Nick Brestoff says he wrote his book “to open up an entirely new field.” He didn't invent the concept of preventive law, but no company he knows is practicing it. He hopes the publication of “Preventing Litigation: An Early Warning System to Get Big Value Out of Big Data” changes that. A former trial lawyer with a background in engineering, Brestoff and co-author William Inmon (who has been called “the father of data warehousing”) published their book in August. Brestoff has a lot riding on it; the company he founded that same month, Intraspexion Inc., is designed to help companies implement the system he described. And a funny thing happened in mid-November, two days before this interview. It was then, Brestoff told executive editor David Hechler that he obtained evidence that demonstrates his system's effectiveness.

David Hechler: Your thesis is that companies can prevent litigation. How?

Nick Brestoff: By letting the legal department install and operate software to look for the risks of litigation in the emails that are flowing through their system. Litigation can be prevented if the risks can be spotted early enough to conduct an investigation and then enable executives to do something.