The 4 Essential Phases of Selecting a Legal Vendor
Lessons in navigating the legal technology landscape from a massive 55-vendor RFP
Slack Attack: Surviving Discovery in a Post-Email World
Collaboration tools like Slack offer a wealth of information potentially relevant to a litigation or an investigation but can be a nightmare to manage. It is important for practitioners to find a partner that understands these unique challenges as they incorporate Slack data into their ediscovery workflow. DISCO realized adoption of these tools was reaching a tipping point, and developed a specialized approach to Slack data to minimize headaches and maximize insights.
Twelve Days of Ediscovery with DISCO
At DISCO, every day is ediscovery day! Of course, we don’t expect that same level of obsession from everyone in the legal industry — when it’s in your DNA to transform the discovery experience and empower legal professionals to focus on the practice of the law, that’s all you focus on each and every single day of the year.
Could your load file leak privileged content?
Do you know you may be inadvertently revealing privileged data via metadata in a load file? The protection of privileged information is fundamental to the attorney-client relationship. To that end, the ediscovery workflow should direct top priority to protect privileged information, wherever it exists. Read this post to learn how DISCO allows you to redact both text and metadata right in DISCO, ensuring confidential/privileged data is not exposed.
Forecast Calls for Cloud Computing (Part 2 of 2)
If lawyers want to leverage the power of the cloud for their clients’ needs, can they use software-as-a-service (SaaS) products? Are there any ethical concerns? Well, yes, of course, but they are not prohibitive. In this post, I discuss what ethics opinions require regarding SaaS for attorney competency, preserving confidentiality, safeguarding client property (other than client funds), and responsibility for non-lawyer assistance.
Forecast Calls for Cloud Computing (Part 1 of 2)
The rise of cloud computing has been one of the most disruptive technologies the legal sector has faced since the introduction of online legal research. Cloud computing is the reality of how law firms and their clients work, and attorneys should have knowledge about software-as-a-service (SaaS) computing to comply with technology competence requirements adopted by 31 states and counting.
Festivus for the Rest of Us
If you were born before 1985, it’s likely that you immediately get the reference to Festivus, the anti-commercial holiday “for the rest of us”, that was invented by George Costanza’s father and celebrated on Seinfeld. Of course, Festivus wouldn’t be complete without an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, a dinner where the guests engage in the "Airing of Grievances" and recognition of "Feats of Strength" as well as proclaiming easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles".
The Legal Revolution (and $18.575M to Make It Happen)
The legal industry is facing the kind of pressure and undergoing the kind of consolidation that other services industries, like accounting and consulting, went through decades ago. Clients are not satisfied with the results they get when law firms do everything manually, solving problems by hurling bodies at them. Clients deserve, and now are demanding, high-quality legal services, delivered in a predictable and repeatable way and at a cost that reflects both the value delivered and all efficiencies available.
Post-Judgment Recovery in Federal Court for eDiscovery Costs, aka “Pennies on the Dollar
At the end of litigation, unless the parties have settled and agreed that each party will bear its own costs, the prevailing party may want to seek recovery for its expenses (apart from attorney fees, which is a much broader topic and not within the scope of this piece), such as court reporter fees, document duplication, ediscovery processing and database fees, etc. Typically, ediscovery costs for collection, processing, review, and production of electronically stored information (ESI) are the largest cost component of litigation expense, so it is natural that the prevailing party desires to recover as much of this as it can from the losing party. This piece focuses on recovery of ediscovery expenses under the applicable federal statute and corresponding case law, but your results may vary depending on the laws of the jurisdiction you find yourself in.