Notes on recent trends in e-discovery, data privacy, and the use of technology to enhance the practice of law.
Announcements
| CATEGORIES | DATE | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/09/2020 | Exterro announced enhancements to its Legal GRC Platform today with the launch of Exterro Policy Management, meant to offer legal defensibility and insight into organizational efforts to comply with company policies and applicable state and federal requirements. |
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/08/2020 | Xact Data Discovery (XDD) announced the acquisition of RVM Enterprises, expanding XDD’s presence in the New York and New Jersey corridor. |
| Announcements Enhancing Practice | 07/08/2020 | EasyRogs announced the release of a system for automatically generating finished forms and responses to discovery requests, designed specifically for California civil practice. |
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/07/2020 | Ipro announced the acquisition of NetGovern, culminating a strategic partnership announced in January and expanding Ipro’s information archiving and governance capabilities. |
| Announcements Enhancing Practice | 07/07/2020 | DocuSign announced the acquisition of Liveoak Technologies for $38M in an all-stock transaction, to leverage Liveoak’s technology and expertise to accelerate the launch of DocuSign Notary, a remote online notarization capability. |
E-discovery
| CATEGORIES | DATE | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|
| E-Discovery Enhancing Practice Privacy | 07/10/2020 | The Blickstein Group, Corporate Counsel Business Journal, and Exterro have published their 4th Annual Study of Effective Legal Spend Management, focused this year on legal operations (implement a comprehensive strategy), data privacy processes (ensure defensibility and compliance), and e-discovery activities (do more yourself to minimize spend). |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/09/2020 | The Sedona Conference published the public-comment version of its Commentary on the Enforceability in U.S. Courts of Orders and Judgments Entered under GDPR, reported Doug Austin of eDiscovery Daily. |
| E-Discovery | 07/09/2020 | Zach Warren of Legaltech published his interview with Ron Hedges and Ken Withers, senior editors of The Sedona Conference Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary, Third Edition. |
| E-Discovery | 07/09/2020 | Phil Beckett of Alvarez & Marsal published a simple guide to e-disclosure (or e-discovery) in the UK. To get a sense of some of the differences between the UK and US systems, go to the “Disclosure Pilot Scheme” section of the article. |
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/09/2020 | Exterro announced enhancements to its Legal GRC Platform today with the launch of Exterro Policy Management, meant to offer legal defensibility and insight into organizational efforts to comply with company policies and applicable state and federal requirements. |
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/08/2020 | Xact Data Discovery (XDD) announced the acquisition of RVM Enterprises, expanding XDD’s presence in the New York and New Jersey corridor. |
| Announcements E-Discovery | 07/07/2020 | Ipro announced the acquisition of NetGovern, culminating a strategic partnership announced in January and expanding Ipro’s information archiving and governance capabilities. |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/07/2020 | Ralph Nickl and Brian Evans of Canopy published a three-part series on nine differences between data breach and litigation reviews: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. |
| E-Discovery | 07/07/2020 | Jonathan G. Hardin and Ryan Parietti of Perkins Coie published a short primer on the discoverability of virtual meetings. |
| E-Discovery | 07/07/2020 | For nearly as long as there has been e-discovery, companies in adjoining areas have tried to hop the fence into e-discovery’s yard. Frank Ready of Legaltech news reported on the most recent group to try to cross that barrier, contract companies. |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/06/2020 | In a Legaltech news article, Ryan Costello of ProSearch offered subsections for an e-discovery approach for responding to data subject access requests (DSARs). |
Enhancing practice
| CATEGORIES | DATE | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|
| E-Discovery Enhancing Practice Privacy | 07/10/2020 | The Blickstein Group, Corporate Counsel Business Journal, and Exterro have published their 4th Annual Study of Effective Legal Spend Management, focused this year on legal operations (implement a comprehensive strategy), data privacy processes (ensure defensibility and compliance), and e-discovery activities (do more yourself to minimize spend). |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/10/2020 | Casetext and Gravity Legal are offering free access to their products to attorneys involved in civil rights matters, reported Bob Ambrogi of LawSites. Casetext is offering free access to its Compose brief automation for Title VII motions through the remainder of the summer. Gravity Legal will offer $50,000 of free credit card processing to firms that focus primarily on civil rights. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | Altman Weil recently published its 2020 Law Firms in Transition 87-page report, noted Casey Sullivan of Logikcull. The tone of the report is evident in the first sentence of the survey highlights section: “Law firms in general have not demonstrated the will to change their legal service delivery model to increase the value being delivered to clients.” |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | As executive director of the nonprofit Immigrants Like Us, former Big Law attorney Jonathan Petts is using the no-code product Community Lawyer to expand access to legal services for low-income immigrants, reported Amy Guthrie of Legaltech news. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | The Washington Supreme Court’s Limited License Legal Technicians program, announced in 2012, has met its demise, reported Lyle Moran of the ABA Journal. Meant to permit licensing of nonlawyers to undertake certain legal tasks, the program was sensated by the Washington Supreme Court on June 4. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | In the first of two Corporate Counsel articles, E. Leigh Dance (Global Counsel Leaders Circle) and Jon Pedersen (Digital Legal Exchange) summarized discussions of more than 80 global corporate legal and compliance leaders in six weeks of virtual roundtables. Part 1 focused on technology and digital advancement: digital as top of mind; the desire for higher-value work and increased efficiency; the benefits accruing from the singular focus required during the pandemic’s early days; and the need for IT and digital skills and competencies. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | Barak Cohen, Angela R. Jones, Zachary Chalett, and Karen O. Lisko of Perkins Coie published a short primer on remote depositions and other remote testimony. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/09/2020 | In an Above the Law article, Nicole Black of MyCase listed some of the ways lawyers have been exploring and adopting technology over the past few months. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/08/2020 | A growing number of law firms are blurring the distinction between law firms and alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), according to Victoria Hudgins of Legaltech news, doing this by adopting cross-disciplinary technology and consultancy services unique to the ALSP market. |
| Announcements Enhancing Practice | 07/08/2020 | EasyRogs announced the release of a system for automatically generating finished forms and responses to discovery requests, designed specifically for California civil practice. |
| Announcements Enhancing Practice | 07/07/2020 | DocuSign announced the acquisition of Liveoak Technologies for $38M in an all-stock transaction, to leverage Liveoak’s technology and expertise to accelerate the launch of DocuSign Notary, a remote online notarization capability. |
| Enhancing Practice | 07/02/2020 | Craig Ball described how to up your Zoom game with the “weather map” technique. |
Privacy
| CATEGORIES | DATE | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|
| E-Discovery Enhancing Practice Privacy | 07/10/2020 | The Blickstein Group, Corporate Counsel Business Journal, and Exterro have published their 4th Annual Study of Effective Legal Spend Management, focused this year on legal operations (implement a comprehensive strategy), data privacy processes (ensure defensibility and compliance), and e-discovery activities (do more yourself to minimize spend). |
| Privacy | 07/10/2020 | New Zealand has a new Privacy Bill set to go into effect on Dec. 1, 2020, replacing its Privacy Act 1993, reported Hunton Andrews Kurth. |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/09/2020 | The Sedona Conference published the public-comment version of its Commentary on the Enforceability in U.S. Courts of Orders and Judgments Entered under GDPR, reported Doug Austin of eDiscovery Daily. |
| Privacy | 07/09/2020 | The Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”) Data Protection Law No. 5 of 2020 became effective on July 1, with a COVID-driven three-month grace period, reportedDavid Pang, Olivia R. Lee, and Jenna N. Rode of Hunton Andrews Kurth. |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/07/2020 | Ralph Nickl and Brian Evans of Canopy published a three-part series on nine differences between data breach and litigation reviews: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. |
| E-Discovery Privacy | 07/06/2020 | In a Legaltech news article, Ryan Costello of ProSearch offered subsections for an e-discovery approach for responding to data subject access requests (DSARs). |
E-discovery case law
| DATE | POSTURE | OUTCOME | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07/03/2020 | Plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions. | Motion for sanctions granted. Adverse inference recommended. | John, et al. v. Cnty. of Lake, et al., No. 18-cv-06935-WHA(SK) (N.D. Cal. July 3, 2020) U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim granted plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions and recommended that the District Count provide an adverse inference instruction to the jury, having found that (1) defendants’ obligation to preserve evidence was triggered with they received notice of an administrative claim and made even clearer when they received plaintiffs’ discovery requests; (2) defendants took no steps to preserve the sought-after ESI, resulting in its loss; (3) the lost ESI cannot be restored through other means; and (4) as a result of the loss, plaintiffs have suffered the prejudice of not having accessing to relevant information that goes to some of the key issues in the case. Source: Court Recommends Adverse Inference Sanctions and Awards Attorney Fees for Spoliation: eDiscovery Case Law, eDiscovery Daily, Doug Austin. |
| 07/02/2020 | Plaintiff’s motion to compel better discovery responses and for fees. | Motion granted in part and denied in part. | Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. M1 5100 Corp., d/b/a Jumbo Supermarket, Inc., 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117243 (S.D. Fla. July 2, 2020) Defendant collected ESI without the the participation or oversight of counsel, which led to a motion by plaintiff to permit it to inspect how defendant’s ESI was searched, collected, and produced. The unsupervised self-collection “greatly trouble[d] and concerne[d]” U.S. Magistrate Judge William Matthewman, leading the court to “seriously question[] the efficacy of Defendant’s search, collection and document production.” Rather than immediately order the requested inspection – something that should be the exception and not the rule for discovery of ESI – the court gave defendant one last chance to comply with its discovery search, collection, and production obligations and set forth the parameters of that process. Source: The Florida E-Discovery Case Law Database |
| 06/24/2020 | Plaintiffs’ expedited motion to compel and request for discovery hearing. | Motion granted in part and denied in part. | Oj Commerce Llc v. Kidkraft, CASE NO. 19-60341-CIV-COOKE/SNOW (S.D. Fl. June 24, 2020) Using search terms agreed upon by the parties, defendants identified 100,000 potentially responsive documents. Defendants withheld 94,000 of those documents as irrelevant. When challenged, defendants asserted that “they had complied in full with their document production obligations” and argued that the search terms were overly broad. As part of a court-ordered meet and confer, plaintiffs offered a proposal, not described in the opinion, which defendants rejected; defendants did not offer a counterproposal. Determining that the “sheer volume of documents withheld … is concerning since the documents were identified by agreed search terms”, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lurana S. Snow ordered defendants to produce “all non-privileged, responsive documents to the parties’ agreed upon search terms (the remaining 94%)” as well as a privilege log for withheld documents, all within five days. The judge also ordered that to the extent the parties can agree that certain documents are not relevant, those documents need not be produced, and that if the parties agree on a different deadline (before the end of the five days) then the date of production can be modified. |
Additional articles
| CATEGORIES | DATE | ENTRIES |
|---|---|---|
| E-Discovery | 07/13/2020 | Court Orders Parties to Confer After Defendant Conducts Unsupervised Self Collection: eDiscovery Case Law Source: eDiscovery Today Author: Doug Austin |
| Additional Article E-Discovery | 07/10/2020 | Thought Leader Interview with John Wilson of HaystackID: eDiscovery Trends and Best Practices, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 Source: eDiscovery Today Author: Doug Austin |
| E-Discovery | 07/09/2020 | Interview: Jamie Berry of Integreon on how Relativity supports large document reviews Source: eDisclosure Information Project Author: Chris Dale |
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George Socha is the Senior Vice President of Brand Awareness at Reveal, where he promotes brand awareness, helps guide development of product roadmap and consults with customers on effective deployment of legal technology.
Named an “E-Discovery Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, George has assisted corporate, law firm, and government clients with all facets of electronic discovery, including information governance, domestically and globally. He served clients in a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, energy, retail, banking and technology, among others. As a renowned industry thought leader, he has authored more than 50 articles and spoken at more than 200 engagements across the world on a variety of e-discovery topics. His extensive knowledge has also been utilized more than 20 times to provide expert testimony.
Co-founder of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), a framework that outlines the standards for the recovery and discovery of digital data, and the Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM), a similar framework specific to information management, George is skilled at developing and implementing electronic discovery strategies and managing electronic discovery processes.
Named an “E-Discovery Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, George has assisted corporate, law firm, and government clients with all facets of electronic discovery, including information governance, domestically and globally. He served clients in a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, energy, retail, banking and technology, among others. As a renowned industry thought leader, he has authored more than 50 articles and spoken at more than 200 engagements across the world on a variety of e-discovery topics. His extensive knowledge has also been utilized more than 20 times to provide expert testimony.
Co-founder of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), a framework that outlines the standards for the recovery and discovery of digital data, and the Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM), a similar framework specific to information management, George is skilled at developing and implementing electronic discovery strategies and managing electronic discovery processes.