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Legalweek Event Perspectives brings insights on the most pressing issues facing the legal industry. Experts share their views so you can successfully navigate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
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ACEDS Ayflie Canon Clio Cloudlex CobbleStone Collabware Corel Corp. Disco doeLEGAL eBillity EverLaw Evolver Exterro Inc. Fastcase FileTrail Filevine Fronteo Fulcrum Global Technologies H5 HighQ iConect Development LLC Inovitech Inventus KLDiscovery Knovos LawBase-Synaptec Leaflet Corporation LegalFiles Software LexisNexis Litexn Micro Focus Microsoft Mitratech Holdings, Inc. NetDocuments Nuix North America Inc. Onna Technologies Inc. PerfectLaw Relatively / kCura SDL SearchBlox Software, Inc. Servient SimplyAgree Smarsh Synopsys Tabs3 Software Tikit TransPerfect Legal Solutions Trusted Data Solutions Veritone Legal Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, Inc. Worldox Yerra Solutions
Click below to read perspectives from our contributors
What does a thorough disaster recovery plan look like, and how often should it be reviewed and updated?
Do you believe blockchain is the future of cybersecurity? Why or why not?
What are key questions to ask a systems integrator in technology implementations?
How are technology vendors adapting their service offerings toward open cloud, analytics, mobility and social technologies?
Why is a multi-cloud strategy a debatable choice, even though its adoption is on the rise?
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What are common misconceptions about document and case management today?
What are an organization’s most critical and sensitive documents, and where should they be located?
What should litigators understand more about the technology they use?
How will managing a case change in the next 10 years?
How should social media fit into an organization’s document and case strategy?
Would you rather have an end-to-end solution or best-of-breed for each part of the process – and why?
What are the pros and cons of e-discovery consolidation in the industry?
What do you see as the biggest pain point in the e-discovery process?
Have recent rule changes done enough to make e-discovery speedy and inexpensive?
What will the next generation of e-discovery technology look like?
What should all attorneys know about e-discovery?
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How are business intelligence and analytics becoming more modern and accessible for everyday users (citizen data scientists)?
How do you formulate business intelligence questions that drive a tangible effect on your KPIs – and identify opportunities for ROI, revenue and cost-cutting?
Which business applications could embedded business intelligence impact the most?
What is the best approach for establishing a data quality management (DQM) policy in this GDPR world?
What software do you find most critical that organizations currently lack?
How do you see legal software leveraging innovation from other industries?
Where do you see artificial intelligence fitting within the legal technology stack?
How do you see the billing process changing over the next five years?
How does your organization proactively deliver value and innovation to the market?
What are the most common drivers for software adoption?
How should data analytics play a role in the pricing of legal services?
What are some examples of true innovation in the delivery of legal services?
Perspectives on Data Systems & Cybersecurity:
Multi-cloud setups sound very promising indeed: They reduce vendor lock-in, they decrease the risk of outages or catastrophic data loss and they enable a “best of breed“-scenario where each cloud provider is used for what they are best at (e.g. AWS for higher-level services such as serverless, message queues etc. and DigitalOcean for cheap and easy to setup processing nodes). However, there are reasons why it is not always wise to follow a “best of breed”-approach but rather go for the “best overall technology”:
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Unfortunately, under GDPR Article 17 (Right to Erasure) if the data is personally identifiable the implementation will need a method to remove the data. Similarly, blockchains implementing smart contract code offer the potential for complex deterministic outcomes for activities within the chain. As with all software code, smart contract code will need its own security review to ensure defects don’t compromise the integrity of the chain.
Chief Technology Officer
Johannes Stiehler
more from AYFIE
Booth # 322
Back to Data Systems & Cybersecurity
Cloud providers try to differentiate themselves more and more. That also means, there is more and more to learn about specific services that they provide. This increases cost (as the development team needs to build deep competence in several competing solutions for the same problem), but it also introduces quality and – more importantly – security issues when that internal competence proves insufficient. There are countless S3 buckets on Amazon that were never meant to be public but are. Even with a single cloud provider, overall cost of...
a system can be less than transparent. The way providers charge for resources (disk access, storage on different performance levels, CPU power, charges for “dormant” resources etc.) is vastly different. Thus, costs could explode in the case of an actual failover between providers when it turns out that the “fall-back” provider charges much more for the same kind of resources. That means, not only is there a need for a deep technical understanding of the different providers, but also for the way that they charge and scale the costs. Using different providers for different components of a system also implies that potentially sensitive or otherwise critical data needs to be transported between two clouds over a public, insecure network. It is relatively easy to firewall off an application inside one cloud (through virtual private networks, firewalls, external access control etc.), thereby reducing the impact of programming errors or operations mistakes. However, when data goes from one cloud to the other, encryption in transit and at rest - authentication, authorization, transfer protocols and performance all come into play. If the encryption is not taking care of properly while crossing that boundary, data can be compromised. If the APIs are not built for high-performance transfer over an unreliable network, the application can become unstable. Just from these three examples, it should be obvious that the overall complexity of an application and its deployment increases a lot when going for a multi-cloud strategy. And that doesn’t only affect technology but also other parts of the business (accounting, product management etc.). There are obvious advantages to going “multi-cloud” but they should be balanced very diligently and honestly against the risks and costs that are also undeniable.
Blockchain is likely an important component for future security efforts but won’t become a cornerstone of security process for some time to come. Blockchain offers several key attributes which may make a given implementation attractive when solving security problems, but they each come with challenges. For example, the immutability and auditability of the blocks within the chain reliably attest to the validity of the underlying data...
Technology decisions are often focused on ROI and feature/function discussions with security practices taking a back seat. Regulations like GDPR are forcing us to reassess our priorities and how we trust implementations. Key success questions then become: • How can I detect if unauthorized access to your systems is occurring? • What external APIs and systems are in use and with what data being transferred? • When a new patch is delivered, how can I assess the level of security testing performed on it?
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Key success questions then become: • How can I detect if unauthorized access to your systems is occurring? • What external APIs and systems are in use and with what data being transferred? • When a new patch is delivered, how can I assess the level of security testing performed on it?
Technology Evangelist
Tim Mackey
more from SYNOPSYS
Booth # 327
Neil Etheridge
Perspectives on eDiscovery:
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...
At DISCO, we believe the future of the law is great lawyers empowered by great technology, and we want to show that in everything we produce. Delivering great technology first means understanding the inherent problems lawyers face, and then second, solving those problems not only for today but the future. At DISCO, we believe the the future of ediscovery is native-cloud architecture delivered through SaaS technology (what we refer to as Gen 3 technology) that will replace unreliable, expensive, outdated on-premise solutions.
Back to eDiscovery
AT DISCO we believe that the future of ediscovery is solutions like DISCO built on native-cloud architecture which offer end-to-end workflows delivered by best-of-breed technology at each phase of the discovery process. By moving the full ediscovery process to the cloud, organizations gain a significant advantage in reducing collection, processing, review and production times, ultimately reducing the heavy cost burden and data risk so commonly faced today...
An end-to-end cloud-based solution requires zero upfront capital investment in hardware or infrastructure; reduces recurring costs related to staffing, training, and maintenance; instantly offers new features when available; eliminates downtime caused by system outages and never-ending upgrades; and is accessible anywhere, anytime from any device. They also provide the same flexibility and control as traditional discovery platforms, while providing features and capabilities specifically designed to support multiple, multi-terabyte discovery matters. Combine those benefits with a robust software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture with consumer-grade usability, these solutions put the power in the hands of the users and eliminates the need for legal organizations to rely on vendors to set up, manage, and control their discovery review.
Chief Marketing Officer
more from Disco
Booth # 221
Perspectives on Software:
As the industry continues to move to Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFA), the process surrounding the pre-bill to final bill conversion--often an art form--will disappear. With Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) classifications now a de facto standard, these classification properties will dominate in defining and measuring the types of services being delivered and invoiced...
Proper coding will be initiated at the budgeting stage, with timekeeping requiring accurate classification against these codes (Phase / task and other.. ) to ensure accurate and continuous measurement. These codes will supersede the importance of narratives, which will occupy a supporting role, possibly disappearing over time. With AFA and standard coding via UTBMS, many practice areas (litigation aside) will emulate IP practices where “price books” and “point-of-sale” billing have been the norm for decades.
During my early years in the legal industry I quickly learned that ROI tied only to financial returns is often not the main driver for software buy-in or adoption. “What’s in it for me?” and “What’s in it for my client?” are questions that need answers when bringing technology to the firm and in front of lawyers. Compelling answers to both of these will ensure initial buy-in and subsequent adoption...
Firms should ensure that these well-crafted elevator pitches are internally marketed and always front and center of any discussion surrounding technology, including at the start of every training session. The “connection to the client” as a driver is so strong that firm leadership will often go outside and solicit key clients to help promote and sell key technologies back into their firms.
Back to Software
President, Tikit North America
Peter Zver
more from TIKIT
sponsor
VP Discovery Service
Brad Perry
more from canon
Booth # 522
The next generation of eDiscovery solutions will be more user friendly. They will also be more technically complex and offer significant benefits. Artificial intelligence (AI) and data visualization techniques are two examples. Today's technology barely scratches the surface of what is possible with AI. People tend to think of AI in the context of predictive coding (a.k.a. TAR), but AI can offer much more. Predictive coding technology is useful for automating the process of identifying and classifying relevant documents, which helps to contain the time and cost of document review...
However, predictive coding cannot recommend what email account to retain under a legal hold or suggest the next step in an investigation. Looking ahead, AI will be used to analyze data to reveal patterns that can enable better decision making. Thus, technology will not only help us review documents, it will also suggest specific actions that can lead to success.
We are in exciting times with new technologies and tools in the eDiscovery space. Navigating the tools accurately and effectively can be challenging even for the savviest technologist. Microsoft Office 365, for example, has launched a cloud-based eDiscovery tool. This is a significant advancement. Microsoft Office 365 allows you to extract relevant data enterprise-wide for the purpose of litigation and investigations. With that said, let the buyer beware. Remember to consult your discovery experts when handling this data and conducting searches...
Searching effectively can require a keen understanding of search context, search syntax and the data being searched. Electronic data needs to be collected accurately and in the proper way. As the technology continues to advance and we become more accustomed to self-service for all, consulting knowledgeable discovery professionals is more important now more than ever to avoid errors that can be both detrimental and costly.
Perspectives on Business of Law:
Data analytics needs to provide apples-to-apples comparisons of not only what companies are paying for different kinds of legal services, but also what they ought to be paying. That requires benchmarking against similar work, insight into how affordable a particular service could be under different delivery models, and understanding the value of that service. Industry tools are getting closer to providing this kind of analysis out of the box, but, razor-sharp professionals are still needed to interpret the data and finalize pricing....
Furthermore, those professionals must know not only how to do the analysis, but how to persuade people to take it seriously and not base decisions on groupthink, anecdote and intuition.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing into something broadly used across legal. AI-assisted legal invoice review is here now and legal departments are already using it to generate savings and improve compliance with billing guidelines. And it gets smarter and more intuitive the more you use it. AI also delivers value in contract management tools, such as clause abstraction and contract generation...
Beyond AI, accounting firms, “New Law” companies, and managed service providers are taking work traditionally done by law firms and fitting it into systematic, repeatable recipes that get closer and closer to turnkey. In the end, I believe they will succeed in commoditizing many aspects of legal work in the same way that the eDiscovery industry already has.
Nathan Cemenska
more from Wolters Kluwer
Sponsor Booth # 200
Back to Business of law
Client expectations are increasingly shaped by buying experiences with other companies, and law firms are no exception. As a key driver for future business and referrals, client satisfaction should be a critical metric that every law firm should focus on. Leading companies in every industry are obsessed with understanding what makes for better experiences throughout the entire client journey—and they invest heavily in measuring service quality and client satisfaction...
Clio's product suite—including client engagement and practice management solutions—has been designed to help lawyers grow their firms by helping them deliver excellent client experiences, earning better rates of satisfaction, more future business, and higher long-term growth.
We take a research-based approach to understanding how law firms operate and what their needs are when it comes to technology. In addition to the hundreds of hours of interviews and extensive surveying we do, we also go a step beyond to research the needs of today's legal clients, which we publish in our annual Legal Trends Report available free for download...
We also invest extensively in the legal technology ecosystem. Clio has built an open API to allow any software company to connect their product to Clio's technology and user base, giving law firms the ability to work seamlessly between more than 150 integration partners.. Clio also invested $100,000 in the Launch//Code contest to spur new innovations in the legal technology sphere. The winner was announced at the Clio Cloud Conference, an annual event that brings together the best in legal technology education and innovation every year.
Chief Operating Officer
George Psiharis
more from Clio
Booth # 419
The legal profession has been always been slow to adopt new technology. The adage, “if it’s not broke, why fix it,” speaks volumes on the viewpoint of many lawyers. One area of innovation that lawyers and law firms have recently begun leveraging are cloud technologies. The use of the cloud for both storage and as software platforms has been widely accepted in the finance, medical, and other professions for many years. However, only recently has it become more of a common practice in the legal profession.
One of the most common drivers for software adoption in all professions, but especially in the legal field, is ease of use. All software and technology are only as good as the end-user’s utilization of them. You can have greatest software in the world, but if your staff can’t figure out how it works, or it requires extensive training, then it’s of no value. Another big driver for software adoption is cost. If software is not affordable for all then it is less likely to gain traction. The recent adoption of cloud technologies has really leveled the playing field for firms of all sizes, both in terms of user-friendly interfaces and lower price tags.
Partner
Michael Abdan
more from Cloudlex
Booth # 2701
Great enterprise content management software should understand what people need to accomplish with their work, and it should help them achieve their desired outcomes more efficiently. We focus on delivering innovation in this space by spending time understanding the fundamental drivers behind information worker activities. Through this understanding, we can more effectively provide software solutions that apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate information worker activities and help people achieve their desired outcomes more efficiently.
Software adoption is directly related to the amount of benefit provided to the users of the software, contrasted against the amount of friction the software introduces in trying to realize those benefits. If the software is valuable to me, but is hard or time-consuming to learn or use, then I will abandon it. To achieve high rates of software adoption, software must focus on automating tasks or providing new and valuable insights in the most simplified manner possible.
CEO
Graham Sibley
more from Collabware
Booth # 124
Across all our products – from WordPerfect to CorelDRAW to MindManager to VideoStudio – there are common reasons why customers choose our software. No matter your business or interest, people want tools that help them achieve their goals and do their best work. Productivity and creativity are key to everything we do. And by connecting with customers and understanding not only what they want to achieve, but also what's standing in their way, we develop solutions that let them accomplish what means most to them. This focus is a key reason why we've built a community of users tens of millions strong.
We pride ourselves in offering users choice with an array of licensing and purchasing options to suit their needs. In terms of value, we not only offer a choice in how to buy, but we also provide powerful and competitive products that can be a fraction of the cost of comparable offerings on the market...
Innovation is driven by our users and actively listening to their needs. Whether it's the industry's first AI-powered vector drawing experience in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, our ongoing commitment to user-adored favorites like Reveal Codes in WordPerfect, cutting edge support for the latest tech or introducing exciting tech like the all-new PhotoMirage, we're always finding unique ways to deliver indispensable products to our users.
Executive VP of Global Products
Gerard Colorur
more from Corel corp
Booth # 408
Many law departments lack advanced information management tools with elevated support that provide anytime, anywhere control over cases and costs to help inform decision making and drive successful outcomes. Because the legal industry is increasingly technology dependent, organizations require legal solutions which are always up-to-date and designed to adapt as legal needs evolve. Using smart data and advanced analytics, you can increase productivity while removing obstacles to answer questions such...
as “what is going on in my legal department today” and help you forecast what might happen in the near future. Real-time information and process transparency enables you to improve interactions – with software, internal business partners, and outside counsel – without ever replacing technologies. Get the answers you need, when you need them, from a single source.
doeLEGAL delivers value and innovation to the market when we partner with our clients to help them navigate around obstacles to reach successful outcomes. As a pioneer in the business of data-driven legal technology, we’ve helped corporate legal teams deal with virtually every conceivable challenge. Which means that whatever problem you’re facing, the likelihood is that we’ve seen it – and dealt with it – before. The combination of our decades of innovating legal solutions and deep...
knowledge of legal operations makes us uniquely qualified to provide you a broader view, so you can provide your business partners an elevated perspective. We help you deliver value by providing the same level of strategic guidance, data-driven analysis, and actionable insights that you deliver to your clients.
President & CEO
Tom Russo
more from doeLEGAL, Inc.
Booth # 1014
Time is money, and law firms are often limited by time – there are never enough hours in the day. Lawyers are often moving between the office, client locations, courtrooms, even a home office. With time tracking software, lawyers can be totally mobile and still capture all their billable hours for accurate client invoicing. A recent study has shown that firms using time tracking software were able to increase their billings by up to 20%....
When looking for critical software, a law firm should consider a robust platform featuring the basics – time and expense tracking, invoicing and online payments, as well as integrations with other software, like CLIO. In addition, firms should consider platforms with built-in ABA codes, realization reporting, a conflict checker and legal invoicing formats so invoices can be exported in either Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards (LEDES) or LSS formats, for easy import into other systems.
Looking at the past five years, it's easy to say there will be some big changes coming. Thanks to Apple, we've seen consumers pay for their coffee using a phone or watch. What's interesting about that is how fast people embrace new technology – if it's convenient and saves us time, then we all want it. In terms of law firms and how I see the billing process changing over the next five years, I've noticed two things: 1. The way firms bill: I am seeing a shift towards flat fee billing instead of set hourly rates...
2. Historically, firms have accepted credit card or check payments. To evolve, firms need to expand their accepted methods of payment. They should consider money transfers, recurring cash or ACH disbursements and other electronic payment methods using technologies that include magnetic stripe cards, smartcards, contactless cards and mobile payments.
VP Partnerships
Joe Daee
more from ebility
Booth # 311
Many firms today lack proper data and processes to successfully train, deploy, support and utilize artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Once these aspects are addressed and in place, AI can fit into the technology stack in two ways: extension and embedded. Extensions will be standalone or supplemental toolsets accessible through APIs and integrations. Embedded will provide intelligence in the applications themselves. The viability of back-office or operational AI...
is extremely promising, as there is a large number of manual, monotonous and mundane tasks that machines can address simply and more efficiently – such as billing processes. Enhanced user experience through “digital assistants” or chatbots utilizing natural language understanding / processing will allow attorneys to easily execute their day and get the information needed on call or in a predictive fashion; learn what the user needs to be alerted of and act on and actually take action as human assistants would.
Outsourcing and automation. While bills are often seen as representations of the firm itself, the standardization clients are looking for and the increase in alternative fee arrangements will drive towards more condensed and simplified billing. Core competencies of firms do not reside in billing functions, therefore BPO and billing automation is a logical step to recognize cost reduction and efficiencies – including reduction in human errors. E-billing will also face challenges as firms seek new ways to become closer with their...
clients and leverage the same sort of payment technologies being used in other services with lower fees and less nuance for both parties involved.
Global Director, Product Strategy
Drew Blazaitis
more from Fulcrum
Booth # 106
Chief Product & Strategy Officer
Stuart Barr
more from HighQ
Booth # 1011
Artificial intelligence is most valuable when it’s integrated into the broader workflows, processes and productivity systems of the legal sector. We’re seeing the most innovative firms gravitate toward a cohesive ecosystem where those systems work in concert with AI to solve real process problems. This holistic approach has the potential to be transformative because it takes AI to where the real problems are and provides a unified solution...
How can we be more productive and efficient, focus on higher value work and improve our legal service delivery? From a technology stack perspective, these questions can only be answered with a combination of systems — even multiple AI platforms — because there isn’t a single technology that can do everything a firm needs it to do and many of the benefits of AI are only truly realized when they are combined with process improvements.
HighQ offers an intelligent work and client engagement platform that’s designed to help firms transform their legal service delivery, drive transactional efficiency and strengthen client relationships. With integrated capabilities like process automation, collaboration, task management, AI, file sharing, content publishing and more, our platform is the catalyst for solutions that generate real value for firms and their clients...
Throughout all phases of our development process, we proactively consult with leading global law firms to refine and validate our technology and approach so that the HighQ platform continues to empower legal organizations to stay ahead of the innovation curve. We also engage other leaders in the legal technology sector, working with integration and consultancy partners to make their complementary features, concepts and benefits easily accessible for HighQ platform users.
Leaflet’s Document Automation Platform combines the power of automation with the workflow that professionals are already using to generate documents and agreements. Leaflet provides an intuitive, “No Programming,” template creation process that allows anyone in the organization to create their own automated templates. Additionally, Leaflet gives users the freedom to “DraftLive” in Microsoft Word® or generate documents via a....
customizable web-based portal. At Leaflet, we believe that the use of legal technology should not be limited to back-end developers. By creating a user driven platform we are breaking down the barriers to adoption and empowering everyone to take advantage of the opportunities document automation provides.
Despite the widespread development of technology for law firms and legal departments, adoption and use of technology in the practice of law is still in its infancy. In order to successfully drive adoption, software applications can’t simply rely on having the most features or in the most beautiful design. Adoption is driven by delivering a strong first user experience. New software has to fit within the existing workflow of the potential user. Extra processes and excessive trainings leave a sour taste in the mouth...
of new users and contribute greatly to the difficulty of getting those users to adopt new software. These can be solved by providing for configurable integration with other systems already in place across a law firm or organization. These allow users to keep the same workflow when using new software. Letting users use familiar workspaces and processes is key to driving adoption.
Founder and CEO
Sam Muthusamy
more from leaflet
Booth # 500
A powerful case and matter management software system that incorporates all areas of legal is crucial to success. For instance, when an organization has a home-grown system that stores data and documents but has no way to connect that information to a calendaring system or a way to save relevant emails to a case/matter, there is a disconnect. People are less efficient and more apt to encounter problems and miss deadlines. Robust case and matter management...
systems that connect all the puzzle pieces, along with integrations to existing software that an organization has already invested in, can bring about profound change to an organization and its bottom line.
In many cases, cost is a leading driver of software adoption. As the legal profession grows more competitive, corporate legal departments, government entities and even law firms, are feeling the pressure to do more with less. Some offices are required to reduce spending or head count, while others target “soft cost savings” like focusing on increasing efficiency and productivity. Oftentimes, some of the most successful leaders have found another way by focusing on legal case and matter management software...
Legal Files Software offers a number of tools and functionalities within the application that increase organization and automation, saving customers both time and money.
Senior Consultant
Matt Ryan
more from LEGAL FILES SOFTWARE
Booth # 126
Microsoft’s focus is to enable more work to be done in-place, in less time, and in balance with the oft-competing demands of accuracy and privacy. Instead of bulk exporting data for the sake of relevance determinations, we’ve extended support for experts to make decisions on content where it originates, with deep processing and advanced analytics. Our productivity platforms were rearchitected so data resides in a state optimized ...
for compliance-related intelligence. Customers can leverageevergreen search indices to automate governance decisions at scale. Reactive tasks like investigations and ediscovery are dramatically expedited by both existing search infrastructure and case-specific deep indexing that automatically occurs for scoped sources with our latest case management upgrades. Legal teams of both internal and external practitioners can collaborate on matter-specific tasks within a single tenant with expanded support for both M365 and external content to ensure tasks are accomplished defensibly, securely, and efficiently.
With the breakneck rate of modern data expansion, artificial intelligence seems to be a critical component for achieving scale. Our aim is to help people with subject- and case-specific knowledge keep up with the relentless flood of data surrounding them. AI can extend their abilities, bringing them closer to the content they really need while minimizing the noise of everything else. We can augment a case team’s judgment by surfacing insights and structuring results in ways...
that make it easier to see where human efforts would be most successfully applied. While we have supported machine learning, threading, similarity scoring, and concept-clustering for years, we are continuing to add new classifiers to give customers actionable insights, such as recognizing legal advice or sensitive materials. We are also building out a framework to intelligently identify other relevant sources/custodians/materials based on case activity and dynamically adding that to the scope of the case.
Director of Discovery Programs at Microsoft
E J Bastien
more from Microsoft
Sponsor Booth # 905
The standard software used by legal departments starts with ELM and DMS. However, the critical technology that legal departments need is workflow automation to connect people, processes and systems from across an organization. This technology accelerates legal operations and other business units, replacing inefficient paper- based workflows with automated processes. With easy-to-deploy business process management that unites in-house legal...
teams, external counsel, strategic business partners and users, workflow automation drives cross-functional collaboration with the many stakeholders it serves. It provides a proven, easy-to-adopt cornerstone of digital transformation – increasing organizational agility to respond to new challenges with embedded legal best practices. Legal then rises to deliver more value for their organizations.
While artificial intelligence (AI) will greatly impact the legal industry eventually, it's not mature today. That doesn't mean you should not make plans for integrating AI into your legal processes and ecosystem now. As with any new technology, legal departments should focus on driving value. Driving value starts with designing a solid foundation of structured data tools to result in immediate value. Once that foundation is built, AI can be deployed to deliver specific, measurable...
business outcomes for targeted use cases. Areas where AI can have the largest impact include legal invoice review, outside counsel selection and workflow automation of high volume routine tasks. By using a maturity model, choosing partners wisely and developing a multi-phased plan, legal can avoid falling for the AI hype and better utilize data to make more educated decisions.
Legal Operations / BPM Expert
Brian McGovern
more from Mitratech
Booth # 100
As data volumes increase, legal groups are facing a growing challenge in finding the right resources and experience to dig in the information and find the most relevant and valuable information quickly and efficiently. As machine learning (AI) capabilities, accuracy and adoption accelerate, they will be able to rely on it to find patterns and shortcuts and increase the efficiency of legal professionals...
AI will not be replacing lawyers, but allow them to rapidly identify the most relevant material and build legal strategies around this rather than sift through large volumes of noise. Law professionals will be able to add more value for their clients by improving the signal to noise ratio of data assessment and focusing on applied legal expertise.
As pioneers in the field of content creation, management and delivery in all languages, we are proud to bring innovation and value to the legal field. Our secure AI solutions for multilingual e-discovery and seamless connection to Relativity makes the platform instantly multilingual, and any international e-discovery procedure much more simple. We have over 30 years of experience dealing with translation of highly regulated and technical content...
under the pressure of tight deadlines. Our language services abilities associated with our translation technology and tools provides the ultimate content localization experience: content security, quality and fast delivery in more than 180 languages.
Peggy Chen
more from SDL
Booth # 2103
I believe legal software – and transactional legal software, in particular – can learn a great deal from innovations in software engineering. It’s clear that legal software is already leveraging innovations from other industries, with the growing use of artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies for law. But legal software should also leverage software engineering concepts at a more foundational level...
Fundamentally, the workflow of transactional attorneys and software engineers are very similar. Both need to draft, edit, store and distribute text documents. In software engineering, developers use closely integrated toolchains to write, test, distribute and deploy software. While legal software has developed tools for writing, proofing, sharing and executing legal agreements, many of these systems are not closely integrated, and many, such as Microsoft Word, were not built specifically for contracts. Legal software should look to software engineering to build a modern toolchain for transactional attorneys.
There is a stigma among some that attorneys are reluctant to adopt technology. I don’t believe this is true. Attorneys can be skeptical and cautious, but they aren’t opposed to adopting new technology. In my opinion, attorneys are more averse to change – deviating from proven workflows that ensure consistent, quality work product. Because of this, the number one driver to legal software adoption is tailoring that software to existing legal workflows and processes...
If legal software providers want to drive adoption, they must first recognize and adapt their platforms to existing processes that legal professionals know and trust. Legal software should avoid the trap of technology for technology’s sake and focus on creating the best experience for legal services consumers.
Founder & CEO
Will Norton
more from SimplyAgree
Sponsor
Practice management software is a set of tools firms often overlook because they feel too busy to consider implementing a new system, and they have accepted the stress of the way things are organized today. While the impulse to do without is one many of us can relate to, the benefits of implementing practice management software will save firms frustration and time loss. Even the best manual filing system will be prone to errors from time to time, and they certainly have...
limitations that can be solved with the right software. Advanced features in many practice management systems, like conflict of interest search and document assembly, free up time to focus on actually practicing law.
Solving problems and helping a firm become more efficient is what software is all about. But software alone, without buy-in from its potential users, will not solve anything. Organizational buy-in is crucial to the successfully implementing any software in which you choose to invest. Without buy-in from the potential users, your firm is unlikely to realize the full benefits a system has to offer. On the other hand, if users are fully on-board with the software, they will be much more inclined to truly adopt it and take advantage of all of its features.
President and CEO
Dan Berlin
more from Tabs3 Software
Booth # 208
Perspectives on Research Analytics & Intelligence:
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Experience and intuition are what humans rely on when they lack good data. Accordingly, businesses and industries that have traditionally leaned heavily on experience as a measure of value have the most to gain by incorporating data into their business processes. Legal decision making is a prime example. In law, many tactical decisions are based on an attorney's experience of what worked before, taking into account the judge, legal issue and procedural posture, among other...
factors. Attorneys cannot hope to have a comprehensive understanding of each factor that goes into making a legal decision based on their experience alone. The data-based analysis provided by tools such as Docket Alarm can provide a comprehensive understanding of many individual factors that can then be consolidated into a much stronger understanding of the legal issue than experience alone. Quality data can tip the balance in legal decision making.
Anyone with spreadsheet software and patience has had access to the underlying tools of data analytics, so in some ways, they have always been accessible. What has changed is that we now have the ability to wrangle far more data, with similar ease. What you could previously do with 200 data elements in Excel, you can now do with 200 million in a modern analytics engine, such as Docket Alarm...
The fundamental tools behind this transformation have been a vast improvement in hardware, but also advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing to make what was once intractable quite straightforward.
Founder and Managing Director, Docket Alarm Director of Analytics, Fastcase
Michael Sander
more from Fastcase
sponsor Booth # 314
With increasingly available legal data, we’ve packaged our analytics into Legal Analytics Apps to make it easier to answer critical legal questions. We provide different apps for different legal use cases. For example, our unique Law Firms Comparator enables side-by-side comparison of up to four law firms, with instant display of case-specific information. It helps counsel compare key factors like win-rate, experience, case timing and damages history, or size up the competition...
Motion Kickstarter makes it easy to draft winning motions by helping attorneys compare arguments and motion styles that have been successful before a judge. Instantly view a judge’s recent orders on a specific motion type, as well as view the briefing that led up to those orders. Compare granted and denied motions to see what’s working and what’s not. These types of applications make legal data more accessible and allow lawyers to provide better service to their clients.
For lawyers and their clients, it comes down to three critical questions as they approach a new case: How much will it cost? How long is it going to take? What are our chances of success? With the ability to answer these questions through Legal Analytics, lawyers can now focus on running their firm...
like a business. They can assess the chances of a case before they take it, and they can provide options to improve the outcomes. That way, they can increase ROI for their organization, while delivering better service to their clients. But there are other uses beyond litigation. For example, lawyers can leverage analytics for identifying and hiring the best talent. In-house lawyers can compare their profile to that of their industry peers to determine their litigation posture. They can use analytics to select the best lawyer or law firm for their case, taking cost into consideration.
LexisNexis Head of Legal Analytics and Chairman, Lex Machina
Josh Becker
more from Lexisnexis
Booth # 102
Embedded search and text analytics offer applications the ability to provide built-in insights for business users especially in legal and compliance departments. Search is moving away from simple keyword, Boolean and phrase search to a more complex deep learning AI-based search, which can predict the right information that legal and compliance teams can review instead of fishing for information that could be relevant for legal/compliance purposes...
A powerful search can provide a critical aspect of the business application, but an AI-based embedded search can transform the application to be smart and proactive.
GDPR presents a unique challenge for business departments that have to review and respond to SAR (subject access request). Businesses are required to respond to an SAR by providing copies of personal data and any information about the sources of the data. There is currently a 40 calendar day time limit to respond to the request. Businesses have to search for information about the requestor and identify...
information. Applications can be enabled for continuous search of all data, including documents, so data quality is managed proactively and is also embedded rather than a separate policy and application for the GDPR world. Given the timeline and response for SAR in GDPR, businesses and DPO (data protection officers) should be able to obtain the information they need without having to interact with multiple systems or applications.
VP Product Management
Timo Selvaraj
Booth # 423
Firms are adapting service offerings to address these challenges in a number of ways. First, through the adoption of open standards and with the availability of APIs, organizations can ensure that cloud solutions can interoperate and work seamlessly with downstream applications to drive specific workflows. Analytics and the use of artificial intelligence...
and machine learning are examples of where solutions can enable more precise analysis of critical data. Secondly, with regard to social and mobile, firms are beginning to recognize the critical content that can be delivered and exchanged over these networks and devices. Some are attempting to build “connectors” to support the delivery of these sources. As the capture, archival and policy enforcement through social and mobile channels is the sole focus of our business, we recognize that firms need much more from technology vendors to truly address the risk and value that these new communications and collaboration tools introduce.
The underlying rationale and premise of this question is debatable, but one that organizations need to better informed on. Adoption of multi-cloud strategies is happening because the range of services delivered over cloud platforms continues to increase, and the capabilities around security, compliance, and risk management of each provider continues to become more heterogeneous. In short, there are...
more specific use cases and workflows that demand a cloud provider and service infrastructure that meets its unique needs. There is no longer one-size-fits-all. What we believe is more of a critical driver is cloud interoperability – that data being maintained within each cloud infrastructure cannot be isolated for other cloud-driven applications. Cloud strategies need to recognize the interoperability requirement to share data, policies and security infrastructure as a much more important consideration versus the attempt to standardize on a single, all-purpose cloud infrastructure.
Managing Director, Information Governance Practice
Robert A. Cruz
more from Smarsh
Booth # 411
Data is a business’s most valuable asset. How you defend it is as important as how you access it. in today’s increasingly regulated environment, ensuring your organization implements a disaster recovery plan is more critical than ever. Depending on the organization’s reality, the plan could range from simple to complex. However, with legal and compliance consequences on the line, no matter how often it should be reviewed and...
updated, disaster recovery plan should always be taken seriously. Ask for help from an experienced team when needed!
What is the plan for the legacy data? How can I access the legacy data after the technology implementations? What data do I need to migrate and/or keep? Is the new technology implementation going to comply with the company’s data governance policy? What is the total cost of ownership including the cost of implementation, lifecycle management and migration? Is the new archive going to meet the feature and functionality I actually need? How is the data being retained with the new...
technology? What are my administrative rights to the new system? Can I get access to the raw data itself should I decide to move in the future?
VP, WW Marketing & Channel Operations
Marcella Arthur
more from TDS
Booth # 1108
The primary misconception about document management today is that all documents should be treated similarly. Case management software solutions do not include the necessary functionality to effectively track and manage corporate contracts and committals. A formal contract lifecycle management system is more than a tracking database; it can automate and streamline each stage of the contract process, including requests, approvals, authoring,...
negotiations, execution, compliance, budgeting, renewals, closeouts and more. Software solutions built for contracts allow organizations to proactively manage contracts, ease the stress and workload of the legal team, and provide cost-savings and revenue enhancements. Contract lifecycle management software has moved from a “nice-to-have” option to a “need-to-have” solution for leading legal departments.
An organization’s most critical documents are oftentimes their contracts and committals. Legal professionals face a litany of daily challenges, including compliance, operational support, customer service, negotiations, cost-cutting and much more. Contract compliance tools have helped ease the burden. The frequency of client or supplier mergers & acquisitions, bankruptcies, and a wide range of...
external and internal factors make it difficult for legal teams to interpret who they are working with and what they are entitled to under their contracts. Even with the growth and attention the contract management software industry has received, the surface has barely been scratched. Many organizations are in the same precarious situation of still using some form of a manual process or antiquated system to manage their contracts. To maintain or improve competitive advantage in today's fast-paced business environment, a centralized and comprehensive contract management system is key.
Vice President
Mark Nastasi
more from CobbleStone
Booth # 329
Perspectives on Document & Case Management:
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President
Darrell Mervau
more from FileTrail
Booth # 509
A common misconception many legal professionals have about document or case management is that none (or not many) of their processes can be automated. This has changed in a big way! Since the introduction of Taskflows, Filevine lets you design a workflow of tasks that can be automatically assigned to the right person on your team during the correct phase of a case’s lifecycle. Walk your...
team members seamlessly through new client setup, records retrieval, discovery and more. Taskflow Triggers takes this automation even further by letting you deploy a customized series of Autotasks with the click of a button at any point in the case’s lifecycle.
If there’s one thing litigators today need to keep in mind about software and technology, it’s the fact that it can go where they go. Cloud-based litigation software is here, and it enables a much higher degree of efficiency for litigation professionals. As they interview witnesses, draft pleadings, exchange information with opposing counsel or network with specialists, cloud-based management can offer a one-stop solution that...
litigators can access from their smartphone, tablet or computer. There’s a reason litigators are considered the workhorse of most law firms – their jobs are the most varied and their schedules are the most demanding. Using a cloud-based solution like Filevine – with deadline chains, integrated calendars, document generation and communication tools – can drastically simplify their workflow.
Ryan Anderson
more from Filevine
Booth # 305
Phil Homburger
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Booth # 309
Social media, as well as voice, video, mobile and collaborative media, need to fit at the heart of every organization’s strategy for document and case management. There are many reasons for this, but the greatest imperatives are: 1) sound case strategy dictates that you bring all of your records together to be managed from a single source; 2) it is often a regulatory requirement for record keeping; 3) valuable corporate knowledge is not just found in individual records or...
even in one type of record, but increasingly in the interconnections and relationships of many types of records, including social media; and 4) there is a financial imperative. Incorporating social and other types of media in your document and case strategy by managing them together potentially reduces work effort and uses those records to deliver other commercial value. This can have a tremendous impact on offsetting some of the cost of regulation-driven archiving.
The most critical and sensitive documents are not always obvious. Therein lies the challenge of identification, classification and protection. User classification of data can help, but it can be expensive and it is error-prone. The solution is to enhance documents with metadata using rules-based approaches such as classification, analytics-based contextual and behavioral analysis, and machine learning. Your most critical and sensitive documents..
then need to be located in a secure archival grade content store where data integrity is assured and where, with the right controls, data can be accessed and leveraged across the enterprise. All of this needs to be achieved while managing the full data lifecycle and being mindful of ethical and legal requirements to protect privacy, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Chief Strategist, Archiving and Risk Management
Dr. Michael McGrath
more from micro focus
Booth # 118
The biggest misconception we’ve found is that firms don’t understand that each product provides different functions. When firms or legal departments mention case management, it should be understood that a case management system should bring together all aspects of a case into one “central repository.” For instance, this would include dates, contacts, notes and all practice area specific data...
being tracked; in many systems, this would include documents. When it comes to document management, we’ve found that many firms and legal departments are still relying on Outlook to save their emails and Windows folders to save and share documents even when a document management system is in use. While both tools may be useful for a small firm or department, utilizing the power of a true DMS with security, versioning and searchability will be a huge improvement for all involved.
While going “paperless” has been the catchphrase for the past 10 years, mobility and cloud computing are already leading the way for the next 10 years. Today, we see all sorts of mobile apps available, as well as many firms considering the cloud for their computing needs. However, most of the apps on the market are extensions to products firmly entrenched in the on-premise architecture. Going forward, as mobile applications get more powerful, cloud computing becomes less...
expensive, and cellular networks increase their speed, we’ll see the traditional office become a relic of the past. Attorneys will be able to truly work from anywhere on mobile applications that will be as robust as their in-office counterparts, enabling firms to provide service to their clients that will be more cost-effective and quicker than ever.
Vice President of Sales
Marc Adler
more from PerfectLaw
Booth # 306
First, let’s clear up the difference between case and document management. A case management system will allow you to store contact and company information, billing and invoice information, court deadlines and docketing. Some will allow you to store documents too. A document management solution only saves, organizes and secures documents. The case management document storage system is similar to a Swiss army knife; you can use it, but it’s ...
not built like a document management solution. As a firm grows in users and documentation volume, the deficiencies become apparent quickly. A true document management solution has, at minimum, forced desktop compliance; detailed audit trails and security; matter-centric operations with appropriate indexing; and emails that can be organized, retrieved and viewed by matter and searched. The legal market especially has extremely tight integration with third-party legal apps, such as case and matter management, scanning devices and solutions, document assembly, document comparison and many more.
Most of us would argue that ALL documents that a law firm holds, manages or creates on behalf of a client should be treated as sensitive and critical. In a perfect world, each matter or customer’s data should be stored in an encrypted manner and accessible only those in the firm that require access. This is referred to in the industry as pessimistic access as opposed to optimistic, in which all law firm employees have access to any client’s data. These are just...
a few of the items on the list. Firms should seek advice from a consultant who specializes in security to review the company’s policies and systems.
Ray Zwiefelhofer
more from Worldox
Booth # 328
Would you rather have an end-to-end solution or best-of-breed for each part of the process – and why?
This question perpetuates a false dichotomy; there is nothing stopping an end-to-end solution – or, at least, one that covers multiple aspects of the e-discovery process – from also delivering a best-of-breed experience, across every part of that process. Indeed, it would be hard to qualify a solution as “best-of-breed” unless it is also completely and seamlessly integrated into the rest of the process, ...
eliminating costly, slow, error-prone and ultimately unnecessary handoffs. This is a fallacy we’ve already abandoned in the smartphone world; one integrated device is both the end-to-end and best-of-breed communicator, organizer, navigator, camera and more. It’s time we unshackled ourselves from this antiquated way of thinking about e-discovery software – seeking instead to employ integrated solutions that can also best any one-trick pony, trick for trick.
What should all attorneys know about ediscovery?
You – yes, you – can do it, without relying on an army of paralegals, litigation support experts, junior associates and others. For too long, the addition of an “e” has relegated discovery to the domain of the few experts who understood how to make sense of the seemingly boundless expansion in volume and complexity of discoverable data and the tools necessary to tame it. Just as modern desktop word processing software put the final nail in dictation’s coffin, modern e-discovery software puts directly in...
your hands all of the tools you need to meet your discovery obligations in even the most complex and demanding environments. And perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t require a Ph.D. in computer science to operate! With their focus on consumer level user experience, the same skills you’ve used to master your smartphone are all you need to get the most out of today’s e-discovery software.
VP, Business Development and Intelligence
Jon Kerry‐Tyerman
more from everlaw
Booth # 202
Why choose? Why not let the client choose? A true end-to-end e-discovery offering should include best-of-breed technologies to assist in your review and production of the ever-growing data sets. As a leader in e-discovery, Evolver utilities industry best-of-breed technologies as part of our full suite of end-to-end solutions. With Evolver, you can customize your platform – have end-to-end support, just processing, create your own fully-dedicated environment, and more. Evolver can manage and support all of your e-discovery application needs.
and classifying relevant documents, which helps to contain the time and cost of document review. However, predictive coding cannot recommend what email account to retain under a legal hold or suggest the next step in an investigation. Looking ahead, AI will be used to analyze data to reveal patterns that can enable better decision making. Thus, technology will not only help us review documents, it will also suggest specific actions that can lead to success.
There are two-pain points in the e-discovery process. The first is when and how to best leverage AI or computer technology to help identify and reduce the overall data set. The second pain point is how best to review, redact and produce Excel spreadsheets in native format. For leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), Evolver offers a team of experts that can help you and your team obtain a better understanding of your data and how...
best to utilize technology, which will help reduce your review time and increase productivity. For Excel spreadsheets, Evolver has created an application, XLerator, which is the only fully integrated Excel review, redaction and native production application in Relativity, RelativityOne and Ringtail. The XLerator application will unhide all rows, columns and worksheets to allow you to review, search and redact record by record or globally for personally identifiable information (PII) or other key data
VP, eDiscovery
Bruce S. Markowitz
more from evolver
Booth # 518
By using an end-to-end e-discovery solution, you can manage, measure and optimize e-discovery processes. You can bring together internal and external stakeholders on a single end-to-end platform, giving you the ability to automate and orchestrate all the tasks and activities to reduce time, cost and risk involved in e-discovery.
The traditional approach to managing the e-discovery process is fractured and fragmented. There are multiple stakeholders – in-house legal and IT, service providers and outside counsel – who often use multiple tools requiring multiple manual handoffs with little to no visibility into the current status of tasks and activities. It simply takes too long to get to the facts of the case.
Bobby Balachandran
more from Exterro
Booth # 130
Next generation discovery technologies will simplify and deepen machine learning. Machine learning solutions will better automate and optimize the learning process. Attorneys regularly battle, often meaningfully, about whether TAR models were properly trained. Arguments rage about insufficient examples, intentional skewing, conceptual breadth and so on. Tools exist to provide conceptually distributed examples for early learning and identify...
incomplete or inconsistent training. Improvements to learning processes will reduce the frequency of debates about training. Feature extraction and feature selection will significantly improve. Instead of looking at (and only at, in most cases), simple document text, tools will learn from extracted features (like created entities, for example). On that topic, entity creation will improve. Effective entity creation will open the door to machine learning solutions meaningfully incorporating extracted information about communication patterns and anomalies. Simplifying learning processes and learning from extended features will dramatically improve the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of discovery.
The most effective and cost-efficient solution on balance handles frequently recurring needs in a largely end-to-end solution within a modular process that accommodates best-of-breed niche solutions. An end-to-end solution offering best-of-breed tools at every step is the magical ideal. It provides the greatest opportunity to optimize efficiency and minimize costs. Unfortunately, and as this question fairly...
presupposes, the breadth of challenges and relative nascence of our industry mean no end-to-end solution best meets every need. Forced to choose one, the answer hinges on defining need. An end-to-end solution will meet common e-discovery needs in at least a rudimentary way. Small to moderate document volumes, standard document types and most civil litigation timelines will be reasonably served by end-to-end solutions. Best-of-breed continues to be the optimal solution for complex investigatory needs, proliferating data, lesser-prevalent languages and tight timelines. Best-of-breed is, simply put, still the best the industry has to offer.
SVP, Data Science and Engagement Management
Richard Dilgren
more from FRONTEO
Booth # 232
The disaggregation of client data across service providers and law firms poses a continued threat to organizations, both from a process efficiency standpoint and from a data security perspective. More and more, organizations are realizing the importance of data centralization, given the control it affords and the value and intelligence that can be derived from the data itself. From an e-discovery perspective, data centralization opens up a wealth of options that...
enhance data management, ranging from content and work product reuse, to the ability to use historical data to gain better insight into how to predict and plan for new matters. Importantly, as it relates to data security and compliance, data centralization enables greater and more focused diligence in protecting an organization.
E-discovery technology of the future will need to provide a foundation and platform for centralizing content for the evolving forms of ESI, while also providing the flexibility for different review experiences that are mission-built for different data types. This means breaking the one-size-fits-all approach of document review technologies and focusing more on use case driven review tools that maximize the unique relationships inherent in each data type (e.g., collaboration tools, IOT data), while...
maintaining the context in which the content was created. A good example of this is the number of emerging chat and text message aggregation solutions that are becoming available for enhancing the review experience for this type of content. In a near future, post-email world, where abbreviated communication, team collaboration and audio/visual content reigns supreme, we’ll need to evolve the ways in which we interact with such content.
Vice President of Products
Jason Richard
more from h5
Booth # 426
Like an app on an iPhone – intuitive, seamless and a joy to use! Through intuitive interfaces and familiar share, drag/drop, mobile and artificial intelligence (AI) functionality, the experience of using an e-discovery tool will hide the tech and expose the value. Much like the apps on an iPhone, setup and startup should be seamless, paving the way toward a workflow that engages the user, minimizes risk and maximizes productivity.
Nothing! It’s not fair to ask lawyers to change the way they practice, the way they work and results they expect just because they are now using technology. What e-discovery should deliver are optimizations and enhancements to their existing workflow that take their practice to a new level and raise the bar for their clients. Yes, they need to be tech-savvy; however, once they outline their objective, the system should guide them in a seamless way to meet that objective with efficiency.
Ian Campbell
more from iconnect
Booth # 2100
For customers, provider consolidation can make the process of choosing a vendor less difficult, as a single provider may offer more services to fit their needs. Additionally, customers will benefit from lower costs as their providers will be able to be more competitive and offer volume-based discounts. Companies with complementary services are now strengthening their ability to serve a wider population...
The cons of continuous consolidation includes less choice, fewer differentiating factors and blurry lines between technology and service providers. Mergers and acquisitions may also create service failures during the transition due to new process, procedures, personnel changes and technology.
Touches. The number of times a document is touched directly affects the number of errors encountered. Using automated platforms is key to lessening the human impact on a given set of data. This includes touching the same document during collection, processing, analysis, review and production across multiple litigations. The selection of “best-of-breed” solutions has created many process failures due to importing and exporting the same data set many times to get to the final production. Oftentimes, e-discovery service...
companies move documents from one tool to another, only to go back to a previous tool for further treatment. As you can imagine, this antiquated, manual process creates a redundant footprint of the data leading to time delays, mistakes, confusion, and more importantly, increased costs.
VP of Sales
Tammy Doss
more from Ipro Tech
Booth # 302
Accelerated vendor consolidation in the e-discovery market is the most frequent discussion topic across much of our customer base – perhaps more than artificial intelligence (AI), active learning or any other topic combined. Certainly much can be gained from this M&A: increased scale and purchasing power, which can lead to lower prices; global reach, which may help law firms and corporations navigate cross-border...
issues in the age of GDPR; and a general decrease of “noise” in the marketplace. On the other hand, a major risk inherent in massively scaling e-discovery businesses through M&A is the deterioration of client-focused customer service. In the hunt for synergies, consolidated companies often move to a stripped-down, low-cost service model that no longer puts client needs at the center of an engagement. So while there is value in consolidation, the question remains whether that value adheres to the dealmakers or the e-discovery consumers.
E-discovery is not an inherently transparent endeavor. The concern we hear most often from customers centers on the lack of insight into what’s happening with their data, or in their review, and how much it’s going to cost – or has already cost them. Put another way: e-discovery is an inherently mediated endeavor. Layers of technology and people sit between the consumer and their data, or their client’s data...
Access is granted, but is mediated by a review platform that organizes and presents data in a way that comports with a commercial brand. Of course, costing is even more opaque and difficult to access and understand once in hand. E-discovery firms that understand this and use mediation to increase visibility and access to real-time information are built for success. Vendors that enable law firms and corporations to run legal like a business will have made this inherent mediation a net benefit.
Senior Vice President, Strategy & Consulting
Adam Wells
more from Investus
# 1005 & 1007
Booth
At KLDiscovery (KLD), we believe that attorneys involved in e-discovery should be well informed on ethical and civil rules to effectively counsel clients. Understanding the different phases of the e-discovery life cycle and conducting a meet and confer before discovery will help drive the desired results in supporting a strategy. Having a basic understanding of the client’s systems – main types and sources of ESI – is conducive to building a defensible strategy on the...
collection, processing, review and production of data to opposing counsel. We believe that a technology agnostic approach that leverages leading-edge technology, such as CAL (Continuous Active Learning) on every matter, is a critical component in executing a cost-effective e-discovery protocol. We are strong proponents of using CAL on every matter, as this offers a quick and easy way to prioritize documents and find what you are looking for faster on document sets of all sizes.
We do not believe that these options must be mutually exclusive. We believe the only way to truly offer a comprehensive end-to-end solution requires integrating the best options in each phase into a seamless solution for the end user. Moreover, we believe that success in this industry is driven by superior technology that is adaptable, flexible and surrounded by world-class customer service that provides a stellar...
experience at every single touch point. At KLDiscovery (KLD), we know that “one size fits all” doesn’t apply to e-discovery. Our clients demand, and deserve, best-in-class solutions for all of their unique requests under the EDRM. This can be accomplished by owning the technology offered, investing in R&D and enhancing technology that you license to give clients the options they need to help ensure the best possible outcome for their matter.
SVP, US LT Sales & Global LT Marketing
Krystina Jones
more from KLDiscovery
Booth # 216
The e-discovery process comprises several discrete but complementary stages that require a range of actions and operations. As such, most companies tend to focus on providing software solutions that help manage just one specific aspect of the e-discovery life cycle. These disconnected systems add gaps where potential mistakes may occur, requiring multiple modules, varying skill sets, and an increased investment of time and money. Loosely integrated...
systems also complicate the cross-verification of capabilities across multiple methodologies and diminish knowledge reusability. Those working in e-discovery can benefit from a single, end-to-end platform of modules that covers the entire e-discovery life cycle — providing a transparent view from processing to production.
The future of e-discovery requires a comprehensive, holistic solution that orchestrates the complete life cycle of e-discovery, from proactive early data assessment through processing, legal hold and intelligent analytics-driven review. Users increasingly desire and stand to benefit from solutions that work interchangeably and seamlessly — helping save time, money and critical resources. At the same time, systems that can be broken down into modular components...
help ensure increased flexibility and versatility. Other areas of increased focus and development in the e-discovery market include more robust, intuitive user interfaces and more precise, targeted data retrieval technologies. Whatever the future may hold, developers must consistently pay attention to the evolving needs and desires of their customers.
xxxxx
Adams
more from KNOVOS
Booth # 212
The biggest pain point in the e-discovery process is redaction of information from the documents. Electronic data is known to contain a great deal of privileged personal information, and the information may not be in the format that an automatic redaction process can identify. Tens of thousands of reviewers across the world spend tens of millions of hours every year to find repetitive information and redact it. It is a very...
tedious and error-prone process, but it must be done in certain situations. Automatic redactions of documents have been around for some time, but it is not helpful in many cases because of the limitations of the automation.
The next generation of e-discovery will automate much of the manual work, in some cases with AI-enabled technologies. The automation we observe today is in its infancy; analytics, automatic redactions, document categorization etc. have all just started to evolve. Eventually, they will work without much human interference, making the process far faster and much more accurate. E-discovery technology will...
continue to incorporate pattern recognition and human habits in the creation of electronic data to make the e-discovery process smoother, predictable, very fast and accurate. Corporate information governance will make data collections and review much easier and faster. E-discovery vendors will build a repository of PII and PHI values, so that they can apply redactions quickly and accurately for next projects from the same client. Most reviewers will be replaced by data scientists.
Chief Executive Officer
Bharat Chovatiya
more from Litexn LLC
Booth # 334
What is the definition of end-to-end? Does this mean preservation to production as illustrated in the EDRM diagram? Processing to review or a project management layer managing the overall. Some components of the EDRM process are hard to find or just do not exist in our industry. There are definitely some phases of the EDRM model that is best to manage in one solution such as the extraction...
and processing of ESI so performing early case assessment activities can be done in real-time thus promoting most relevant information to review, faster, more accurate and at a lower cost. There are some components of the EDRM model that is best to leverage specific best of breed technology because of the core competence of the specialized process. For instance, utilizing specific technology to manage preservation of information inside an organization is a specialized function, as well as collecting this information in a preserved way so to not spoil evidence. Each organization has their own custom network infrastructure so leveraging best of breed technology to support these areas of the EDRM makes more sense.
The biggest pain point in the e-discovery process is the desire to perform and manage e-discovery services at low cost. Over the years, performing e-discovery process activities has evolved to be a commodity type business in terms of the in-flux of service providers and technology that offered processes cheaper and faster to remain competitive, however, what was lost in this in-flux is the how to effectively manage the client’s expectations as it relates to time and accuracy of product deliverables...
There is still an era of managing cross e-discovery processes with email, spreadsheets and word documents instead of investing in tools that will help develop and adapt to standards in the e-discovery process. It is easy to say we have e-discovery processes defined, but until you see the consistent, repeatable and transparent view into each client deliverable, we are still leaving ourselves open to constantly creating order navigating through multiple services and technology.
CEO & Founder
Debra L Rozier
more from Inovitech
Booth # 333
A market leading end-to-end discovery solution from an enterprise grade software platform is critical to support all parts of the discovery process – from information governance to litigation. Our customers save time, money and heartache by using our best-in-class platform. We provide faster, smarter, more inclusive data organization; simplified workflows that increase productivity; quicker, less painful review...
that limits attorney computer time; the ability for our customers to look ‘here’ first, where the most critical information is hidden; full visibility across petabytes of data in >1,000 formats; easier collaboration between all parties; greater transparency and control over the entire discovery process; and flexible scalability to handle all sizes of matters. We’ve built the best total data intelligence platform in the market; come visit us and see how it works.
E-discovery doesn’t have to be painful, and you can be on the side that presents the evidentiary information that surprises the opposing counsel. People, process and technology are coming together using Nuix eDiscovery as the core component that is enabling speed, control, efficiency, scalability and insightfulness into the litigation, investigation and negotiation processes. With the acquisition of Ringtail to match up with the already leading information governance and data processing...
engine of Nuix, we can now deliver the most amazingly fast review software on the market that puts the right evidence into an attorney’s hands more quickly and more completely than ever before. We put you in charge with an easier way to run your business, with processes that are fully baked and scalable, from the smallest matters to the largest cases, using everyday analytics and smart review to give you what you need.
President, Ringtail Division
Bill Adams
more from NUIX
Booth # 1015
Currently, one of the main challenges is collecting and preserving data from emerging platforms, like Slack and Quip. While these platforms greatly improve team collaboration and productivity (hence their quick adoption), they’re disrupting the traditional e-discovery and compliance management processes. Data in these platforms is fluid as it travels across users and channels and can be edited and...
deleted, making it increasingly difficult to preserve and collect it in a defensible way. Since many of these tools don’t have compliance or e-discovery functionalities built in place, gathering it is almost always manual, lengthy and prone to error. As more of these tools emerge, it’s incumbent on us to develop and implement technology that bridges any gaps between business initiatives and operational needs.
We’ll continue to see more tools leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help organizations manage massive amounts of data. Now that GDPR is in effect and stricter privacy legislations are being enforced worldwide, organizations need to gain control of their data and e-discovery tools to provide them with the ability to identify relevant information across thousands of disparate data silos quickly...
Additionally, we’ll see a bigger focus on data integration and connected ecosystems to help manage information governance and e-discovery. Therefore, next-gen e-discovery tools will need to be compatible and complement the existing tech stack many organizations use, ranging from Slack to G Suite or Office 365.
Salim Elkhou
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Booth # 800
I may be one of the few lawyers who thinks the 2015 e-discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do a decent job of balancing competing interests to follow Rule 1’s call to make litigation — and thus, e-discovery — “speedy and inexpensive.” In the e-discovery industry, we tend to view litigation through the perspective of corporate...
litigants — who generally favored amending the federal rules. However, we should remember not all groups favored amending the rules. A rule change one might view as “making e-discovery inexpensive” could be viewed by another litigant as depriving her access to evidence, and thus, access to justice. In balancing these competing interests, the 2015 amendments took a middle ground on the pressing e-discovery issues of cooperation, proportionality and sanctions that has already shown results — until, of course, we amend the rules again.
To operate a motor vehicle, one doesn’t have to know how to build an engine. You just need to know how to drive the car along with a working knowledge of how it works. That’s the way lawyers should think about e-discovery. Many attorneys throw up their hands and give up. “I didn’t go to law school to be a computer scientist” is a popular refrain, but the frustrated lawyers are missing the point...
Many states now have ethics rules and formal opinions requiring lawyers to have technological competence. However, achieving this doesn’t mean one has to earn a Ph.D. in statistics to practice law without fear of malpractice. A basic technology competence and knowledge of client systems is required so that a lawyer can meet their obligations and protect client information. Anyone smart enough to get into law school should be able to do it.
Discovery Counsel and Legal Education Director
David Horrigan
more from Relativity
The ever-increasing volume of data and understanding technologies that purport to manage it in a cost-effective manner combine to create a major pain point. Though unit costs are decreasing, total cost continues to rise in correlation with the increase of data. E-discovery practitioners are at risk of receiving misleading, or only partially accurate, information about accuracy, cost and ease of use of available methodologies...
Servient addresses cost with a transparent pricing model, providing a simple approach to the cost/volume relationship. Servient’s machine learning technology is fully integrated into the e-discovery workflow, identifying the most relevant data and delivering defensible, efficient, highly accurate results.
In 2018, courts increasingly embrace machine learning and actively encourage its use as e-discovery becomes ever more significant in every phase of litigation. Orders and rulings now routinely allow and mandate technology-assisted review (TAR) as the most efficient way to review large quantities of documents...
As electronically stored information (ESI) volume continues its exponential growth, the role of machine learning will become ever more crucial. Attorneys will have a correspondingly increasing need to understand technical aspects of e-discovery and will, accordingly, benefit from this advanced technology.
SR VP Business Development
Jim Renehan
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Booth # 402
In today’s “big data” environment, the greatest obstacle to an efficient and streamlined investigation or dispute resolution process is the sheer volume of potentially relevant electronic documents. In a typical case or investigation, the costs of collecting, processing and reviewing electronic documents can account for 60% - 70% of a company’s total legal spend. Further, an effective and reliable early analysis of the merits often cannot occur until that process is...
complete. Fortunately, analytics and artificial intelligence tools are now available to quickly separate the digital wheat from the chaff and identify the most relevant documents for efficient case assessment and planning purposes. TransPerfect Legal Solutions’ cutting-edge technology “stack” includes a multitude of proprietary and third-party tools designed to combat growing data volumes and maximize efficiency and defensibility across the e-discovery lifecycle.
Attorneys should know that developing an understanding of the e-discovery process is not only good client service; it’s also a core ethical requirement. Courts and bar associations across the country have recognized that to satisfy the ethical duty of competence, attorneys involved in litigation or dispute resolution must have a sufficient understanding of e-discovery. The California State Bar Association has issued a formal ethics opinion requiring that counsel...
either themselves be able to advise their clients concerning the preservation, collection, processing and review of electronic documents, or bring in an expert who can. The Florida bar has added three technology credits to their ethics requirements. And courts across the country have sanctioned both litigants and their outside counsel for errors made due to a fundamental lack of understanding of the client’s data sources and infrastructure.
President, Consulting & Information Governance
Daniel S. Meyers, Esq.
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Booth # 1115
In the next five years, Veritone expects the artificial intelligence (AI) marketplace for legal to enable more efficient and less subjective litigation. AI will transform every second or frame of audio or video content into a format that can be searched and analyzed for words, phrases, faces, sentiment and voice identification. AI can take unstructured data and produce an index, or structure, within a matter of minutes. This dramatically compresses the time and effort...
•required for e-discovery and frees lawyers to do what they do best: litigating. This will result in reduced costs and shorter litigation cycles. AI should also drastically decrease the subjective nature of litigation. Although machines are not expected to replace human decision makers, AI will make the task of making decisions easier. The subjective nature of litigation will be vastly reduced when decision makers have more relevant, concise, and clear information. AI will lead the charge on this front.
Huge volumes of data, including conversations from phone recordings, chats and emails for e-discovery, can now be analyzed using cognitive engines built specifically to understand noncompliant language. Using natural language processing, transcription, translation and voice and text analysis algorithms, cognitive engines can identify unusual employee behavior and flag terms so management can address issues. This contextual analysis helps save businesses money by avoiding fines.
Product Marketing Manager, Legal
Michael Swarz, J.D.
more from Veritone
Booth # 513
I’d want a reasonable end-to-end in preference to best-of-breed components. Why? Because it means a single workflow and platform to manage from start to finish, rather than introducing differences and potential incompatibilities. It also makes it easier to see trends and use data in a way that helps with the unpredictable nature of e-discovery as fluctuations in workload happen due to sudden investigations or litigation.
What will the next generation of eDiscovery technology look like?
In my view, next generation tools will be seamlessly embedded in the back-end of day-to-day operations of business; only the review part will remain standalone. Microsoft started a big push when they bought Equivio to back-end e-discovery from Office 365. With the continuing shift to cloud-based data interaction & storage, dedicated e-discovery server infrastructure will be less relevant. The shift of e-discovery tools to the cloud (e.g., Relativity One) and the ability to directly connect to cloud-based corporate data sources (e.g., AccessData) means that for larger entities, e-discovery is now just part of doing business.
Managing Director, eDiscovery & Investigations Solutions
Will Wilkinson
more from Yerra
Booth # 412
The biggest pain point in the e-discovery process is security. With the collection and information governance side of the house needing access to electronically stored information (ESI), especially corporate sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII), the internal team needs to have high security access, or at least a process for getting temporary access. On the review side, there may be many temporary reviewers...
needing access. This all lends itself to sensitive information being exchanged with an adversary during production and the need to manage three different security profiles.
The next generation of e-discovery technology will enable playback of accessed data – whether cloud, firewall, social or Internet of Things (IoT) – without the need for a custodian interview via a unique identity signature. Additionally, individual files will have the ability to be scanned for known alteration patterns, as well as viruses, to flag suspected deep fakes. Lastly, e-discovery will be driven with the human voice, and keyboard commands...
will seem quaint, like old-fashioned video games. Speaking of video games, game-sharing will spawn a new type of electronically stored information (ESI) and source for collection.
Executive Director, ACEDS
Mary Mack, CEDS, CISSP
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While every business is unique and their document content is diverse, most organizations have four important content categories – personally identifiable information of clients and employees, office policies and procedures, contracts and commercial documents, and intellectual property and proprietary business content. It’s important that businesses take the time to appropriately classify enterprise content and protect it through appropriate secure document control systems...
The following are just a few characteristics a solid content management system should provide: • Encryption of documents and emails at rest and transit • Unique URLs for every piece of content – documents, folders, etc. • The ability to send secure links, not copies, to those outside the organization • Process controls for content exported to mobile drives or devices (encrypted devices only) • Data loss prevention controls that define the appropriate document actions for employees – e.g., document printing, editing content, printing or sharing content
Both brains and computers are information tools. Case management will be influenced by strong interactions between both. While a human brain tends to focus on the most obvious correlations between the input data and the outcomes, machine learning algorithms that reason over data are discovering connections so subtle that humans cannot describe them logically...
Skilled operators of our industry are partnering with computers to create improved outcomes even in the legal industry. Research shows we are all becoming more comfortable with that idea. A 2018 UK Study by Olive Communications showed that 7 of 10 law firm clients would choose a lawbot to handle their legal affairs over a human lawyer. In case management, machines already can streamline tasks in the case management lifecycle (document review, case type checklists, etc). And, we know this is only the beginning.
Vice President of Product Strategy
Peter Buck
more from netdocuments
Booth # 506
