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
NELTP Connect 2019 – Please join us on 5/30 at The State Room (60 State Street – Boston) for the New England Litigation Technology Professionals’ NELTP Connect 2019: Luncheon keynote by the Hon. F. Dennis Saylor IV, future lawyering, e-discovery, data privacy, anti-money laundering, and more.
Building Tomorrow’s Business: What does digital transformation mean for middle-market companies in 2019? – Please join Gary Bie of Stony Brook Medicine and Malcolm Cohron of BDO on 6/19 at noon ET for a webinar examining the results of BDO’s inaugural Digital Transformation Services survey.
E-DISCOVERY
TAR v. keywords – Bill Dimm of Clustify posted the sixth 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, and Round 6. As Bill notes, in this round “[a] total of 1,924 queries were submitted by 42 participants (an average of 45.8 queries per person) and higher recall levels were achieved than in any prior version of the challenge, but the audience still couldn’t beat TAR.”
Survey of corporate legal practitioners – The Blickstein Group and Exterro published results of their survey of corporate legal professionals, the 3rd Annual Study of Effective Legal Spend Management. The extreme summary: law departments want to reduce e-discovery spend and they have gotten pretty good at doing that.
CYBERSECURITY & DATA PRIVACY
US privacy laws and bills overview – Robert McKenna, Erica Sechrist, and Ian Adams of Orrick offer an overview of consumer privacy protection efforts. In addition to discussing Federal legislation, Federal Trade Commission activities, and the CCPA, they offer a map of states with comprehensive privacy laws and bills and a corresponding list (links added):
CCPA checklist – Odia Kagan of Fox Rothschild has put together a California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) checklist of steps for companies to take to get ready for the CCPA.
Will CCPA deliver? – Brandon Graves and Svetlana McManus of Davis Wright Tremaine caution that the “reasonable security” language in the CCPA may not provide consumers with as much protection as anticipated. The difficultly stems from the ambiguity of the term, something regulators and courts alike might find challenging.
Texas consumer privacy laws less likely – Eric Levy, David Stauss, and Ephraim Hintz of Husch Blackwell report that Texas appears unlikely to pass CCPA-like consumer privacy legislation before its session ends on May 27. For an overview of the Texas, legislation, go to the post by Rachel Ehlers of Jackson Lewis, Will Texas Soon Join the Ranks of States Enacting Privacy Legislation?
Washington main consumer privacy legislation stalled – John Tomaszewski & Edward “Ted” Murphree of Seyfarth Shaw comment that Washington state consumer privacy legislation, SB 5376, has stalled in committee and the bill in Mississippi was dead on arrival.
Washington state bolsters data breach notification law – As Colleen Theresa Brown and Elizabeth MacGill of Sidley note, the Washington state legislature passed HB 1071, adding protection for more types of consumer information, shortening the notification timeframe, and requiring that affected residents be instructed to change passwords or take other appropriate steps.
Privacy and employer-issued fitness trackers – Lariza Hebert of Fisher & Phillips points out that organizations providing fitness trackers to employees should keep in mind data privacy issues, and offers tips for how employers can mitigate such risks as inappropriately collecting or using informnatino from fitness trackers.
Meanwhile, non-encrypted USB drive use is commonplace – According to a recent Apricorn report, the 58% of responding employees say they regularly use non-encrypted USB drives even though 91% say that encrypted USB drives should be mandatory.
INFORMATION GOVERNANCE
Four keys to IG success – Aaron Bryan, chief information governance officer at Washington State Department of Health, offers advice on how to make an information governance program succeed: (1) a C-level exec must run the steering committee, (2) steering committee stakeholders must fully embrace their responsibilities; (3) IG must be treated as an essential core business, and (4) the IG function must be aligned with other org-wide strategic initiatives.
LEGAL TECHNOLOGY & DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Legal tech hits adolescence? – Two articles discuss trends that suggests the legal tech industry/market is maturing:
- AI affects the law firm model – In Back to the Future: The Effect of AI on the Law Firm Model, Lawrence Gresser and Marvin Lowenthal of Cohen & Gresser discuss ways they see AI changing both the practice and business of law. Impacts they anticipate include (1) lower billings, (2) junior lawyers disproportionately affected, (3) reduced leverage, (4) ending billable hours, (5) effects vary by practice area, and (6) changes in training lawyers.
- Legal tech consolidation and investment expand – An Artificial Lawyer article, Legal Tech Consolidation Continues As Onit Buys SimpleLegal, + Some Thoughts On Why, notes that legal tech consolidation and investment is growing and ponders why.
Law firm AI roundtable – In the second installment of a two-part article, seven panelists discuss the directions they think laws firms will head with artificial intelligence, including the kinds of legal services AI will play a key role in, the influence AI has had on evolving law firm business models, whether AI will revolutionize the legal profession, what the increased adoption of AI means for law students and young lawyers, in what ways AI has made human skills more important than ever, and what legal jobs they expect will be entirely replaced by AI.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Conferences, webinars, and the like can provide insight into where e-discovery, information governance cybersecurity, and digital transformation are heading
5/16/2018-6/14/2019 EVENTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
| Date | Focus | Organization | Title |
| 5/10/2019 | ED
LT/DT |
Eversheds Sutherland | Leading the way forward through Propel |
| 5/10/2019 | LT/DT | Neota Logic | Neota Logic Announces Integration with LawGeex to Further Enhance the Contract Review and Automation Process |
| 5/13/2019 | LT/DT | Onit | Onit Acquires SimpleLegal to Modernize Global Legal Operations |
| 5/14/2019 | ED | Blickstein Group | Study from Blickstein Group and Exterro Shows Reducing E-Discovery Spend Remains Major Priority for Corporate Legal Teams |
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES
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.