EDD Update

Law Technology News Daily Alert

We've launched our Law Technology News Daily Alert!  It's a joint project managed by Law.com's tech editor Sean Doherty and LTN editor Monica Bay -- the same combo that brings you this blog! To subscribe, click here.

The Aleynikov Affair: From Newark with Code

In D.C. last week, I spoke to a group of data security specialists and computer forensic experts about the type of case I see most frequently.  Unlike most in the audience, I work in civil litigation and see little of the child porn, identity theft and hacking cases that occupy them.  Much of my work concerns alleged employee data theft, so I addressed the prevelance and patterns of those cases, discussing incident response fundamentals, e.g., what to preserve and where and how to look to determine the whether, when, who and how much of proprietary data theft.

I was fortunate the day's big news story was of a lately-resigned senior programmer at Goldman Sachs arrested at Newark airport for allegedly spiriting away a copy of Goldman's trading program code.  My topic seemed ripped from the headlines.

SANS Summit Summary

I just returned from two days at the SANS What Works Summit in Washington, D.C.  The capital weather was gloriously, unseasonably cool, but the Summit was cooler still (and not just because the ballroom temperature hovered near absolute zero).  The talented presenters didn't disappoint.  The leading lights in forensics and information security shared their tips, tools and insights; but, excepting a splendid lightspeed discussion of registry analysis by the oracular Harlan Carvey, I'm struck by how far the discussions strayed from disk forensics and other matters of pressing, practical concern in e-discovery and civil litigation.   Certainly mobile devices are increasingly important and memory analysis is exciting and new, but it made me wonder if we aren't moving beyond "dead disks" too soon.  Has everyone mastered disk forensics?

e-Discovery Team Blog Posts 150th Blog

I just noticed that the e-Discovery Team blog posted last night was the 150th weekly article posted since the blog started in late 2006. In other interesting stats, the blog has received 676 Comments (not including ten gazillion spams, most of which were blocked). By chance, the 150th blog was not written by me, but by Jason R. Baron, and is entitled "DESI, Sedona and Barcelona: Reports from the DESI III Global E-Discovery/E-Disclosure Workshop at ICAIL 2009 and The Sedona Conference® International Programme on Cross Border E-Discovery and Privacy." 

Very few of the Team blogs are from guest bloggers, but the outside contributions I have accepted are always very good and very popular. Jason has contributed before and this blog is another excellent report on his latest international activities to help advance the world-wide quest to solve the key problem in e-discovery, Search. Jason is the leader in joining the talents of the academic scientific community to those of Law to tackle this issue. He is also the Energizer-Bunny with his non-stop efforts in this field, giving more presentations all over the world than anyone I know. Jason's blog gives a good overview of what happened at the latest two international e-discovery events he attended (DESI III and Sedona Cross-Border) in Spain a few weeks ago. The DESI events he organized as is explained in this lively read.

Jason also suggested his own graphics for this blog, Jpgs that he sent of Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) architecture in Spain and other local sights. I love the photos of this wild architecture created a hundred years ago. Please take a few minutes to check it out and leave a Comment. The next large approaching blog stat will be the 1,000th comment and you are all invited to be a part of that.

DTI to Sponsor Ga-CLE Event for In-House Counsel

Document Technologies Inc. has announced that it will sponsor a Ga-CLE event called "Corporate ESI & E-Discovery" on June 26 in Atlanta at the Villa Christina resort. Six CLE credits may be earned at the event. Full release here.

Sedona Conference Webinar

The Sedona Conference will hold a webinar tomorrow, May 19 on new commentary from The Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production. The panel, "Achieving Equality in the E-Discovery Process," will be moderated by Kenneth Withers, director of judicial education at The Sedona Conference. More information here.

Electronic Discovery Reference Model Meetings in St. Paul

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model group, which was created to develop and establish practical guidelines and standards for electronic discovery, will hold its 5th EDRM Kick-off Meeting in St. Paul, Minn. on May 13 and 14. George Socha and Tom Gelbmann will lead the meeting, where two new projects - EDRM Jobs and the Information Management Reference Model - will be launched. Full release here.

Judge Grimm Speaking Today at WiE Baltimore Chapter

Judge Grimm is speaking today at noon at the Women in eDiscovery Baltimore Chapter.  Please email me at shawnna@womeninediscovery.com if you would like directions to the meeting.

Wave University Webinars

Wave University has announced two upcoming webinars:

• BlackBerry Forensics - Recovering & Processing E-mails will be presented on March 31 by Jason Park, director of technology at Litigation Solution, Inc. and president of MD5 Group. The webinar will focus on imaging, recovering e-mails, and converting recovered e-mails into .psts (e-mail archive files).
• Assess, Process, Cull & Produce Your eDiscovery Data will be presented on March 25 in conjunction with ILTA. The webinar will give attendees an overview of Wave's Trident Pro EDD processing software.   

Full release here.

EDD in Bankruptcy Cases Webinar

RenewData will host the eDiscovery in Bankruptcy Cases webinar on March 25. The webinar, presented by RenewData executives, will help corporations and their outside counsel understand what EDD is and how it is applicable to bankruptcy cases. Full release here.

Sedona Conference: Cross-Border EDD & Data Privacy

The Sedona Conference has announced its International Programme on Cross-Border E-Discovery, E-Disclosure and Data Privacy Conflicts. It will be held June 10 and 11 in Barcelona, Spain. Attendees will participate in sessions on efforts to reconcile competing notions of privacy and EDD, cross-border EDD and data privacy in alternate contexts, and potential solutions to cross-border discovery and data privacy conflicts. Full release here.

Metadata's Impact on E-Discovery Webinar

Guidance Software Inc. has announced it will hold a webinar on metadata's impact on EDD on March 24 at 2:00 pm. Jeffrey Judd, a partner at Howrey, and Albert Barsocchini, the senior director and assistant general counsel for Guidance Software will discuss metadata requirements and case law and EDD processes that don't alter metadata. More information here.

Fios Webcasts

Fios Inc. has scheduled the following webcasts:

• March 17: Managing E-Discovery During Internal Investigations
• March 20: Fios On Request - E-Discovery for Small Matters and Internal Investigations
• April 7: An Interview with Ralph Losey: Understanding the Complex Legal and Technology Issues Involved in E-Discovery
• April 21: The Sedona Conference Update: Addressing the Challenges of Cross-Border E-Discovery

More information here.

Voice of the Defense Bar EDD Conference

DRI-The Voice of the Defense Bar has announced it will hold a conference on the impact of EDD on litigation on May 7-8 at the Hilton New York hotel. Speakers will discuss issues in EDD -- including conflicts between U.S. data privacy laws and the E.U. privacy directive -- and offer mock sessions on summary judgment motions and the authentication of data. Full release here.

Clearwell/H5 Buyer Beware Webinar

Clearwell Systems Inc. and H5 will host the Buyer Beware: How TREC Can Help You Evaluate Your E-Discovery Investments webinar on March 19 at 1 PM Eastern. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) Legal Track is an evaluation process that develops criteria to compare the effectiveness of search and review methods. The webinar will focus on how TREC can help the legal industry evaluate search and review methods, recent court opinions citing TREC, and how the legal community can use the TREC process to evaluate EDD programs. Full release here.

Masters Conference Scheduled for Oct 13-14

The Masters Conference has announced that its fourth annual conference will be held October 13-14, 2009 in Washington, D.C.  Full release here.

Georgetown Law Center’s EDD Training Academy

The waiting is over!  The New York Rangers are the new Stanley Cup Champions!  And this one will last a lifetime!
Wait, wrong celebration :)

But the waiting is over!  After numerous months of meetings, debates, pilots and careful planning it is finally here. The first unbiased, academia based Georgetown Law Center’s week long E-Discovery Training Academy begins Monday.

 The Academy instantly becomes the most credible educational program given Georgetown Law Center's undisputed reputation as the nation's best Law School for Litigators.  Even the economy woes could not stop its momentum.  The academy, limited to 50 seats to assure maximum interaction between the faculty and the students, is completely sold out!

As one of the founding members of the Academy and a faculty member, I am a little biased.  However, few would dispute that finding proper education has always been a great challenge for our industry.  Those of us trying to learn about E-Discovery as well as educate our staff, attorneys and clients are well aware of the complete lack of such initiative despite the great need.   

Until now…

Congratulations to Dean Larry Center, Advisory Committee and Faculty of the Academy for realizing the dream!

 

What I Hate About Technology - Update!

I'm thrilled to announce that CommVault,  which offers e-discovery services, has just signed on to sponsor our upcoming "Trifecta" -- that includes a live program at LTNY09, six podcasts, and a report on the panel in Law Technology News and Corporate Counsel!

Anthony Paonita, editor-in-chief of Corporate Counsel magazine, and I are organizing the panel, and it should be a flat-out blast. We've got a GREAT crew of speakers, and a great topic: "What I Hate About Technology - and what i expect my outside counsel, opposing counsel, vendors and staff to do about it!"

Like our inaugural "FutureTech" program at LegalTech West Coast, this program is modeled on the famous TED lectures, with each speaker presenting a standalone, 12-minute presentation. Each one will be recorded as a podcast for my Law Technology Now podcast series. And then we'll have at least one article in LTN and CC based on the panel!

Upcoming EDD Conferences

• The Sedona Conference Institute will hold its 3rd annual program on "Getting Ahead of the E-Discovery Curve," March 26-27 in Phillie. Info here.

• IQPC hosts its annual EDD Conference in NYC Dec 8-11. Info here

Big News From Sedona Conference Meeting

I just got back from the annual meeting of The Sedona Conference, which, oddly enough is never actually held in Sedona. This annual gathering includes many of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of e-discovery. They have one firm rule which they remind everyone about at the beginning of the meeting: "What is said in Sedona stays in Sedona." They want to encourage free dialogue by promising confidentiality.  But the First Amendment trumps all, right? Because there was one thing that happened that was so incredible, that I just have to break the rules to tell you about, and that was . . . .

Mercer Law School e-Discovery Ethics Symposium

First, I appreciate the invitation to post here. Thanks Monica and Pat. This gives me a great place for short posts, as I only write in-depth articles (2,500 word minimum) in my own blog: e-Discovery Team. Also, it is always an honor to write in the same space as Craig Ball!

I wanted to share with you an event that I attended last week in the lovely city of Macon, Georgia, where I am told Oprah has more listeners than anywhere in the country. It is also the home of Mercer, a prestigious, small, private University. The law school has its own campus above the city in a building designed to look like Independence Hall in Philadelphia, only bigger. Very beautiful, white white rocking chairs on the patio of the law school. The school is, by the way, ranked number six in the country in public interest law. Mercer held an Ethics Symposium last week entitled2008 Symposium: Ethics in the Digital Age. As far as I know, it is the first academic event devoted to electronic discovery ethics. The organizer of the event was Professor Patrick E. Longan, Walter F. George School of Law, Mercer University. The Mercer law review also did a great job of organizing this very well run event.

Special Discount for GC teams: Mastering Discovery

Heads up, GC teams -- Our legal events team is offering a special discount for the upcoming Mastering the Discovery Process for the General Counsel program, which will be held Monday and Tuesday (Nov 3 & 4) at the New York Marriott Marquis hotel, sponsored by our colleagues at Corporate Counsel magazine.

CLE and CPD credits available. Members of GC teams can attend for a special discount rate of $795. (Vendors are welcome to attend at $2,495.)  Just use promo code EDDU.

 

The event is chaired by Jonathan Siegfried, right, partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf, and faculty includes Craig Ball, Law Technology News' award-winning e-discovery columnist, as well as Alexander Arato (CA), Courtney Barton (Crowell & Moring), Michael Berman (Rifkin, Livingston), Laura Buckland, (T-Mobile USA), Christopher Clark (Dewey), Scott Cohen & Brad Ruskin (Proskauer), Judges James Francis & Andrew Peck,  Stephen Ludlow (Open Text Corp.), Scott Martin & Bruce Meyer (Weil Gotshal), James McGinnis (Sheppard Mullin), Kent Roger (Morgan Lewis), Jay Safer (Locke Lord), David Shonka (US FTC), Alexander Vasilescu (SEC), Robert Weiner (McDermott), Milt Williams (Time Inc.) and Michael Zweig (Loeb & Loeb).

Here's the brochure with further 411: Download masteringdiscovery.pdf- 8-28.pdf

Updates from The Masters Conference

I (Brett Burney) am attending The Masters Conference this week and will be posting periodic updates about the events on my blog - www.ediscoveryinfo.com.

In addition, I am also "Twitter-ing" the events on the ediscoveryinfo Twitter account which allows me to post short, frequent reports on the sessions as well as link to pictures taken at the conference.

If you don't already have a FREE Twitter account, just sign up and click the "Follow" button on the ediscoveryinfo page. (And if you're interested in e-discovery news, be sure to also Follow the complexd Twitter account from Orange Legal Technologies.)

Lastly, if you're not keen on real-time updates, I'll be submitting a post-conference round-up to Law.com covering the show and panels.

ARMA in Vegas this month

ARMA is hosting a Legal Technologies Symposium this month in Vegas. 411 here.

A report's job is never done

No matter how much time I allot to view exhibits at technology shows, it never seems to be enough. As a result, covering the exhibitors at the International Legal Technology Association annual meeting in scheduled briefings and from the exhibit hall resulted in reports that were less than comprehensive (Report 1, Report 2). I need to spend more time on the exhibit floor in the future. That way, I would not miss as much as I did in e-discovery technology.

ILTA 2008

The annual ILTA conference in Grapevine, Texas reaches its midpoint this morning, and what a splendid event it's been!  I've watered for years at all the springs where the rare inbred species Lex Geekus congregates, but this is my first convention of the International Legal Technology Association.  It certainly won't be my last. 

Mary Mack Keynotes NFPA Institute

Fios' Mary Mack stole the show at the two-day National Federation of Paralegal Associations' Tech Institute in Denver, July 25-26. Mack, corporate technology counsel at the Portland, Ore.-based company, was the keynote luncheon speaker on day 1, and wow'd the crowd with a speech that was both entertaining and jam-packed with substance.

Masters Conference October 16-17th

The Masters Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. Oct. 16-17. Details here.

LegalTech 2008 - Exhibit Hall

LegalTech West Coast 2008 was a two-day whirlwind of exhibits, demos, programs, parties, and networking.

I'm still on the road, but here's some shots of the Exhibit Hall, by Law Technology News' photo editor, Russ Curtis (www.russcurtis.com).

Thanks to all the vendors, panelists, and attendees who made LTWC 2008 a wonderful experience!

Enjoy!

LegalTech West Coast

Quick last minute reminder that Thursday in LA we'll be hosting a Bloggers' Breakfast, in room 508 of the LA Convention Center, where we will celebrate J. Craig William's new book, How to Get Sued (Kaplan Publishing). Do stop by! Everybody's welcome -- bloggers and readers of blogs. I will be doing my Vanna White hostess impression! If you are a non-vendor blogger, you can get a free full conference pass -- (and we even have some EVDO cards to lend) -- just give a holler to John Bringardner at legalblogwatch@alm.com

Also, both vendor and non-vendor bloggers are invited to send John links of your posts (also at legalblogwatch@alm.com) because we're dedicating the Legal Blog Watch to LTWC Thursday and Friday, and he wants to link to YOUR coverage!

And in all the conference session rooms the first two rows will be reserved for bloggers with electrical outlet strips.

Speaking of the seminars, content is truly king, and our LTN edit board is front and center with EDD tracks by Craig Ball and George Rudoy, among others. And Friday is FutureTech! (Room 503), LTN's all day track featuring Craig Ball, Doug Caddell, Judi Flournoy, and a host of other top industry leaders. 

Hope to see you there!

Mon, hoping United won't fold between now and July 2.  (Yeah!!! Star Alliance deal with Continental -- the first piece of goooood news from UAL in ages. :)

Masters Conference 2008 on Corporate EDD

The Masters Conference 2008 will address "Viewing e-Discovery Through the Corporate Veil."  Judges, corporate counsel, and consultants will speak.  The conference will be held October 16-17, 2008, in Washington, D.C.  Registration is now open. 

Sedona Conference Accepting Applications

The annual Sedona Conference On Antitrust Law And Litigation will be held September 17-18, 2008, in Florence, Italy. It will address the globalization of antitrust enforcement. Topics will include:

• The Future of Private Antitrust Enforcement in the EU
• Criminal Antitrust Enforcement in Europe
• Impact for Antitrust Enforcement of the U.S. 2008 Presidential Election; and
• The Antitrust/IP Interface

The conference, limited to 45 people, is accepting applications for invites here.

EDD & Compliance Conferences

CA's Peter Pepiton reports that CA and Microsoft Corp. are hosting a series of eDiscovery and Compliance Executive Conferences in three cities: June 17 in NYC  , June 24 in D.C., and June 19 in  San Francisco.

During the sessions CA reps will talk about its information governance roadmap; Microsoft's team will discuss EDD using its 2007 Office software. Other presentations will address best practices  and centralized control issues.

CT Summation's NYC Best Practices Summit

CT Summation will be holding a free Best Practices Summit in New York City, on June 19 from 8:30 to 4:30.  Sessions will include: 

• Co-Dependence: Corporate and Outside Counsel Working Together
• Running the Trial Preparation Gauntlet with Technology
• Putting the Pieces Together: eDiscovery from Processing to Production

...and more.  Go here for more info and registration (deadline today).

Update on LegalTech's FutureTech Track

We've been  putting the final touches on the upcoming, first-time ever  Law Technology News Presents FutureTech  at LegalTech West Coast.

We're calling it "The Trifecta" inside ALM, because it's the first time  we've conceived an effort that includes a live presentation, podcasts, and an LTN report.

And I'm updating this post today (June 4) with exciting news: FutureTech will be sponsored by BlueArc, a San Jose-based company that provides "high performance unified network storage systems to enterprise markets, as well as data intensive markets, such as electronic discovery, entertainment, federal government, higher education, internet services, oil and gas and life sciences."

BlueArc supports "both network attached storage, or NAS, and storage area network, or SAN, services on a converged network storage platform." We're thrilled to have them as our sponsor of FutureTech!

Here's the 411:

Sneak Preview: "FutureTech" at LegalTech LA

Campers:

I've been JUST a leetle distracted lately, putting the final touches on the upcoming, first-time ever  Law Technology News Presents FutureTech  at LegalTech West Coast.

We're calling it "The Trifecta" inside ALM, because it's the first time  we've conceived an effort that includes a live presentation, podcasts, and an LTN report.

Here's the 411:

San Diego Chapter of Women in eDiscovery to Meet

The San Diego Chapter of Women in eDiscovery is organizing and will hold its first meeting on April 30.   
Since its inception in May 2007, Women in eDiscovery has grown to more than 1,500 members, with 18 chapters in the US and England. Go here for more information; here to register. 

Quick Trip to MSP

Special thanks to the gang at Kroll Ontrack and at Merrill, for taking time from their very busy schedules to meet with us this week in the Twin Cities. Our conversations were terrific, and nuanced. We talked about everything from how customer service will be a differentiator as the vendor wars escalate, to  how everybody's trying to position themselves to provide effective counseling to their clients who are struggling to grapple with e-discovery.

Kudos to Craig Levinsohn , Allison Guidette and Daniel Pelc at Merrill, and  Michele Lange and her team (including Christian Betancourt and Kaitlin Creager) for all their insights. We also had a chance to touch bases with Benjamin Green, operations manager of ComputerForensic Services. And we always enjoy a chance to feast at the St. Paul Grille with the Thomson West gang (Gretchen DeSutter, John Shaughnessy, Jeff Patrias, and Melissa Deml). (We'll be returning to Mpls in early June for a more extended visit to Eagan).

On the EDD front, both Kroll and Merrill "get" that the profession is in desperate need of education on the complex challenges they face. Toward that goal, among the many materials both vendors have been producing are white papers, surveys, podcasts and webinars.

Here are some samples:

From Merrill:
* Total Evidence Management: A winning Approach to Complex Litigation.
* Authenticating Digital Evidence: Identify and Avoid the Weak Links in Your Chain of Custody.

From Kroll:
* Electronic Discovery Filtering: Early Processing Metrics Technology: Download kroll_ontrack_early_processing_metrics.doc

* ESI Trends Report  Download 2008_esi_trends_report.pdf (Also, see next post).

ARMA: E-Discovery & Beyond

Rick Wolf, of Lexakos, alerts us to an upcoming ARMA International program, "E-Discovery & Beyond: Manage your Electronic Data Risk," which takes place in NYC at the Marriott Marquis on March 31-April 1.
Agenda here.

Managing Discovery Process - ALM Events

ALM Events will present "Managing Today's Discovery Process: The Evolving Role of Paralegals and Litigation Support Professionals" on April 24, at the Harvard Club in NY.

Topics range from Selecting/Negotiating with Vendors; Cost Containment; Communications Issues; IT/Legal Interaction, and more. I will be presenting on the topic of "How EDD is Changing the Job Market," and other panelists include:
* Cynthia Bateman (Georgia-Pacific)
* Tom O'Connor (Legal Electronic Documents Institute)

Sneak Preview: Almost-Live from L.A.

Speaking of live blogging, plans are underway for LegalTech West Coast, in Los Angeles, June 25-26 to repeat our popular  "Almost-Live from New York" blog-o-rama.

We'll once again have live reporting on Legal Blog Watch, which will again serve as a central clearinghouse for other posts from other bloggers covering the show.

All non-vendor bloggers who plan to do live blogging will be provided with a free full conference pass (e-mail legalblogwatch@alm.com to register), we're going to have a welcome breakfast on June 25 open to all bloggers.

We're planning to designate the first two rows of every conference program for bloggers and provide electrical outlet strips, and looking into other ways to facilitate blogging at our West Coast show!

I'll keep you posted!

Live: ABA TechShow 2008

Just arrived at ABA TechShow late Friday.... I'm presenting Saturday morning (i.e., today) on one of two "Green" panels... Do stop by if you're in the 'hood (Chicago Hilton):

* Lara Pearson and Arthur Harrington (left) will present "Meeting the ABA EPA Law Office Climate Challenge, from 8:30 am - 9:30 a.m., then I will join them for the 9:45 panel, "Small Footprint - Big Impact:" Improving Client Services with Sustainable Practices. (Northwest 3).

* After our panel, stick around for the ABA TechShow's signature panel, "60 Sites in 60 Minutes," which closes out the event, and features Craig Ball (LTN's EDD columnist), TechShow chair Tom Mighell, and D.C.'s own Reid Trautz  in the Grand Ballroom.

Lit Support Leaders SuperConference: Harris

LIVE BLOGGING FROM ESTRIN LITIGATION SUPPORT LEADERS SUPERCONFERENCE

Charlotte Riser Harris -- 10 Essential Steps to Developing a Premier Lit Support Dept

#1: Keep your sense of humor. Even when you think all your users are idiots and you are repeating the same thing for the 1,000,000th time.

#2: Get buy-in from the top. Easy to say, hard to do.

#3: Listen to your users and don't forget paralegals and other support staff are users too.

# 4: Develop a brand and marketing and informational materials.

Lit Support Leaders SuperConference: Lisa Rosen

LIVE BLOGGING FROM ESTRIN LITIGATION SUPPORT SUPERCONFERENCE:

Lisa Rosen  (Rosen Technology Resources Inc.): The Rise of ESI - Meta Data and its Myths

Download Lisa Rosen's  PPT: Download meta_data.ppt

Highlights:

* Data can be anywhere, including on iPods

* Beware that titles of documents may be misleading or irrelevant.

Lit Support Leaders SuperConference: Socha

LIVE BLOGGING FROM THE ESTRIN LITIGATION SUPPORT LEADERS SUPERCONFERENCE:

Socha keynote highlights:

* 30-70% of EDD processing cost is in the review process -- in fact, it may constitute 30-70%  of entire litigation costs
* Eliminating the non-relevant matter can reveal the important matter -- Michelangelo's David emerged when the irrelevant stone was removed.
* Locating potential sources of data -- focus on concentric circles
* Deliver material in native files -- if a doc is a spreadsheet, don't send tiff files. send the spreadsheet. (difficult to redact or number, but you can work with it - and there are ways of tracking material.

* "Near-native" -- you want to receive the material in a usable format.

*"Near-paper" -- prolly the most common form -- converting to tif or pdf, extracting some (usually not all) of metadata and full text, handing over as a pkg -- attractive often, but $$ and time consuming. Can limit uses.

Photo - Socha, right, with Bill Long of AEA Group LLC.

Lit Support Leaders SuperConference: Mike Arkfeld

LIVE BLOGGING FROM ESTRIN LITIGATION SUPPORT LEADERS SUPERCONFERENCE

Presentation -- "The Deadly Sins of E-Discovery" from Michael Arkfeld:

Highlights:

* We haven't seen the tip of the iceberg re: sanctions
* There is no simple turn-key "solution"
* We are moving thru huge change -- not just tech, but cultural, in firms, in families -- moving from analog to digital
* Change is difficult --

Lone Star State of Technology

Greetings from Texas! Having an amazing time in the beautiful  Lone Star state...

It's been non-stop EDD, with visits to Stored IQ, Renew Data, Liquid Litigation Management , IEDiscovery and Message One in Austin, along with a chance to visit with LTN's EDD columnist Craig Ball and his wonderful wife, Diana Ball.

We also had a great lunch with Trisa Thompson, of Dell Inc.'s legal department, who has graciously agreed to join LTN's editorial advisory board!

The only sour note: our ALM  colleague Joe Pavone took a spill and shattered his achilles tendon and limped back to Phoenix -- send him a get well message to cheer him up!

We had planned to drop in and surprise ILTA's Randi Mayes -- but Joe's adventure unfortunately curtailed THAT plan.

Then it was off to Houston, where we met with Bridgeway Software Inc.,  and the gang at DataCert before we dove into Chere Estrin's Litigation Support Leaders SuperConference, at the Crowne Plaza.

If you are in the Houston metropolitan area, don't miss this conference. The faculty roster is loaded with LTN's "usual suspects,"  including keynote speakers Mike Arkfeld and George Socha, along with LTN edit board members Brett Burney and Tom O'Connor. We'd love to see you.

It's a great crowd, with top firms and corporate legal departments, including Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Bingham McCutchen, Howrey, Thompson Hine, Ropes & Gray, et al. Come join us! The fun starts at noon today.

Chere has kindly offered a FOF (friend o' faculty) discount of 10% -- so just tell them you saw it in EDD Update to claim your not-really-early-bird discount. Pop her an e-mail at for details or visit the website.

(Click to enlarge photos)

LTNY 08 Photos by Russ Curtis

Russ Curtis' photos from LegalTech New York are available on the LTN site here and on The Common Scold here. Craig Ball, right.

LTNY 2008: And the Winners Are...

Law Technology News held its fifth annual awards program Tuesday night, and the vendor winners -- in 14 technology categories -- are announced here. The awards are based on votes by LTN subscribers, and some familiar names dominate the list: LexisNexis took five awards and CT Summation took three.

The Law Firm and Legal Department award winners include John Sroka of Duane Morris, IT Director of the Year, and Goodwin Procter's iStaff system, for Most Innovative Use of Technology by a Law Firm.

George Rudoy, of Shearman & Sterling -- and a member of LTN's Editorial Board and an author of this EDD Update blog, was named IT Champion of the Year. (Photo by Russ Curtis).

--John Bringardner & Monica Bay

LTNY 08: Authenticating Digital Evidence

E-discovery—so much of what we cover seems to detail how to avoid being found liable in a big e-document debacle.  But there is, after all, another side to e-discovery:  how to use digital data as evidence, and how to defend against it when your opponents are doing so.

Hence, a seminar on Total Evidence Management:  “Authenticating Digital Evidence,” presented by Neil Aresty and Jason Velasco, both of Merrill Legal Solutions; Michael Arkfeld, of Arkfeld and Associates; Paul W. Grimm, Chief Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland; George Paul, a partner at Lewis & Roca in Phoenix and chair of the firm's E-Discovery and Data Management Group; and Leslie Wharton of Arnold & Porter.

 

LTNY 08: Tom Allman's Keynote

Sean Doherty, tech editor of Law.com, writes this terrific overview of the LegalTech NY opening day keynote address, Feb. 5,by Tom Allman (left), plus other events at Day One!

Monica Bay & Craig Ball (LTN's "Ball in Your Court" columnist), discuss Allman's keynote, e-discovery trends, on a special "Live from LTNY" edition of the new Law Technology Now podcast. They are then joined by Henry Dicker, head of LegalTech NY, for a discussion on how attendees can make the most of their LTNY experience. (Hint: wear comfortable shoes.)

Photo by Russ Curtis -- click to enlarge.