Weekly Trends Report – 12/12/2018 Insights

Insight into where e-discovery, information governance cybersecurity, and digital transformation are heading – who is doing what now or in the future, what works and what doesn’t, and what people wish they could do but can’t – gleaned from recent publications

E-DISCOVERY

Yet more on TAR v. keywords – Bill Dimm of Clustify posted the fifth installment in his series on TAR versus keywords. To get a good understanding of his efforts their results, read the full series: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5. Spoiler alert: Bill reported that TAR beat keywords every time.

RelativityOne debutes in Australia – Relativity has rolled out RelativityOne in Australia, reported Artificial Lawyer.

E-discovery pricing survey results – On Dec 12 Rob Robinson of Complex Discovery published the results of his Winter 2019 eDiscovery Pricing Survey. Highlights of the results from 68 respondents (29.4% software/service providers, 38.2% law firms, 19.1% consultancies, 7.4% government, 4.4% corporation) are:

Has e-discovery gone mainstream? – Information Management‘s editor-in-chief published a list of 10 top analytics and business intelligence trends for 2019 which reads like a list of e-discovery capabilities and issues (#2 Data Discovery, for example, and #Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics Tools) even though it never actually approaches the topic. Have we gone mainstream without even knowing it?

Updated legal hold commentary published – On Dec. 6 The Sedona Conference published its Commentary on Legal Holds, Second Edition: The Trigger & The Process, an update of the Sept. 2010 version, reported eDiscovery Daily Blog.

How secure are your e-discovery systems? – Check out the post, How Relativity Integrates Threat Intelligence Throughout the Security Function, that summarizes a recent presentation featuring Amanda Fennell (CSO), Jerry Finley (director of cybersecurity and deputy CSO), and Darian Lewis (threat intelligence lead) of Relativity.

More acquisitions, expansion, and repositioning –

On Nov. 27, QDiscovery announced it had acquired Boston-based Evidox, expanding the provider’s presence in New England.

On Dec. 3 Special Counsel formally introduced its legal consulting division, EQ, which will focus on cybersecurity, data analysis, information governance, managed review, and more, and announced that it was placing those and its legal talent and recruitment, attorney recruiting, and technology and e-discovery divisions under a single brand.

On Dec. 5, Elevate announced the acquisition of Sumati Group, a provider of contract lifecycle management managed services – continuing Elevate’s efforts to expand beyond traditional e-discovery offerings.

CYBERSECURITY & DATA PRIVACY

There’s a lot of privacy and cybersecurity law out there – The fifth edition of The Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity Law Review, published Oct. 2018, is now available. Edited by Sidley attorney Alan Charles Raul, the publication contains global, EU and APEC overviews as well as sections on 22 countries:  Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

With perhaps more on the way – In a recent post, Sidley attorneys called Congress to pass what they call “Privacy 2.0”, a comprehensive national privacy law.

Some of which now is a little clearer – On Nov. 23, The European Data Protection Board published draft guidelines that seek to clarify the territorial scope of the GDPR, Sidley reported in a post that also described 9 key takeaways from the proposed guidelines.

State AGs pursue multistate HIPAA-related data breach case – On Dec. 5, attorneys general from a dozen states announced the filing of the first multistate HIPAA-related case in federal court, reported King & Spalding.

First GDPR fine in Germany issued – On Nov. 21, a German data protection authority imposed a EUR 20,000 to a German social media company for failing to encrypt user passwords – a small but notable fine because it is the first GDPR one issued in Germany, according to King & Spalding.

LEGAL TECHNOLOGY & DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

3/5 of states require lawyers to be technically competent – According to Bob Ambrogi, 34 states now have formally adopted Comment 8 to Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1: “To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology, engage in continuing study and education and comply with all continuing legal education requirements to which the lawyer is subject.” Bob maintains a list, with links and effective dates, that he updates regularly.

Two states mandate technology training for lawyers – Beginning in 2019, North Carolina will require all lawyers to complete one hour a year of technology training, joining Florida which adopted a similar requirement in 2016, reported Bob Ambrogi.

UK regulator encourage law firms consider using AI – On Dec. 11 the Solicitors Regulation Authority published a bullish report, Technology and legal services, on the use of advantages of using advanced technology in legal services, how technology and AI already are being used and ethical issues to consider, the role of regulation to encourage that use, and steps that can be taken to make sure the technology is used safely.

Smart contracts continues to be big legal AI marketing push – A Nov. 29 Legaltech News article, Using AI to Gain Meaning from Contracts, is a recent example of the growing push to convince corporations and law firms that AI will be their best friend when it comes to managing and understanding contracts.

Want to know more about judges and expert witnesses? – LexisNexis recently introduced Context, a legal analytics platform containing searchable and sortable data for every federal judge, 100 different types of motions, and over 380,000 expert witnesses that have appeared in federal court, according to Legaltech News article. According to an Above the Law article by Bob Ambrogi, Context does this by analyzing the language of judges’ opinions to identify the cases and arguments the judges find persuasive.

Text analytics today and tomorrow – For a short synopsis of the goings-on at the recent KMWorld Text Analytics Forum ’18, see Bill Dimm’s post. You can download many of the presentations, as well as Bill Dimm’s photos of some of the slides that did not make it to the downloadable materials.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Conferences, webinars, and the like can provide insight into where e-discovery, information governance cybersecurity, and digital transformation are heading

12/13/2018-12/21/2018 EVENTS

George Socha

Senior Vice President of Brand Awareness at Reveal

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.