If you're an attorney – or a technician tasked with protecting attorney data, take note of important California Opinion 2010-179 on the duties of confidentiality and competence in the handling of client data (warning: opens seven-page PDF).
Or, if you're pressed for time, see this excellent treatise prepared by the firm Mayer Brown.
Ralph Losey: "So…Predictive Coding…for or against?"
Perry Segal: "I'll tell you what. I'll attend your session, then give you my answer, ok?"
Heck, even if I had a ready answer, after sitting in on a session with these heavy-hitters, I might change my mind, anyway.
What is predictive coding? I'll give you the short answer directly out of the accompanying documentation: "Technology that informs the coding of uncoded documents based on their similarity to already-coded documents. Predictive coding permits us to leverage review decisions across many documents, not just one."
Well, that certainly clears it up. If this were The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd liken it to Infinite Improbability Drive – probably. Or to put it in terms my mind can get around, predictive coding is sort of like assessing the probability of something being probable or improbable over a series of documents, then retaining the probable and discarding the improbable. The important part for our purposes is that this is the latest approach to efficiently locating relevant documents – with or without human intervention.
The presenters provided two examples of what we face: 1) a theoretical example of one billion emails, 25% with attachments, that would take 54 years to complete under their scenario, and 2) an actual look into the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, which started at 350 billion pages, culled down to 40 million pages for review by 70 contract attorneys.
A science fiction example was appropriate after all, since the requirements are astronomical. I was in technology a long time before I became an attorney and the reality is simple. Predictive coding – in the right hands – has the potential to be a very efficient element of document review.
What do I mean by "right hands"? Two things, for the most part: qualified and ethical. The "qualified" part is self-explanatory. Ethical? If a party plays the usual games – or only pretends to be implementing this – the entire process breaks down; hence my reference to Mutually Assured Destruction.
My answer to Mr. Losey at the conclusion of the session? "I don't think the answer is between 'for' or 'against'. I doubt we're going to have a choice."
Or, for my sci-fi answer…"DON'T PANIC"…
If you were following my tweets from LTNY, I posted that quote from Jason Baron Tuesday afternoon. But no, it wasn't day 17, it was day two – or for Logan's Run fans, last-day for me since I had to catch an early flight home Wednesday. And that leads me to my first comment. Drat! Yeah, it's a word. There was a "government" track on day three, but I couldn't stay to attend. Worse, one session was on the contrast in ediscovery rules between civil and criminal investigations – right up my alley. But, we make choices, and I couldn't be in two places at once, so let me settle for giving you my summary of day two…
As mentioned prior, by the time I got to my hotel room Monday night, I'd been awake about 35 hours. The Tuesday keynote involved United Nations war crimes investigations with Gonzalo de Cesare. I was fortunate enough to be attending the Zylab reception for Mr. de Cesare at the close of the day, so I elected to catch up on some zzz's and skip the keynote.
I started my 1st session back on the international track with 75 minutes on Multinational Discovery. It was great. Unlike the "overview" feel to all of my Monday sessions, this was loaded with in-depth information.
In terms of looking at a map, North Americans tend to think of borders vertically (Canada, down to the United States, down to Mexico), but in Europe, thinking horizontally or vertically, one may hop in their car and cross several borders in a single day – and violate privacy laws in each and every one along the way. The speakers handled this smartly. They understood that the bulk of the audience were americans (or US-based), so they illustrated the risks both from the standpoint of moving data between EU countries, among others, but also from the standpoint of moving it to/from the United States. Considering the limited time, they accomplished the goal.
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I stopped in to see my friends at Iron Mountain, then caught the last half of the federal judges session on the federal rules and where things are headed. Whether you're in technology or law, I urge you to learn as much from judges as you can. People question judges about ediscovery issues, but a lot of times the answer is, "It depends on the particular facts." That's the problem. A snapshot today will serve as a guide, but ediscovery law is a rapidly-changing discipline. I like to 'get inside the heads' of the judges to try to understand what they're thinking about the future.
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Later, I moved on to a Kroll session on Data Breach & Security (something I may have written about once or twice). The problem with a successful lecture of this type is, you learn a lot, but you leave with a knot in your stomach because they made you think about what you don't want to think about; all the security risks you haven't thought about.
As I've stated before, the goal is to be proactive in the interest of avoiding having to be reactive. This session certainly covered the former, but what was fascinating is that they really got into the latter; how do you react once a breach (perceived or actual) has occurred? The answers aren't as simple as they appear, and here's why:
You get the idea. Regarding points four through six, there are conflicting laws in this area, so doing what you perceive to be the right thing may – by law – be the wrong thing.
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Ralph Losey: "So…Predictive Coding…for or against?" Having run into Mr. Losey a couple of hours prior to his late afternoon session on the subject, I faced that question. For the answer, stay tuned for my 3rd and final LTNY post.
…hey, this isn't a sports blog, it's an e-discovery blog! What were you thinking?!?! Since it's a bit late on the-Friday-before-the-big-day, I know what's being discussed at the water cooler: 1) I can't wait for Super Bowl!, 2) I need to go to the store to get seven-layer bean dip for Super Bowl!, 3) I hate Super Bowl! Are you getting the common thread, here? Well fine, I'm going to enjoy Super Bowl, too, but I'm closing my week with a summary of day one of LTNY. I'll cover day two Monday – and you'll definitely want to check it out since one of the features will be on predictive coding.
On the red-eye, I happened to be sitting next to the only guy on the entire plane who wanted to be awake all night. So, combining the fact that I'd been awake all-day Sunday as well, by the time I returned to my room Monday night I'd been awake 35 hours! Coffee notwithstanding, this didn't assist my concentration. However, I did manage to make it in time for the opening keynote on a subject which is basically the mission statement of this blog; "Legal vs. IT: Turn the Battle into a Solution to Meet Compliance".
Are we in agreement that this theme has been discussed to death? Ok. We get it. IT, Legal – and all the other players – must find a way to cooperate. This guy at e-Discovery Insights keeps telling us that all the time! But this was a speech by the Deputy General Counsel of HP – inducing cooperation on a scale of this magnitude is no easy feat, so believe me, I was interested in what he had to say.
I've had a multinational focus of late, so to start out, I attended a session on deploying a global records management program. KPMG was the example company, with 390,000 employees in 170 countries. Records management is tough enough when following a dearth of state and federal laws domestically. Now extrapolate for the world. Check back with me when you're done.
In the afternoon, I attended a session called "Anatomy of the Case", which took us through an 'event' from start to finish. Aside from always being an interesting journey, I wanted to go because an attorney from Orrick was on the panel. Orrick is a unique firm with a heavy emphasis on technology, so I was interested in their story.
There was a final afternoon session, but by then my brain had pretty much given up on me – and I had meetings to attend later that evening, so I decided to give myself a break.
My take on the first day? To be honest, I was a bit disappointed because I didn't feel that I'd learned anything new. This doesn't mean the sessions were bad; to the contrary, they were excellent. They just covered material I was already familiar with, so perhaps I didn't choose well. Interestingly, one of the experts I spoke with on day two reacted to my comments by saying I should feel really good then, because it must mean that I know a lot. Certainly I'd like to think that after so many years of doing this, I do know a lot, but one thing has always been clear; there's a lot more to learn.
Luckily, I found that out on day two!
P.S. I suppose since I lured you here under false pretenses, I'm obligated to provide my Super Bowl pick. Let me preface this by saying that I have a running bet with the son of some very close friends. Ciaran is a great kid, however, he's notorious for picking the loser in every Super Bowl as far back as I can remember. Therefore, with personal loyalties completely in check, my procedure is to find out his pick, then bet against them (this has worked flawlessly for years!). I call it my "Ciaran Contrarian Super Bowl Calculator".
This year, he chose the Steelers. Excellent choice, of course, but he'll be wrong. Therefore, I'm obligated to pick the Packers.
Stand by for the required disclaimer: On the one hand, I'm a licensed attorney – creating unique ethical issues – on the other hand, I'm a member of the California State Bar's executive committee for the Law Practice Management and Technology section – creating additional unique ethical issues. Although my site already has a disclaimer, I'd like to remind you that these are my personal comments alone and are not made in my capacity as an attorney; neither should they be construed as an endorsement by the California State Bar. I also must remind you that the organizers provided me a complimentary all-access pass, based on my status as a "legitimate blogger" (I know, but it's subjective, isn't it…).
Paranoid, much?
Now for the dilemma. Everything I just said is fine and good, but hey, vendors are people, too! Some of them are friends, some of them are colleagues and some of them are just plain nice people. And when they do good things, they deserve credit. I'm, hoping to write you my full summary of the conference tomorrow (possibly in multiple parts), but yesterday was a 22-hour ordeal, I'm dead tired (even coffee won't save me) and I'd like to give you these highlights while the details are still fresh in my mind:
If I forgot anyone (which is likely), my apologies. On top of that, there's a list of people I wanted to meet, but either time was simply not going to allow it, I couldn't locate them or I didn't find out they were there until it was too late.
All in all, it was a very successful conference for me and I'm glad I decided to attend. I look forward to LTWC 2011 this coming May.
I'm traveling today, folks…'official' California State Bar Section meetings in San Francisco (man, that sounds important…).
It's time for the bi-yearly Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, "2010 Year-End Electronic Discovery and Information Law Update". I confess, I haven't had time to review the report to give you my highlights like I usually do, however, I wanted to make sure you knew it was published. What do I always say? When I have time…
I wouldn't write about it if you weren't doing it. What's "it"? Taking a lackadaisical approach to data protection. The reality, as this study establishes, is that 66% of you aren't taking proper precautions; and your employers/clients are the ones who will suffer.
Obviously you will, too, but I don't think I need to point that out.
It's not surprising to me. It's exactly what I've observed over my many years in corporate environments.
Show of hands…how many of you noted when I posted remotely (by reading the line "Sent from my Verizon Wireless Blackberry" at the conclusion of my posts)? How many of you thought to yourself that it's a bad thing?
You should have thought so.
I allowed it to post as an illustration of how we give up tidbits about ourselves all the time; and how scouring technology accumulates these tidbits to create a profile of us.
I was testing one of the apps that auto-answers messages while I'm driving (pun intended). Awesome tool, really, but all I could think about was how short-sighted it is as designed. Is that the only time I need to auto-answer texts and emails? Why isn't it designed to be used any time I choose?
Technically, it can – if you pay for it. The generic version allows me to modify the outgoing message to say 'I'm unavailable' rather than 'I'm driving', but it adds a tag for Chrysler, then says 'Drive Safely'. Kinda doesn't take much to figure out what I'm doing, does it?
So, with these two benign examples, assuming I used the default settings, what might you know about me?
In law, the term 'preponderance of the evidence' is used a lot. The individual parts may not matter, but the sum of them might.
Don't idly (pun intended) let these little pieces of evidence (that's exactly what they are) complete the puzzle for those who might do you harm.
Re my signature…hmmm…was that information accurate? I'm not sure…
Sent from my PDA
This year, for the 1st time, I’m attending LegalTech New York. I was on the fence about it, then there was this thing about “legitimate” legal bloggers being offered complimentary attendance. Apparently, being selected by the ABA for their Blawg 100 makes me legitimate. Who knew?
Membership has its privileges…
You may have noticed that I’ve been toying with Typepad’s alternate posting options because I intend to do all of my posting live via my PDA. It’s not quite as robust (embedding images and links are doable, but very clunky) however, it allows me to elaborate on the spot – without the character limitation of Twitter (although my posts automatically propogate to Twitter as well).
Anyway, I’ll be attending full days Monday and Tuesday, so if you’re going, I look forward to seeing you there.
On a side-note, a last-minute schedule change has me arriving back in Los Angeles early tomorrow morning to attend the first day of the Executive Counsel Institute's "e-Discovery for the Corporate Market" Exchange in Century City. A lot of the 'usual suspects' will be there. I'll be sure to tweet the highlights.