Category: eDiscovery and Litigation Support

A new e-discovery study by Equivio statistically compares human versus software performance in designating responsive documents. The results are worth reading.  I’ve argued that litigators and judges should rely on statistical analysis to determine the the most reliable and accurate approach to reviewing documents. In...

Have lawyers forgotten the goal of e-discovery? EDD articles and professionals seem exclusively focused on avoiding disaster. The real EDD goal is winning the case. In 1997, I characterized the goals of discovery as: [see note below for source] A. Achieve the best outcome for...

Raise your hand if you’ve read the TREC 2008 Legal Track study released in March. TREC is a great project to help legal professionals understand the accuracy and process of document review. To improve doc review and gain the value of this on-going study, however,...

The e-discovery market is consolidating and its growth slowing according to a recent Gartner report.  Gartner, in a December 2008 report, Gartner MarketScope for E-Discovery Software Product Vendors, reports several findings: Spending on e-discovery software technology and services will grow between 25% and 35% annually,...

Law firm lay offs have cut wide and deep. At a legal knowledge management lunch today, we were wondering how law firm EDD staff have fared. Hours later, I had an answer – and it surprised me.  I’ve gotten to know David Cowen of the...

I’ve attended Legal Tech since 1990. Legal Tech 2009 reminds me of Legal Tech 1990.  Back then, vendors had a plethora of new software versions, almost all based on DOS (the PC operating system). The forwarding thinkers understood that Windows loomed and would likely take...

Money pours into e-discovery. Courts rule on it. Lawyers debate it. Seemingly missing though are statistics.  Is e-discovery and document review today all that different from litigation support 20 years ago? Sure, technology has changed. The underlying process, however, has not. The biggest difference is...

Keyword searching is the e-discovery buzz. It may surprise many legal market professionals that search and keywords is really an old issue.  Ari Kaplan, in We’re All in the Keyword Business (law.com, 15 Dec 2008), reports on a recent EDD conference. He writes: “the recurring...