“Welcome to what feels like the 17th Day of LegalTech”

MP900432728 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:

  1. Should we call an outside source (e.g. if the CEO is informed, is he outside the breach parameters, or does he become a part of the breach?)
  2. Is the breach as serious as we think it is?
  3. Who within the company should we tell?
  4. Who outside the company should we tell?
  5. Who outside the company are we obligated to tell (customers?)
  6. Who should we not tell?

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.