Friday, August 23, 2013
Kroll Ontrack eDiscovery Workshop - DALLAS TEXAS September 19th!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Kroll Ontrack Ediscovery Certification Workshop
Kroll Ontrack Ediscovery Certification Workshop.
Please join us for a one-day workshop that is designed exclusively for legal and technical professionals. This ediscovery session will take place at the W – Dallas on September 19 and will offer 5.5 CLE credits (inclusive of 1.0 ethics credit). This course will highlight hot topics including Technology Assisted Review, Social Media, Ediscovery Best Practices, Ethics, and The EDRM in the Era of Big Data. Reserve your spot today for this cutting edge learning experience! Space is limited.
Learn more and register at: www.krollontrack.com/certification-courses
Please join us for a one-day workshop that is designed exclusively for legal and technical professionals. This ediscovery session will take place at the W – Dallas on September 19 and will offer 5.5 CLE credits (inclusive of 1.0 ethics credit). This course will highlight hot topics including Technology Assisted Review, Social Media, Ediscovery Best Practices, Ethics, and The EDRM in the Era of Big Data. Reserve your spot today for this cutting edge learning experience! Space is limited.
Learn more and register at: www.krollontrack.com/certification-courses
Friday, April 5, 2013
Thursday, December 6, 2012
10 Things To Consider When Bringing #eDiscovery In-House
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2012/11/27/10-things-to-consider-when-bringing-e-discovery-in?ref=hp&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=88bde
10 things to consider when bringing e-discovery in-house
An estimated three-year cost model that includes some less-than-obvious expenses
This is the second in a series of three articles intended to assist with cost factors and return on investment (ROI) for e-discovery. Read the first installment here. The third article will deal with the metrics and cost of review.
E-discovery can be daunting and costly. We look to reduce review costs with predictive coding and advanced analytics and we look to reduce technology costs for processing, hosting and storage. Bringing e-discovery in-house is the right move for some but may not be for others. Sometimes, a hybrid solution works best. Since some acquisition costs are not very obvious, here is a model to help you make your decisions:
1. What’s the current cost?
What do you currently spend on e-discovery technology and what are you looking to save? Look at historical spending from past vendor and law firm invoices. For the latter you may need to tease the technology costs from the legal costs. Compare these with your projected caseload going forward to determine your average annual spend.
2. What are the priorities?
Do you want to cover the whole Electric Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) or just litigation hold, preservation and collection? Most organizations start “left” in the EDRM and move right as budget, experience and caseload increase. Do you plan to implement review capability in-house, say, for HR cases and to outsource the rest? Before you start putting out requests for proposals (RFP) and looking at vendors and software, make strategic decisions on what you want to build, how the pieces fit together and how you want to grow e-discovery in-house.
3. Is there a strategic plan for IT?
Forget for a minute that you need support from the procurement or finance departments. Is there an IT plan with components you can use? Is there movement toward single-instance email archiving, document management or enterprise search? You might find savings by combining effort.
4. Who are your users?
If your large department has, say, divisions for commercial, IP and HR litigation, are you planning for each, or are they operating independently? Do you expect to have outside counsel log into your systems? Whose buy-in do you need, and if you don’t get it, will it affect your ROI? If you are in a smaller enterprise, do you have the will to embrace an in-house system? Answering these questions help to determine the size of the e-discovery enterprise you will build.
5. Who creates and defends the process?
Too often, businesses answer this question too late. E-discovery is as much about lawyering as it is technology. If you are going to preserve, collect, store, process, cull, review or produce, counsel must explain and document how the organization will meet e-discovery legal obligations. Someone must be trained and available to testify. Paralegals, vendor and support staff can help design and optimize a workflow, but counsel must be accountable for the discovery response, both institutionally and for each case.
Risk Management And Quality Control Of #eDiscovery Vendors
http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/articles/21416/risk-management-and-quality-control-e-discovery-vendors
Risk Management And Quality Control Of E-Discovery Vendors
Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - 10:03
Published Version
Digital Version
To avoid the risk of adverse rulings in litigation, compromising a client’s position or even unnecessary costs, attorneys should be fully engaged with their e-discovery vendors and learn what questions to ask and pitfalls to avoid. This begins when the vendor is initially retained. Inquire about how the vendor handles conflicts of interest. Determine whether the work or any portion of the work will be outsourced by the vendor to a third party, and if so, demand to be notified in advance to make certain that security and confidentiality remain intact. Provide detailed RFIs asking in-depth questions, including how the vendor will process data and ensure quality control. Inquire into what tools the vendor will use, and whether such tools are compatible with the attorney’s technology. In PSEG Power N.Y., Inc. v. Alberici Constructors, Inc., No. 1:05-cv-657, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66767, at *6-7, 36 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2007), the plaintiff’s vendor created an “email attachment fiasco” when many emails produced were no longer linked, or “married,” to their respective attachments. After “[v]arious potential solutions” were grappled with, the court ordered reproduction at plaintiff’s cost, which could reach an estimated $206,000. Id. The “technical glitch” was allegedly caused by an incompatibility between plaintiff’s and vendor’s software when documents were placed into a reviewable and searchable format. Id., at *6.
Regarding the vendor’s storage of data, if possible, physically inspect the location where data is processed and hosted to determine whether it is truly secure (e.g., security at entry points, walls preventing wireless remote entry). Particularly if you are using a new vendor, request information about the vendor’s hiring processes and whether background checks are performed. The vendor may become a witness, so it is important to run a search, check references and inquire about witness availability. Ask the vendor about employee certifications and licenses. See whether the vendor contracts out staff; those employees may end up working for the other side’s vendor and may inadvertently disclose confidential information to your opponent. Determine also whether the vendor is an 8-5 shop, or available 24/7. Further, ask about disaster recovery plans. Identify what will happen if the vendor is sold or closes its doors (e.g., how data will be returned).
Once the vendor is retained, be sure to enter into the necessary agreements, including confidentiality agreements. Require that the vendor notify you of any changes in the agreed-upon procedures.
On an ongoing basis, the attorney and vendor should confirm that the product and services match or exceed what was promised in the RFI. In addition, because the vendor could be called as a witness, the attorney should ensure that the vendor is taking defensible steps in collecting, processing and producing data. To avoid adverse consequences, the attorney should also understand the effect of certain actions taken during the review and production stages of discovery. To illustrate, inThorncreek Apartments III, LLC v. Village of Park Forest, Nos. 08-c-1225, 08-c-0869, 08-c-4303, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88281, at *22 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 9, 2011), the defendant mistakenly believed that documents marked as “privileged” during its review of documents in the vendor database would be automatically withheld from the production database made available to the opposing party, which they were not. The court held that privilege was waived. Id.
Privilege may also be waived if vendors are not reasonably supervised. In Ceglia v. Zuckerberg, No. 10–cv–00569A, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55367, at *21-26 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 19, 2012), aff'd, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115185 (W.D.N.Y. Aug. 15, 2012), plaintiff’s attorney permitted the vendor to retrieve and produce documents to opposing counsel. Plaintiff’s attorney did not, however, review the documents before production. Critical documents were produced. The court held that plaintiff waived privilege to the documents where he failed, inter alia, to take reasonable steps to oversee the vendor’s activities. Id.
After a matter is concluded, make sure data is removed from the vendor, including all existing electronic copies.
The consequences are steep for failing to be fully engaged with e-discovery vendors. In J-M Mfg. Co., Inc. v. McDermott Will & Emery, No. BC 462 832 (Cal. App. Dep’t Super. Ct. L.A. Cnty. filed June 2, 2011), the defendant faced a legal malpractice suit when it allegedly did not carefully review the work of contract attorneys at an e-discovery vendor, resulting in the production of almost 4,000 privileged documents to the federal government in a whistleblower suit.
To summarize, in order to minimize exposure and risk, the attorney should ask a significant number of questions and actively participate in the e-discovery process.
John G. Schmidt Jr. and Jennifer A. Beckage are attorneys with Phillips Lytle LLP. Mr. Schmidt is the Co-Team Leader of the firm’s Business & Commercial Litigation Practice. He can be reached at (716) 847-7095. Ms. Beckage can be reached at (716) 847-7093.
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