Litigation research: Market challenges, technology, and the advantage of GenAI
Editor
With case complexities and data volumes on the rise, litigation teams must find new ways to manage, (...)
“Agentic AI” is on the cards
Editor
It's been two years since ChatGPT enamoured the world. When ChatGPT first launched, everybody was am(...)
The phrase “hope is not a strategy” is written on the walls of locker rooms and sales offices all over the world. Putting what you deem as your best effort forward and hoping that the results come out in your favor is not a tactic that often works out.
Rather, success is gained by taking complete control of the situation and managing events to the desirable outcome. Hoping the puck finds the back of the net doesn't work. Neither does hoping that the prospect you've been speaking with for the last three months really, really likes your stuff and is going to send you a purchase order just because it's the right thing to do.
The Confession, or Well... It Could have Happened
I have written a fair amount of late about law firm information security. I know what many law firms' security is like and it's not pretty. I want to see law firm security improve. Not just a few selective biglaw firms, but all firms, down into the AmLaw 200 and below. I want to see initiatives like ILTA's LegalSEC continue forward, because "championing an initiative to deliver a set of best practices and a framework that firms can adapt to their needs to build or enhance their information assurance/security programs" is something the industry desperately needs. Right now law firms are the weakest link the chain with their clients.
Document Management Systems (DMS) for law firms and legal departments have been around for a while. Different eras had their own market leaders, but the recent rapid developments in technology - specifically cloud and mobility - make the DMS vendor landscape more agile.
Recently, Hyperion Research published a MarketView™ report on this topic. The report is a good read, but the price tag ($3.750) is heavy when you're an individual interested in DMS. However, if you are in the process of selecting a new DMS for your firm, it's well worth the money.
Note to readers: this is a column, not a news story
I've written a fair amount of late about law firm information security. I have engaged with many clients and former colleagues on the subject. But even so, I was surprised when I opened the express mail envelope complete with the infamous 1060 West Addison return address (Was the sender also a Blues Brothers fan?). It contained a short, unsigned handwritten note and a printout of an internal memo sent via email. I thought it was somewhat odd as I held the physical copy, but as I read it the memo, the reason why was soon made clear.
I agreed with the anonymous source that there was value in sharing it with the larger community. I scanned and OCR'ed the printout and eliminated the names and other pieces of information that might identify the firm. Right now I don't want to be the one to "out" the firm.
When tackling electronic discovery, many attorneys and their teams know they need to focus on collecting, reviewing and producing potentially responsive electronic data. However, the scope of discovery is not just limited to emails, user files and other similar materials. Organizations actually create, maintain and store two types of data: unstructured and structured. Understanding how structured data is created, what it is, where it exists and how to collect it is critical in ensuring a defensible and thorough discovery review.
Big data can mean big headaches for legal and IT professionals involved in electronic discovery. In large-scale litigation, the task of collecting and sifting through electronically stored information can be gargantuan, both in effort and cost. When a business becomes involved in litigation or a government inquiry, its lawyers need to dig through the company's stacks of big data in search of needles of potentially relevant documents, emails, text messages, spreadsheets, presentations and other ESI.
Part 1 of this three-part article discussed the terminology of TAR: Key word search, both simple and advanced, conceptual search and predictive coding. Part 2 will drill into two specific statistical methodologies commonly used in TAR: Support vector and conceptual search, and will describe how they work, what they do and how they can be used. Part three will focus on the practical: What do the cases say? How can parties use TAR in a defensible way? How can TAR help to achieve proportionality?
The post-2008 economic downturn and subsequent recession forced many organizations to significantly readjust the way they ran their business - law firms were no exception. Law firms quickly realised that in order to survive and prosper during a new era of cost-cutting and financial scrutiny, they needed to become far more streamlined and productive. This new operating environment has resulted in a much-transformed legal industry that is continuing to evolve.
A number of key trends have been reshaping the legal industry since the downturn and will continue to do so in future, so firms must take heed to stay ahead of the game.
What is this TAR (Technology Assisted Review) that people are talking about, and what do they really mean by this term? Perhaps more importantly, why should you care? Part 1 of this three-part article will discuss the terminology of TAR. Part 2 will drill into two specific statistical methodologies commonly used in TAR; namely, support vector and conceptual search, how they work, what they do and which are appropriate for particular use cases. Part 3 will focus on the practical: What do the cases say? How can parties use TAR in a defensible way? How can TAR help to achieve proportionality?
Among lawyers, I was an early iOS adopter, having used iPhones® and iPads® in my practice since the second generation. Even though I used these devices for years, I had not found the right app to enter time at the office. The iOS compatible time entry systems I tried were not intuitive; they did not work well for me and so after trying a few of them for a while, I stopped using them.
The Horrible Law Firm CIO doesn't listen to their staff when they present concerns. He does listen for ideas and suggestion that he can then claim as his own when he talks to his boss.
The Horrible Law Firm CIO is always right. She deflects failure and problems to her staff and soaks up all the glory and praise. After all it's the head of the department that should get all the glory for the works of the team. And if something goes wrong - well someone on the team messed up.
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