Finding Relativity

In LTN's October issue, Sean Doherty dives into kCura Relativity, web-based e-discovery software that "uses web forms to customize the user interface and configure workflows that offer to fulfill specific document requirements." Relativity helps users index, search, review, analyze, and code documents -- and then "produce responsive document sets that withhold privileged documents."

His verdict? "Relativity was easy to use, configure, and reuse to review documents for multiple clients and matters," declares Doherty, a San Francisco-based attorney and the technology editor for Law.com.

A caveat? Its best feature (the aforementioned customization and config tools) is also its worst: "The multiplicity of tabs, pages, and options makes it hard to find things, but I would rather be feature-rich and challenged than feature-poor and complacent." Read the full review here.

World Series "Advertising" Opportunities

Meg Charlton, daughter of my friends Jim and Barbara Charlton, is behind this hilarious World Series ad spoof. (Note, you probably have to see the real advertisement on the site first before the video runs, but it's worth the wait.) 

P.S. Yes, yes, my annual Final Report on the NYY season will appear shortly after the conclusion of the World Series. Am I disappointed? Actually no -- you could not have a better or more exciting matchup, with such strong backstories, than San Francisco v. Rangers.  I'm rooting for my hometown, but won't be disappointed if Texas takes it. It's truly a win-win series. 

 

12 Angry Mascots
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Life Jacket, Please

The wake from Maryland's Chief Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm's September ruling in Victor Stanley II continues to generate nausea for defense lawyers and euphoria for plaintiffs attorneys.

Craig Ball detailed the ruling in the October issue of Law Technology News, describing Grimm's fury at the "unrelentingly abusive antics" of Mark Pappas, the principal of the defendant company in the copyright dispute. The judge threatened to toss Pappas in the slammer, carefully circumnavigating Rule 42 requirements that criminal contempt matters be referred to the U.S. Attorney or a private prosecutor. Grimm describes the defendant's actions as "the single most egregious example of spoliation that I have encountered ... in 14 years on the bench."

But the educational value of the case, says Ball, "outweighs its considerable entertainment value." Grimm uses the ruling "as a bully pulpit to teach the law of spoliation and sanctions," complete with a 12-page appendix.

Want more? Check out McDermott Will & Emery partner Geoffrey Vance's thoughtful analysis in Corporate Counsel magazine. And Gibson Dunn issued an alert on the case, here. A BNA analysis is here.

Sound the Trumpet!

Accolades from your peers not only help your own career, but reflect golden on your law firm and law department. So here's an opportunity to spotlight your achievements: submit a nomination for our eighth annual juried LTN Awards. Winners will be honored at LegalTech New York 2011.

We have five awards including IT Director of the Year and IT Champion of the Year (someone other than IT staff), as well as three awards for the most innovative use of technology in a law firm, in a law department, and in a trial.

The best news: the nomination process is painless. Just download, complete, and submit the simple Nomination Form. The instructions are on the form. There is no fee, and you may nominate folks from outside of your organization. Deadline: December 1, 2010. (Technology projects must have been completed between August 1, 2009, and July 31, 2010.)

The nominations will be judged by Andrew Adkins III, director of the Law Technology Institute; Fredric Lederer, chancellor professor of law and director of the Center for Legal and Court Technology at the William & Mary Law School; and David Whelan, manager, legal information, Great Library at the Law Society of Upper Canada.

As they say in the lottery, you can't win if you don't submit a nomination! Questions? Send a message to lawtech@alm.com or call Heather Schultz at (212) 457-9601.

Merging Compliance and EDD

More evidence that compliance, risk management, and e-discovery are overlapping: Iron Mountain has debuted its Enterprise Discovery Suite, which offers information governance and discovery capabilities. It includes four components: NearPoint, Connected Classify & Collect, eVantage, and Legal Review, all designed to help organizations collaborate, address investigation and litigation, and reduce cost, risk, and time. Catch videos here that advocate for the merger of information management and discovery.

Meanwhile, on the Darwin Watch, Wave Software has acquired E.L. Native Review software from Electronic Legal Software. The deal also includes the customized E.L. Native Review for LexisNexis Concordance. The software streamlines the native document review process by displaying a document without first installing the native program, (e.g., Microsoft Word). E.L. Native Review is already integrated into Wave's Trident Pro. The acquisition helps Wave control more aspects of the technology, it says. Terms were not disclosed.

For more news about litigation support developments, check out the October issue of Law Technology News.

No, Thanks

When Chris Leslie became general counsel at Hitachi Data Systems, he brought the mindset of Sun Microsystems, where he had served in senior legal positions for 11 years. Sun was aggressive about global compliance issues, particularly those addressing bribery and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Leslie turned to technology tools and training to bring Hitachi up to speed, launching "fiduciary boot camps," using videos, and brought in outside counsel teams to provide in-depth indoctrination.

Thomas Huddleston Jr. profiles Leslie's efforts in "No, Thanks," and Leslie contributes a checklist of seven tips that your firm or company can adapt, in the October issue of Law Technology News.

Humans v. Machines

Our October LTN cover article "Crash or Soar?" has many folks talking about how much we can trust computers, or humans, when it comes to properly identifying relevant documents early in the electronic data discovery process.

Anne Kershaw and Joseph Howie, both involved with the eDiscovery Institute, argue that bringing computers to the party enhances everything from transparency, replicability, quality of results, to cost-reduction. The institute polled 11 EDD vendors, with strong results.

Check out our October Law Technology Now podcast as they discuss how predictive coding -- using computers with some guidance from lawyers -- can streamline document review and cut costs.

Adobe Acrobat: Addition by Subtraction

Less is More: Adobe Acrobat X (aka 10) has been launched, with a significant revamp of the menu bar, cutting choices in half to five. Ernest Svenson, in his PDF for Lawyers blog, explains that the upgrade now offers "File, Edit, View, Window, and Help" options, jettisoning "Document, Comments, Forms, Tools, and Advanced" buttons.

   "At first this was unsettling, but once I grasped what Adobe was doing I realized that the user-intervace change will be helpful to people who are new to Acrobat, says Svenson, a New Orleans-based solo practitioner and member of LTN's Editorial Advisory Board.

And the advanced choices weren't sent to the recycle bin, they have simply been moved to the toolbar on the right side, he says. His post offers visuals of the changes.

Other improvements, he says, include better OCR capabilities, better compression of color documents, and "significantly improved export of .pdfs to Microsoft Word and Excel formats.

Related Stories: Washington Post/PC World,

Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog.

 

Andreozzi is New Chair of Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law has wooed two former LexisNexis leaders to help push its competing legal research system. Lou Andreozzi (right) the former CEO of LexisNexis North American, has joined as its chair, Larry Thompson as chief operating officer.

Thompson, who will be responsible for day-to-day operations, is a former senior vice president at LexisNexis. He most recently was senior partner with The Sterling Group 925.

Bloomberg Law provides real-time legal research system, competing directly with both LexisNexis and with Thomson Reuters Westlaw.

In a Tuesday afternoon interview with Law Technology News, Andreozzi said that Bloomberg Law "will offer something that law firms have been asking for, for a long time: fixed pricing -- extremely attractive -- and predictable pricing."

How much? The company has not yet decided on exactly what that pricing will be. "That will be one of the first things we will work out," he said. All databases will be included, he promised.

The service will exploit's Bloomberg's existing news services, and will be multimedia, with a user-friendly interface, said Andreozzi. "We are positioning it so  that law firms will get what they need on a daily basis."

When asked about Thomson Reuters, which also marries legal information with news services, he acknowledged that "Thomson Reuters is a very formitable competitor," and noted that law firms may well purchase Bloomberg Law to complement their existing Thomson Reuters and/or LexisNexis existing services.

He also acknowledged that the company "still has a way to go with some of the legal content," citing blogger Robert Ambrogi's analogy of a luxury yacht that still needs "some compartments filled in." 

(Ambrogi's assessment in February: "My overall impression of Bloomberg Law was of a luxury yacht only partially constructed. It looks impressive and many parts of it are fitted out with top-of-the-line features. But as you wander around its decks, many doorways open to unfinished, empty rooms. It is seaworthy, one assumes, but still has a lengthy punch list.")

Andreozzi spent more than 10 years at LexisNexis. As CEO of North American Legal Markets, he was involved with the Lexis online service, Shepard’s, Matthew Bender, Martindale-Hubbell and lawyers.com, says Bloomberg Law.  Prior to his CEO post, he served as the company's general counsel. Andreozzi will remain CEO of IQNavigator.

Constantin Cotzias, who oversaw the launch of Bloomberg Law, will join the senior leadership team in Bloomberg Europe, where he will head government and regulatory affairs and government business development and strategy in Europe, the company reports.

Related:

Robert Ambrogi, "Three's a Crowd," LTN 2/2010

Robert Ambrogi, "Is It A Contender," November, 2009.

Fios' Mack Moves to ZyLab

Mary Mack, considered by many to be the "face" of Fios, has defected to join ZyLab as its enterprise technology counsel. She starts her new post on November 7, based in California, after a decade with the Oregon e-discovery provider as its corporate technology counsel. In addition to working with Fios' clients, she wrote the influential blog, Sound Evidence, and was a frequent speaker on the legal technology circuit.

At the new gig, she will collaborate directly with legal counsel and IT teams from ZyLab's corporate, government, and law firm customers. She will also "continue to share her perspectives and experience through speaking engagements and blog contributions," reports Johannes Scholtes, ZyLab's chair and chief strategy officer.

Mack told LTN that as much as she enjoyed her job, she was getting a bit "restless," and wanted to devote more time to pro bono activities. "When I saw your post about ZyLab being part of the team that won the award for its work convicting war criminals, my radar went up." The rest, as they say, is history. Mack says she'll miss her colleagues and clients, "but, after 10 years working for the same company (that is 70 years in e-discovery time), it is time for a change."

Fios' CEO John Hesse bid his colleague a fond farewell: "Today we don't say good-bye, but we do wish our friend Mary Mack only the best as she explores new challenges in life. For 10 years, she has been a key contributor to our company's development and to the electronic discovery industry at large. When e-discovery was the 'wild, wild West,' there was Mary, advocating for smart and consistent practices that leveraged the best technical innovations of the time."

More: EDD Update.

NoLa's Green Matters: Not Perfect, But Very Good.

New Orleans -- Consultant/attorney Theodore Banks (right), who spent the bulk of his career as a leader in Kraft Food's legal department, set the tone at the Green Matters conference as he reminded the audience that to successfully promote environment-friendly programs, everyone must remember that "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

Translation: take comfort in small steps, and don't get upset when big goals aren't (immediately) met. That advice probably sums up not just the ambitious Green Matters program, but the current temperature of "going green" within the legal profession. The conference drew high-level speakers, but not as many attendees (about 100) as the organizers would have liked, to discuss topics that most lawyers may nod their heads about but aren't (yet) taking serious steps to address.

The event was organized by Monty and Kathleen Lunn, he a long-time fixture in the legal technology world (formerly with Elite and Huron); she an effective veteran of politics. The couple recently moved back to New Orleans after living in California and Pennsylvania. (Tom O'Connor, another legal tech gray-beard, now director of the Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center, also was an organizer).

Originally named Green Legal Matters and scheduled for April, it was postponed until this week, with a much broader agenda. That was a wise decision, because what has made this event so terrific is the cross-section of participants from government and the legal profession. Like an excellent fusion restaurant that marries exotic flavors, the combination is fiery and inspiring, if slightly imperfect.

New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu kicked off the event Wednesday, one of several mayors who brought all the green talk down to earth, literally. At a compelling Thursday lunch presentation, four mayors discussed how they are implementing and coping with green initiatives, including   Mayor Bob Dixon of Greenburg, Kansas -- which was just about obliviated on May 4, 2007, when a tornado wiped out 95% of the city. Rather than abandon the georgraphy, the town decided to live up to its name, and recreate itself as a eco-strong city. (The process has been documented by a fascinating television series  on Planet Green.) New Jersey City's mayor Jerrammiah Healy told how he turned to litigation to reclaim soiled abandoned land in his small metropolis that is a gateway to New York City, and negotiated with the land's corporate owners to restore it to usable, income-producing venues that improved the city and provided jobs and residences to its citizens.

Despite the conference's moniker change, the event retained its strong legal undercurrent. Susan Dorn, (right) GC of the U.S. Green Building Council, gave the Thursday keynote, outlining the current status of the powerful NGO that created and maintains the popular LEEDs rating system. She discussed a hot-button issue among the legal and architecture crowd: challenges to LEED certifications, and the perishability of those credentials, as LEED certification requirements are  often now built into to development contracts.

Rather than do the usual top-executive fly-in/fly-out, Dorn stayed all day, and her presence at  an afternoon session generated some deliciously polite friction with the speakers during "When Green Goes Wrong: Liability and De-Certification Litigation," with Haynes Boone lawyers Bruce Merwin (left) and Bradley Carson (See twitter.com/lawtechnews or #lgmn).

Legal technology consultant (and ILTA leader) Jeff Brandt (left) lead off a pragmatic program on "The Greening of the CIO," describing how CIOs can make small but significant changes in their organizations that can reap significant energy savings, from virtualized servers to replacing equipment earlier rather than later to take advantage of technology improvements. The panel also featured IBM's Florence Hudson, who gets the energizer bunny award for appearing on three panels (so far), and is literally a rocket scientist. She is the energy/environment/cloud computing wizard at IBM talked about her company's global efforts.

Hudson was also a last minute addition to Banks' corporate panel, which also featured GC Elaine Reilly of DuPont, Gillian van Muyden, GC of redevelopment for  Glendale, Calif., and a mesmerizing presentation by Walmart's senior director of environmental compliance, Richard Dailey.

Just as in e-discovery, in the end, it probably will take corporate counsel's insistent to push law firms into green action, observed several audience members, who resonated to the message of the corporate leaders panel.

Ultimately, the GCs told their colleagues,  no one in the legal profession will buy into green if it costs money -- and that's the current perception. To succeed, to be accepted, green must actually be green, e.g, create money.

Dailey gave an example about how Walmart previously paid a lot of money to get rid of the cardboard boxes that housed incoming products for its shelves. Now, he said, Walmart gets more than $1 million in revenue by selling the cardboard to recyclers. Green efforts, he pronounced, "are not sustainable if they don't make business sense."

Walmart's green efforts, said Dailey, have helped dramatically turn around the company's reputation, (which was blemished in the past by bad press, especially about prior labor practices that adversely affected single parents and women). The company now invests in solar and wind options, efficient buildings, fleet improvements, and fuel cells, and even recycles oil and grease from fryers into fuel, he said.

Transparency is crucial, said Dailey.  "We articulate our goals publicly," he noted, and said  that posture drives business. Dailey said the company is not afraid to use its massive power (1.5 million employees) to influence vendors and customers to go green. As an example, he cites the company's campaign for CLF light bulbs, with 137 million sold so far, he notes.

Banks shared the story of an unsuccessful effort to switch Kraft's salad dressing containers to recyclable plastic, which cost five cents more than glass. "Good intentions are not enough. It has to work."

The conference continues today with more sessions ranging from practical ways to green a law office; to greenwashing; to more panels on LEED litigation. This morning, I will be joined by consultants George Socha, Tom O'Connor, and Andrew Adkins, to discuss "Green E-Discovery." Our message will reiterate that "the perfect is the enemy of the good," hopefully reduce some of the fear and anxiety about EDD, and show how using technology can indeed help lawyers produce better, faster, cheaper legal services -- that are also green.

Greensburg picture courtesy of wikipedia.

Green Matters Conference: Susan Dorn

New Orleans -- Susan Dorn, general counsel of the U.S. Green Building Council and its affiliated Green Building Certification Institute, was this morning's keynote speaker at the Green Matters Conference in New Orleans.

The conference (which previously was Green Legal Matters) is taking place through Friday in New Orleans, rescheduled (and with an expanded agenda, to address government, legal, and architecture issues) from its original April calendar slot. 

Dorn outlined USGBC's current status and agendas, noting that about 25% of all U.S. new construction projects are going "green," with 35,000 registered for LEED certification evaluation, and 17,000 organizations are participating in USGBC.  

The agency expects 30,000 attendees at its November Greenbuild conference in Chicago, which will also draw 1,400 exhibitors, she said. The conference will include a three-hour session addressing "all things green legal," said Dorn. 

On the legal agenda, Dorn said there is an effort underway to revamp LEED indemnity clauses, and create a new "Appointment of Agent" form to identify project owners and improve indemnity for contractors and others. USGBC, she said, is making "one last push" to simplify agreements and "put them in plain English." 

They are also evaluting the certification challenge process to make sure submittals and documentation is truthful and accurate -- but notes that the challenge process is not designed to be a dispute resolution service.

A related issue is the perishability of certification. They are considering a two-year limit to challenges. "LEED certification is date-stamped," she explained, and does not extend indefinitely into the future, she notes, due to the continually changing and improving technologies and protocols.  

Interest in LEED certification is expanding internationally, she reported. A new program to address international is expected to launch this year.  An initial roundtable is in the works, with 14 nations already pledged to participate. 

Another key project is green schools, says Dorn, who told the audience about a successful pilot project held here in New Orleans. Green schools address not just health and learning issues, but also cut costs, she said. A new Center for Green Schools has been established at the USGC. 

The agency is also considering requiring conformity with Energy Star protocols, which currently are requested on a voluntary basis. 

No Surprises

Fulbright & Jaworski has released its seventh "Litigation Trends Survey," with the not-unexpected results that the 403 corporate counsel respondents predict another "litigious, cost-conscious" year. Just about everyone (93% U.S. and 97% U.K.) expects that legal disputes will either increase or remain the same next year. Also not surprisingly, 42% of energy companies are bracing for more disputes, the report notes. And 87% of U.S. respondents said they encountered new litigation last year; 54% of all respondents initiated a suit.

Stricter regulation has replaced bankrutpcy as a top concern of this crowd, as governments focus on banking, health care, and energy, says F&J. (I would add personal identity protection to that list.) Other worries: corruption, bribery, and whistleblower allegations.

The survey also queried respondents about managing data. Asked if EDD for civil actions needs to be curtailed in the U.S., 70% agreed, and 50% said the U.K. "also needs some tailoring." Roughly half (55%) said they rely on custodians to preserve their own data, and the companies suspend automatic deletion; 54% preserve everything in searchable databases; 43% use automated search software.

As for social media, more than 25% of compaines use LinkedIn, 22% use Twitter and 17% use Facebook. About a quarter of respondents' companies have blogs.

DLA Piper Live Webcast of Tech Summit Today

Technology Summit: DLA Piper convenes its second "DLA Piper Global Technology Leaders Summit" today, featuring keynote speeches from Cisco's chair/CEO John Chambers (morning) and Hewlett Packard's Shane Robison, executive vice president chief strategy and technology officer (lunch).

Catch the sessions via live webcast: afternoon programs include a panel on "The Venture Capital Model," (3:15-4:15 PST), and the closing keynotes from William Cohen, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Tom Daschle former U.S. Senator, and now U.S. senior policy advisor for the firm (4:30-5:30 PST).

Let's Make a Deal?

The New York Times' DealBook (edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin) had an absolutely intriguing post on Oct. 7, "What a Microsoft-Adobe Merger Might Look Like."

Nick Bilton reports that "the chiefs of Microsoft and Adobe Systems met recently to discuss, among other possibilities, a merger of the two to better combat Apple."

The idea was one of many floated by Steven Ballmer (left) and Adobe's Shantanu Narayen. "But what would a union of the two bring -- if, of course, it were to come to pass at all?" pondered Bilton. "Despite its size -- $212.7 billion in market value, with $36.6 billion in cash and short-term investments as of June 30 -- Microsoft hasn't really done big acquisitions. (Its largest attempt was for Yahoo in 2008, and that went nowhere.)

Adobe would be its largest by far, with a market value of $15.1 billion as of Oct. 7. And the two have multimedia platforms -- Flash and Silverlight -- that have been blocked from the iPhone and iPad," he writes.

But the sheer speculation intrigued investors, he notes: Adobe shares jumped 17% on Oct. 7 "before they were halted by circuit breakers," according to Bloomberg News.

War of Words

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a closely watched case, Synder v. Phelps, where the family of soldier Matthew Snyder, killed in Iraq, has sued members of a church who picketed his funeral with signs reading, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Thank God for IEDs."

The family seeks damages for intrusion upon seclusion and intentional infliction of emotional distress from members of Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church, "who demonstrate at funerals to promote their message that God is punishing America for its acceptance of homosexuality," writes The National Law Journal's Tony Mauro.

Citing First Amendment grounds, the original verdict of $10 million (reduced to $5 million) was reversed on appeal before landing at the nation's highest court. While expressing disdain for the virulent protests, some justices "seemed reluctant to upset First Amendment precedents that protect even the most obnoxious speech from punishment," Mauro observes. The church's actions have "triggered lawsuits and legislation in 43 states to restrict funeral protests," he notes.

Law Technology News' covered the 2007 trial. Six of the church's videos -- shot, animated, and edited by church members -- were central to both team's presentations in the original litigation, wrote Claire Duffett in "War of Words." "The church used the videos to argue consistency and commitment to its religious beliefs." The plaintiff's team used the footage to illustrate "the outrageous nature of the church's message," and surprised the defense by refurbishing the videos to assert that the church conspired to intentionally inflict distress and intrude on the Snyder family.

"If overturned, the plaintiffs could take solace in a famed 1919 dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.," suggested Duffett. 'We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe."

TR Buys Serengeti Law, Launches GRC unit

More evidence that compliance is moving front-and-center in the legal technology world: Thomson Reuters has acquired Serengeti Law, and has launched a new governance, risk, and compliance business unit.

The new GRC unit is housed within the Thomson Reuters Legal division, and led by David Craig, who assumes the title of president. (He previously served as TR's chief strategy officer.) GRC brings together several existing brands, including Complinet, Paisley, Westlaw Business, West's Capitol Watch, Oden, and Westlaw Compliance Advisor. GRC services address global regulatory and securities intelligence; business law research; contract and deal-drafting tools; internal policy management; e-learning, anti-money laundering; and audit, filing, board of director, and disclosure.

Serengeti Law's flagship software, Serengeti Tracker, provides data and analytic tools to help law departments track, control, manage, analyze, and report on worldwide legal activities. Serengeti is now aligned with TRL's corporate, government, and academic business unit, under the direction of president Mike Suchsland. Tom Melling, former vice president of product management at Serengeti, has been promoted to president. Serengeti will keep its name and brand identity now that it's under the TRL umbrella. Its 50 employees will join TR, and remain based in Seattle and Chicago. Founder Don Murray "will continue in his current sales capacity to set us up for success as we transition," says Suchsland.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. More: EDD Update.

FTC Green Guides Revisions

I turn the microphone over to Minneapolis' (where I wish I was today) Melissa Krasnow, of Dorsey & Whitney:

"Today, the Federal Trade Commission proposed revisions to the “Green Guides,” the guidance that it gives marketers to help them avoid making misleading environmental claims, including marketers’ use of product certifications and seals of approval, “renewable energy” claims, “renewable materials” claims, and “carbon offset” claims. The FTC is seeking public comment on the proposed changes until December 10, 2010, after which it will decide which changes to make final. Here is a link to additional information.

Mirror, Mirror

Kim Walker, senior litigation paralegal with Berger & Montague, is a veteran of complex class action lawsuits and serves on the board of the Philadelphia Association of Paralegals.

For an article in The Legal Intelligencer, Walker posed this question to lawyers at three Philly law firm: "What do you wish your paralegal knew?"

The answers provide a virtual Rorschach test of both lawyer and paralegal psyches and frustrations -- but also provide a road map of opportunity for savvy paralegals:

Among the responses:

• I wish my paralegal knew, or at least had a basic understanding of, all the new software and technology used in law offices now. I just don't have the time to learn it myself.

• I wish my paralegal knew how to research any topic and find the information I need.

• I wish my paralegal knew how to file a complaint in federal and state court, knew how to get and serve subpoenas in federal and state courts, knew how to manage an online database, knew how to search and retrieve dockets, knew how to cite-check, proofread and create a Table of Citations.

• I wish my paralegal knew how to clearly and concisely digest a deposition and describe relevant documents in a short memo.

• I wish my paralegal knew that it's OK to make mistakes and that I should be told immediately if a mistake has been made.

• I wish my paralegal kept up to date on latest case law regarding our practice.

• I wish my paralegal would dress professionally.

• I wish my paralegal wouldn't leave in the middle of a work emergency.

• I wish my paralegal knew how important it is to get along with other people in the firm. It makes my life easier.

• I wish my paralegal knew Alan Ball and would give me "True Blood" spoilers.  

Walker analyzes the results and offers concrete suggestions on how paralegals can learn from the list. Not surprisingly, she emphasizes technology training: 

"Keeping abreast of the latest technology should be on the top of your priority list. It goes without saying that you should already know how to manage an online database, online deposition repository and any software that is geared toward your particular practice area. Not only should you know it, but you should keep updating with training. These software packages change rapidly. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not," she writes.

"Another thing about technology to be aware of is that LexisNexis and Westlaw are buying out smaller companies and making that company's content part of the Lexis or Westlaw content. It's always a good idea to know where to look for information. So, signing up for some free Lexis or Westlaw training every few months never hurts." 

As for Alan Ball, well maybe he's related to our e-discovery columnist, Craig Ball. Lemme ask :)

Bully Pulpit

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm, of the district of Maryland, wasn't shy about his distaste for the defendant in a nasty piece of recent litigation, Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe et al. In his 89-page opinion, Grimm describes defendant Mark Pappas' data destruction and dissembling as "the single most egregious example of spoliation that I have encountered in any case that I have handled, or in any case described, in the legion of spoliation cases I have read in nearly 14 years on the bench."

Craig Ball, in the October issue of Law Technology News, details the judge's careful manuevering in issuing a civil contempt sanction on Pappas. But Ball cautions readers not to dismiss the case's educational value due to the "over-the-top" behavior of the defendant. Grimm uses the ruling "as a bully pulpit to teach the law of spoliation and sanctions," complete with a 12-page appendix.

Happy news within the e-discovery community: on EDD Update, Ball chronicles Saturday's nuptials between Kenneth Withers, director of judicial education and content at The Sedona Conference, and Harry Henry Jr., presided over by Magistrate Judge John Facciola. Congratulations!

Third Time's the Charm?

"In the beginning, there was brute force linear review of electronic data," where lawyers would start at one end of a collection and march right through it to make document-by-document decisions about relevance, privilege, etc., explain Anne Kershaw and Joseph Howie, in "Crash or Soar?," the October cover story in Law Technology News. Next came "clustering," similar documents are grouped to speed review.

But today's savvy litigators are embracing a new methodology, called "predictive coding" to control costs and increase the accuracy of results, they say. With it, a small subset of documents is "examined by lawyers, and decisions made on those records are then propagated through the document population." The result is transparent, saves time, enhances replicability, improves confidentiality, and shortens litigation timelines, say Kershaw and Howie, leaders of the nonprofit eDiscovery Institute.

The institute recently surveyed 11 brand name e-discovery vendors, including Catalyst Repository Systems, Equivio, Recommind, and Kroll Ontrack. Respondents cited a cost savings of 45% compared with traditional review, and seven reported individual cases where the savings were in excess of 70%.

Of course, there still is resistance from attorneys, the authors note. Many worry about whether judges will accept the methodology. But ironically, it's the judges themselves that are screaming the loudest for adoption, says Kershaw.

Read more about it in our October LTN. Kershaw and Howie also are my guests for the October Law Technology Now podcast, which will be available shortly.

 

Datacert Launches Passport

Datacert says its new Passport legal business management system for corporate counsel serves as a centralized work space, helping general counsel teams access relevant company data and collaborate with colleagues.

Passport features Datacert’s legal matter management and spending tools, which support risk and compliance management, and help companies manage and reduce legal costs. The system integrates with existing software used in accounts payable, document management, intellectual property management, e-discovery, and more.

Users can access data while working in Microsoft Outlook, explained Mark Poag, Datacert's general counsel and senior vice president of marketing for the Texas-based company. With its collaboration website, in-house and outside counsel can share invoices, matter updates, budgets, timekeeper rates, and accruals, he said.

The product was unveiled Sept. 29 during the Datacert-sponsored "Generals of the Revolution" conference in New York, featuring author Richard Susskind. Jeff Novak, general counsel of AOL Paid Services, and Richard Baer, GC and CAO of Qwest Communications, said their companies have purchased Passport.

- Heather Schultz, assistant editor, Law Technology News