairly decent odds that between the time of this writing, and the time that you find this blog post in your internet meandering, some government somewhere has enacted or amended a privacy law. Make sure your team does their homework and is compliant with all relevant regulation.

2. How will we translate communications in other languages?

There are all sorts of ways in which language barriers can make discovery harder, but one of the hardest ones is translating relevant information into English for U.S. attorneys.

“[Machine] translation apps struggle with slang and can misinterpret the provided content,” says Jamente Cooper, Lead Forensic Analyst at Contact Discovery. “The data itself is still in commonly used databases or files but understanding the content as it was intended is still a daunting task.”

In a perfect world, you’d have actual humans who know the language in question doing review. This is your best shot at understanding how a native speaker might’ve intended their words.

In the imperfect world we actually live in, that’s not always possible. Oftentimes the most practical solution is something in the middle that utilizes technology and human knowledge. Maybe one or two reviewers actually know the other language, but English speakers can review digitally translated content and refer any trickier conversations to their teammates who can read the source language.

Before you start collection, start formulating your game plan for how you’re going to handle data in languages other than English. You’ll likely have to start looking for qualified reviewers earlier than you usually would to account for the extra challenge of a foreign language.

3. What apps are common in this market?

There are a few old standbys we go back to over and over again in the discovery world: emails; the word docs and pdfs that get attached to emails; in more recent years, text messages and other mobile apps have reached a similar level of prominence. However, messaging apps can vary in popularity depending on where you are on the globe.

During an international case you simply can’t take it for granted that custodians are communicating the same ways they would domestically. WhatsApp for example has a global userbase of over 2 billion, but only 75 million in the states. That means roughly 2/3 of the app’s users lie outside the United States. One study of Android devices showed that WhatsApp is the most popular chat app in 58 different countries. A Japanese-based app called LINE is virtually unheard-of in the U.S. but incredibly common in its home nation and some other Asian markets.

Every case is different, and you never want to confine yourself to business-as-usual data types without covering all your bases, even domestically. However, the possibility of overlooking an important data source goes up when you’re in a foreign market that has latched onto different communication channels.  

4. How much data is there?

So yes, this is a common question regardless of where you’re doing your discovery project. However, you might be surprised at how much the sheer quantity of data changes when there’s an international dimension to your case.

In the U.S., we generate a lot of data. Personally, I’ve worked in U.S.-based offices where people commonly used email to communicate with coworkers who were literally in the same room. Many people see it as more polite to send an email or Slack message so that their teammate can get to the issue on their time rather than call someone or pop into their office without prior warning. The U.S. has also normalized talking about work outside regular hours, and using channels outside official company email accounts. 

The result is piles and piles of data. In some ways that makes cases easier since your odds of finding relevant information go up when everything is so well documented. However, identifying and collecting that data becomes that much more daunting.

When discovery goes abroad, the social norms of how people communicate are different. In some places, it might be unthinkable to send work-related texts on a personal device. Maybe conversations that Americans would have over email instead happened over the phone. It could be a total waste of resources to collect lots of devices assuming that there’s more relevant data than there really is.

As important as it is to think of differences in the laws and technology, don’t underestimate how these kinds of alternative social norms can put a wrinkle in discovery. Do your research about how people tend to communicate, and adapt your strategy accordingly.

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Are there any challenges you’ve faced in international discovery that you think more people need to be aware of? Let us know in the comments!

Have an IP Matter? Ask These 3 Questions When Hiring a Vendor.

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Intellectual Property, Legal Service ProvidersLeave a comment

In the legal world, outcomes often hinge on ultra specific details that might go unnoticed to the lay person. For that reason, working with law firms and vendors who have experience specific to your case is often preferable to working with those that don’t. Such is the case with intellectual property.

IP law is not for the faint of heart. In addition to the same strong foundation of legal knowledge required of all lawyers, the best intellectual property attorneys usually need expertise in science and technology, or any other areas where they’re likely to litigate.

For all those same reasons, intellectual property lawyers and general counsel for companies where IP litigation is inevitable should look for vendors with IP-specific experience. Here are some of the questions such people should be asking potential legal tech and eDiscovery vendors before giving them an IP case.

1. Can this vendor handle my data types? 

Some data types show up over and over again regardless the case: Microsoft Word docs and Excel sheets; PDFs; jpegs. For that reason, you can probably count on any eDiscovery provider worth their salt to navigate these data types without blinking an eye.

Intellectual property cases are usually different. Crucial evidence often lies in design programs such as Solid Works, Catia, AutoCAD, Fusion360 and more. Maybe your intellectual property is thousands upon thousands of lines of computer code written in multiple programming languages. Either way, you have data outside the basic .doc and .pdf file types.

Somehow, you’re going to have to translate those off-the-beaten-path file types into user-friendly, reviewable files without wonky formatting discrepancies. Since these alternative file formats are often much larger than a typical word document, you’ll also need processing power that can handle larger files in a timely manner. Some service providers that could handle .pdfs in their sleep might still get tripped up by these more niche types of data.

Before you hire anyone to help you with a patent case, make sure they know exactly what kinds of data you have. Have they worked with those data types before? What’s their game plan? You deserve to know.

2. Does this vendor understand IP at all levels of jurisdiction?

Compared to some areas of law, IP features wider discrepancies between international, federal, state, and local policies and precedents. How do you make sure that U.S. patent will still protect you when you sell that product in Europe? Will that judge in West Texas rule differently than that other judge in Delaware? If you register that trademark in New York but someone already has a similar trademark in California, does it matter?

There aren’t easy answers to any of these questions, and no good IP-focused vendor would claim there are. A good service provider, just like a good lawyer, knows how much outcomes depend on where the case is happening.  There are great vendors located all over the globe, so you shouldn’t necessarily pick someone just because they’re near your business; what does matter is where your vendor’s caseload comes from. A California-based provider whose client base is 99% California-based companies might not be the best partner for your lawsuit in Texas.

A provider that has tried cases all over the world, and specifically one that’s tried cases in the jurisdiction where you’re facing litigation, will likely prove more suitable. The more jurisdictions they understand, they better they are able to put you in a good position for future litigations, which brings me to my next point.

3. Is this someone I can work with long term?

If you’re managing your intellectual property cases well, each one should be a little bit easier than the last. That’s because a lot of the data you need to win your current case is likely the same data you needed to win the last case. If you’re doing it right, your IP defense will get stronger and stronger each time. Maintain that consistency long enough, and you’ll probably see an overall reduction in cases. After all, who wants to sue some that keeps winning over and over again?

For that reason, your intellectual property strategy should always be bigger than one particular case. If it isn’t, that might lead you to a six-figure settlement that makes perfect sense right now, but ultimately leads to 10 more six-figure settlements over the next few years.

If you invest that money in building a strong case and maintaining that data so you can easily recall it when the next case comes along, that legal spend will pay dividends later. Settling cases usually doesn’t.

Still have more questions about IP and the role vendors play in these cases? Click here to talk to an expert.

Why Great Legal Technology Still Needs Great People

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Legal Service Providers, Legal Technology InnovationsLeave a comment

Necessity is the mother of invention. Thus, the legal technology market is full of great inventions. There’s so many that it can be intimidating, especially when everyone seems to be making the same claims that sound too good to be true.

There’s great legal tech coming from all corners of the market. Some solutions come from established names, others from up-and-coming players within the eDiscovery space. None of it does everything for everyone, but much of it can do something for someone. At Contact, we use all sorts of different platforms depending on what a given project calls for: Relativity, Nuix, Cellebrite, OpenText, CloudNine, ReadySuite, Magnet, and Metaspike, just to name a few.

As more great tech bursts onto the scene, many imagine a future where automation has significantly lessened dependence on service providers if not eliminated them altogether. It’s great that tech is empowering people with less-specialized skillsets to do more than they could before. However, those that do have more specialized skillsets in legal technology are still a necessary part of the equation.  

More Capabilities Require More Knowledge

Technological advancements usually mean that tech can now do more things than it could before. However, increased functionality can be a blessing and a curse. Oftentimes, as the list of things that tech can do gets longer, it becomes harder and harder for the average user to navigate extensive menus and solve the specific problem at hand.

For that reason, the widely prevalent and seemingly logical notion that better tech = less need for human help is actually not true. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of true. The more technology can do for us, the more it requires advanced knowledge of its capabilities. The more it can do, the further true visionaries can push it. It’s the same way that almost anyone can hop in a canoe and row around a small pond, but if you want to get on a cruise ship and travel the world, you’re going to need a staff of people who has sailed before and already knows the ropes.

The “increased functionality” that tech companies brag about doesn’t count for much if end users don’t even know it’s there. It counts for negative points if it’s cluttering an interface and making it harder to do tasks that were quite simple back when there were five options on a menu instead of 100. 

When your review platform has so many thingamabobs but you don’t know what to do with them.

One potential workaround is to simply live without those other 95 options in favor of a simpler, streamlined, but less advanced platform. Essentially, pick the canoe in a small pond instead of the cruise ship. For some organizations, that may very well be the best option. For many more, there will come a day when they need one of those other 95 options.

Legal tech specialists who work with these advanced platforms day in and day out understand the full gamut of what they can do. They can make these platforms conform to your needs. What’s more efficient, teaching every single attorney and paralegal every capability, or letting an expert evaluate your matter and coach your team on the 1-2 functions that will be most useful?

Investing in great technology means all those extra tools are still in your toolbox when you need them. Having great people means you can actually make sense of all the whozits and whatsits galore and put them to use while ignoring the ones that don’t make sense for the matter at hand.

Both the law and technology are constantly changing. People can change with them.

Rushing to a new platform in an effort to eliminate human service providers may very well work in the short term. But what happens when states pass new laws or suddenly a platform that worked great six months ago is obsolete? Even the best technologists can still only adapt to changes in the law so fast. Trust us, we like to hire the best technologists so we know better than anyone.

Meanwhile, there are always new solutions coming out from various legal tech companies. Some of it comes from real advancements, some of it is repackaging existing technology to varying degrees. Innovation is great, but “new” doesn’t automatically equate to “innovation.”

We can’t undervalue the human element because humans need to be the ones who decide what changes are actually necessary. Humans need to be the ones who balance healthy caution with innovation. Humans can become aware of legal changes as they happen and start adapting discovery strategies when technology hasn’t caught up yet.


New technology is usually designed to solve a problem that already exists. It is not designed to solve problems that might potentially exist one day in the future if not mitigated now. Humans on the other hand can imagine various scenarios where things could go wrong in order to ensure that they don’t go wrong. They can not only find ways to give attorneys what they need right now, but help attorneys make improvements so future matters run more smoothly.

It’s easy to imagine a world where AI can scan a pile of documents and find relevant information for a particular litigation or investigation. Heck, we don’t even have to imagine it, it’s here! However, it’s a lot harder to imagine a world where AI can scan a document, see a loophole that others might potentially exploit, and close that loophole years before anyone gets the chance to litigate it. It’s equally hard to imagine a world where AI tells you how much easier the next litigation will be if you make some tweaks to current information governance policies.

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Technology can be a beautiful thing. When done right, it empowers attorneys to do their jobs better without having to rely on a massive team of support staff. In the future, attorneys will be more independent thanks to solutions that are being developed now. It’s not an if, it’s a when. The important thing is forming long-lasting relationships with the right kinds of experts who are there to advise and support when you need them, but don’t view your independence as a threat.

What Are eDiscovery Managed Services and Why Would I Need Them?

Posted by on in eDiscovery 101, Legal Service Providers, Legal Technology Budgeting, Managed ServicesLeave a comment

If you’ve been on more than a few legal technology websites, you’ve likely come across the term “Managed Services.” Everyone seems to offer them, and they usually come with enticing, yet vague claims about “simplifying discovery” and “end-to-end solutions.” 

That’s all well and good, but how do you decide if your organization is the right candidate for a Managed Services approach towards eDiscovery? Will Managed Services actually help you run your business or law firm more efficiently, or will it result in paying for things you don’t need or already have? Those are the questions we’re here to answer.

What are eDiscovery Managed Services? 

“Managed Services” is an industry term that refers to a comprehensive eDiscovery solution provided for a flat rate. The “services” in question can vary depending on the client’s needs, but the goal remains the same: make discovery more streamlined and predictable without compromising outcomes. Oftentimes, the services are some combination of data hosting, processing, project management, forensics, and eDiscovery. The exact services and price you pay depend on the deal you negotiate with your specific provider. 

Who Needs Managed Services? 

The typical Managed Services client usually comes from a field where complex investigations and litigation are fairly common, such as corporate law, financial law, and intellectual property. If you’re only involved with cases of this scale once in a blue moon, a pay-as-you-go model might make more sense. However, if such matters are business as usual for you, Managed Services is worth considering. 

Another major factor to think about is your internal discovery capabilities. If you’re already able to handle the vast majority of your discovery internally, Managed Services might result in overspending. However, few organizations are able to achieve the same economy of scale that legal service providers do. It’s quite common for the optimal discovery program to be some mix of internal and external workflows. Sometimes, that means doing most of your discovery internally and calling in reinforcements if and when you need them. However, it could also mean a Managed Services plan where you pay for data hosting and access to advanced review software, but still rely on your internal team to manage projects.

Reasons Why Organizations Switch to Managed Services 


One all-too-common issue we run into with clients is that they hire a multitude of vendors yet end up with the same results that fewer vendors could have accomplished for less money. Almost any legal service provider will offer you better pricing the more services you buy from them. It’s like the difference between buying a meal combo from one restaurant vs. buying your burger, fries, and drink from three separate places. 

In addition to lower prices from bundling services together, limiting how many vendors you work with usually lets you make more use of what you are paying for. Hours spent briefing newcomers about a matter are just as billable as the hours that a longstanding partner spends actually solving problems. Even if you have a few trusted vendors who know your team fairly well, it can still be inefficient if they’re working with you for a month, then not talking to you for six months, then coming back again. A Managed Services model means your team and your service provider stay in regular contact, and when workloads suddenly grow, you don’t have to spend a lot of time (and money!) helping vendors play catch up. 

Predictability


One of the primary motivators to adopt a Managed Services model is predictability. Law firms and corporations that are routinely spending large amounts on outside vendors benefit from knowing exactly how much this line item will be every month. In a pay-as-you-go scenario, you’re rolling the dice every month. Sure, maybe you’ll hit the jackpot and spend next to nothing on discovery because you are not very active, or the matters you do have don’t require a lot of document productions. On the flip side, discovery costs can spike in the blink of an eye because the workload suddenly demands it. Sometimes when it rains, it pours. 

Managed Services is like taking out an insurance policy that protects you from those kinds of spikes. Now, this may still be wasteful if you have a lot of those jackpot months, or if your internal discovery program is robust enough to handle most matters. However, if you have any ambition to scale in the near future, the predictability of a Managed Services model can be liberating. It empowers law firms and corporations to take on new matters without stressing about how they’ll handle discovery.

Competitive Advantage


Oftentimes, a company’s legal spending is seen as a necessary evil, but it can also help you get an edge over your competition. In the case of a law firm, it’s easier to win new clients if you’re not passing exorbitant discovery costs on to this client. Oftentimes, firms with a Managed Services plan can price themselves lower than they would have otherwise without it affecting their bottom line.

For in-house legal teams, a Managed Services model can be the difference between winning a lawsuit, and paying out settlements just because “discovery is too expensive.” Managed Services can help you mitigate matters early for relatively low costs since you’re already paying for the help. On the other hand, a pay-as-you-go model might result in neglecting matters until they’re mission critical simply because you don’t have the internal capabilities to be proactive. If you only seek outside help when litigation is on the horizon, that vendor can exploit your lack of options and costs can spin out of control. 

Minimize Risk 

Consolidating vendors usually means minimizing risk. Every time you rope a new vendor into your network, you’re increasing the number of people who could inadvertently mishandle sensitive information. A good rule of thumb for any business or law firm is to keep information on a need-to-know basis. Organizations who are using a single provider for the bulk of their legal services are almost always going to have a shorter list of “need-to-know” people than an organization who’s sending data to new vendors every other month. 

Extra Capabilities 

If you pay for Netflix, you’ve likely watched at least one movie that you wouldn’t have cared enough to see in theaters or rent on its own. Likewise, many Managed Services models bundle the services you know you need with services you never would’ve thought to buy separately, but are still nice to have. 

For example, many clients reach out to legal technology companies because they need help hosting data. They may do this after an investigation is already underway, and it becomes clear that the volume of data is too large to handle internally. However, if they had already been paying for Managed Services the whole time, they could’ve also had help with automating legal holds and preserving that data before the investigation, all at no additional cost. 

Ultimately, Managed Services isn’t for everyone. Whether or not it’s right for you can depend on a number of variables such as the size of your organization, frequency of litigation, internal capabilities, and need for scalability.

Still have questions? We’re happy to help!

Reach out today to find out if Managed Services is right for your organization.

(If it isn’t, we’ll design a custom solution that is.)

Get in touch!

The Ghosts of Discovery Past, Present, and Future

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Here at Contact Discovery, we talk a lot about the importance of preparing for the future. That oftentimes involves getting a better understanding of the past. The world of legal technology moves fast, so it’s easy to lose track of just how far we’ve come. However, past challenges can inform how we tackle present and future challenges. In some cases that involve older documents, we find ourselves working the past, present, and future all at once. It is in that spirit that we take this holiday season to reflect on our industry. Specifically, the Ghosts of Discovery Past, Present, and Future.  

The Ghost of Discovery Past = Paper

Before eDiscovery, there was just Discovery, with a nifty little thing called “paper.” Companies kept paper records as far as the eye could see. Tens of thousands of documents scattered across various offices, filing cabinets, and even warehouses. 

If there was litigation on the horizon, lawyers and their associates would have to manually go through these documents and hope they found information they could use to build a case. It required a lot of people, and it was much easier to miss metaphorical smoking guns if reviewers weren’t communicating effectively.  

In the earliest days of eDiscovery, practitioners scanned these documents so reviewers could read them on computer screens. This meant that documents no longer took up as much physical space, and reviewers wouldn’t have to spend as much time on site or reviewing copies upon copies in law firm storage rooms. However, it still paled in comparison to platforms such as Relativity and others that are common in today’s Discovery landscape.  

The Ghost of eDiscovery Present = Mobile Meets Global  

While the past was largely about taking paper documents and converting them to electronic documents, today’s world is different. Now, most of our communication originates electronically. That came with new challenges. How do you find server space to store all those documents? How do you make sure the right people have access and the wrong people don’t? How do you take advantage of technology like email threading and data analytics without letting relevant documents go unnoticed?   

For the most part, legal teams have figured out systems to combat those issues. However, there’s one innovation that’s still tripping up review teams: the mobile phone. While mobile phones have been with us for decades now, mobile chats supplanting email for professional communication is a relatively recent phenomenon.  

Many professionals would’ve scoffed at the idea of texting a teammate about a work assignment even five years ago. Now, it’s quite common for co-workers to talk shop over text as well as exchange more personal messages they would never email. Many businesses also rely on collaboration platforms such Microsoft Teams, which has seen its userbase skyrocket in light of the pandemic.  

This presents new challenges to legal teams. Not only are there technical challenges involved with more messages in a wider array of file formats, there’s also the change in user behavior. Personal and professional messages are more likely to comingle in a text chat than they are in an email thread. This raises privacy concerns and can increase the need for redactions.  

Apps like WhatsApp has also made it easier to communicate across national borders. As more Americans start having more conversations with people abroad, there’s more regulations that lawyers have to tiptoe around to maintain defensibility. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, enacted in 2018, helps protect the privacy of people who have communicated with someone under a legal hold. Even if your business isn’t based in the EU, you need to be mindful of this if anyone stateside was communicating with someone in Europe.  

When shopping around for legal technology partner in the present, look for teams that are GDPR compliant, even if you don’t necessarily do that much business abroad. Remember, as your business scales, your legal needs will as well, and it’s best to be prepared. Also avoid companies that are designing their discovery strategies exclusively around email communication. Some companies such as Contact offer software specifically designed for mobile data review. Even if your current technology doesn’t, at least ensure that your team isn’t neglecting these communications altogether.  

Future = Artificial Intelligence and Decentralization

As technology becomes more and more advanced, sheer man power won’t be the prized commodity it once was. In the past, most businesses relied on big name law firms with recognizable brands. They knew that top attorneys flocked to these reputable firms in droves, so why go through the trouble of investigating other options? That was really the only to get an edge over opposing counsel anyway: good attorneys and lots of them.   

More and more legal technology companies are starting to integrate artificial intelligence that can search and review documents faster than any human could. AI simulates an elite crew of top notch attorneys doing ALL your review, rather than a massive army of attorneys who bring varying levels of talent and experience to the equation. This technology is still in its infancy, but if used to its fullest potential, it will eliminate that need for sheer man power. Suddenly, one attorney will do review that might take 30 attorneys now.  

“The right people with the right technology can adapt quicker than large companies can, and that leads to positive outcomes.”  

– Rich Albright, Contact Discovery CBO

As AI helps make review more user friendly, companies on both the service side and the technology side are helping corporate counsel internalize more of their discovery. In this new frontier, businesses don’t need their law firms to be a one-stop shop, but can instead seek out strategic relationships with more specialized partners. 

“Smaller firms like Contact are winning victories in huge matters that never would’ve gone to a company our size 5-10 years ago,” says Rich Albright, CBO of Contact Discovery. “People are starting to figure out that a team of the right people with the right technology can adapt quicker than large companies can, and that leads to positive outcomes. They’re choosing quality over quantity and it’s paying off.”  

As the legal technology market becomes more decentralized, you can expect to see smaller companies that specialize in different steps of the EDRM or different types of technology to gain market share. This model empowers businesses to only pay for what they can’t internalize and make sure they’re getting the absolute best version of it. The internet also makes it easier than ever for clients to seek these partners out for themselves rather than trusting a larger law firm to make all the tech decisions for them.

What challenges are you facing in the present? Where do you think the future of legal tech is going? Let us know in the comments!  

Can Legal Tech Prove Santa is Real?: A Miracle on 34th St. Case Study

Posted by on in Document Review, eDiscovery 101, Forensics, Just For FunLeave a comment

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, in part because it’s the best time to watch one of the great court cases of cinematic history. I’m referring of course to Miracle on 34th Street, a film that hinges on one lawyer’s ability to prove that Santa Claus is in fact Santa Claus.  

Our story begins when Kris gets a job playing Santa Claus at the flagship Macy’s store in Times Square. When Kris insists that he is the real Santa Claus, he’s committed to a mental institution. Kris’s friend, Fred Gailey, just so happens to be a lawyer and rushes to his rescue. Fred Gailey shocks the court when he announces that his game plan is to prove Kris’s true identity as Santa Claus.  

There’s also a cute kid who wants a house in the suburbs, but she’s not as important from a litigation support perspective.  

The original film was made in 1947, with a remake made in 1994. Needless to say, our way of storing information has changed since then, and that’s reshaped the way lawyers build court cases. How would the case in Miracle on 34th Street be different if it happened today, when records are stored electronically? Would Santa use a GPS or tag his locations on Instagram? Does he have “find my iPhone” on in case he gets stuck in a chimney again? Maybe he uses Microsoft Teams and Zoom to make sure the elves are still holding down the fort at the North Pole while he’s in New York. Let’s look at some more specific examples from the movie and how this information would be managed today.  
 

Employee Records  

One of the first indications that Kris might in fact be the real Santa Claus is his employee record at Macy’s. This lists Santa’s reindeer as Kris’s next of kin and says he’s from the North Pole. 

Today, these records would live in some kind of electronic database. Legal teams not only look at these records, but also have to think critically about how they might’ve been tampered with. That’s just the nature of electronic records vs. paper records. Honestly, who wouldn’t be suspicious if they saw a record that looks like this?:  

Kris Kringle's job application in Miracle on 34th Street | Miracle on 34th street, 34 street, Movie quotes

Who has access to those records? Who has edit permissions? Can they access those records from personal devices as well as corporate owned devices? Is there any possible way that passwords could have fallen into the wrong hands? Those are the kinds of questions that a good forensics analyst can answer.  

To verify document integrity, analysts oftentimes look at something called “metadata.” That refers to information such as “date created,” “date last modified,” and “author.” All data comes with metadata, and since it’s not as easily editable as the records themselves, it often proves crucial in digital forensics investigations.  

Analysts can look at a hard drive and figure out if data was moved to other devices, if edit histories were deleted, etc. Assuming Macy’s had good information governance practices and required everyone with edit access to use different passwords, forensics teams could also deduce which passwords were used to make any edits. In some cases, they may even testify in court to assure judges that records are what they appear to be (or maybe that they’re not what they appear).  

Letters to Santa  

The “smoking gun” of the original 1947 movie are the thousands of letters to Santa Claus delivered to the New York City courthouse. Fred Gailey argues that the post office’s decision to deliver these letters to Kris equates to government validation of his true identity: Santa Claus.   

According to the USPS, kids still send hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa every year. The USPS even has a special address they ask people to use for such letters. This system means it’s unlikely that thousands of letters would be delivered to the courthouse like in the movie, since people have been instructed to address such letters to 123 Elf Road. 

However, snail mail is just one of numerous ways to get in touch with St. Nick these days. EmailSanta.com has been on the net since 1997. However, the site’s About Us page admits that it was built not by Santa himself, but by a man named Alan Kerr. There are also numerous Santa Claus Twitter accounts, albeit none of them have a blue checkmark.  

This is perhaps where Fred Gailey would have the biggest uphill battle if he were to try this case today. The Internet has made it infinitely easier for other people to claim they are Santa. Gailey would have to prove that 1) one of the numerous online Santa platforms is the definitive way to get in touch with the real Santa and 2) That Kris was the man behind such an account.  

Let’s assume that by 2020, Santa has gotten with the times and has a proper email account for children to email him with a parent’s supervision. Gailey wants to present Kris’s emails in court. During the Meet and Confer stage of litigation, Gailey and opposing counsel would agree on a certain amount of emails to review. This way, if Kris and Fred were trying to fake letters to Santa, opposing counsel could do their own forensic analysis and figure that out.  

Of course, since Kris really is Santa, there would be a few facts on his side. The litigation support team would be able to verify that he does receive numerous letters to Santa every year. Odds are those letters would be in various languages from all over the world. Sure, that makes it harder to put together a team for review, but it also makes it virtually impossible for opposing counsel to prove that Kris is faking it.   

The best way for Gailey to build a case is similar to the way many complex litigations happen now: build a narrative from both electronically stored information and real-life events. Imagine if Gailey could prove that 1) children asked for certain gifts in emails to Kris and 2) they actually received those same gifts and 3) those gifts didn’t come from parents or other relatives “playing Santa.”  

With presumably thousands of emails to Santa to choose from, this shouldn’t be that difficult. Platforms such as Relativity help review teams search for keywords in different emails. They could search for particularly high demand toys that parents would have trouble finding on their own. After finding such emails in review, Gailey could cross-reference them with Kris’s records of which children got which gifts, because obviously Santa knows the importance of maintaining such records. Nothing gets you on the naughty list as quickly as bad information governance.  Gailey could reach out to families and get them to testify on the stand that they did not know where these gifts came from.   

Exploring these sorts of cases helps us understand how people in this space think on a day-to-day basis. Legal tech has to be about more than fast processing and aesthetically pleasing interfaces, though those certainly don’t hurt. It’s also about having the right people who understand how to build a case and know what to look for in discovery. If you were Fred Gailey, what would your discovery strategy be? How could you verify Kris’s identity and what kind of technology would make it easier? Let us know!