As usual LegalTech New York–the country's largest legal technology show–did not disappoint. There was a consensus among vendors, colleagues and fellow panelists that much is happening with legal technology.

First off rapid globalization is affecting many decisions and influencing software vendors' product offerings. Supporting more complex languages, such as Chinese, requires Unicode support. All you really need to know about Unicode at a high level is that it supports much larger character sets than the English language. In terms of indexing and searching foreign documents and other data, Unicode support is a big thing. Make sure you ask any prospective vendor (e-discovery, document or enterprise content management, etc.) whether they support it in their current versions. Likewise, international data privacy and information security are growing concerns, particularly in e-discovery situations where the information needs to be shared for review and ultimately produced.

If there was one overarching theme at the show, it was cost reduction. E-billing is catching on as corporate law departments are being asked to do more with less. An effective combination of e-billing and matter management allows departments to generate more useful analytics and metrics regarding their outside counsel's performance and overall cost management. As no single system does everything, the three-prong question most departments are asking is whether to A) implement a best-of-breed e-billing system and integrate it with their existing matter management system; B) implement a matter management system with e-billing “light” features built-in; or C) go with an e-billing solution that also doubles as a “light” matter management system. The answer, of course, depends greatly on the legal department's existing legacy systems, department size, number and complexity of matters, and human and capital resources.

Then there's the giant elephant in the room: E-discovery. The following are my observations from the show and from speaking with numerous legal departments, colleagues and consultants over the past year:

Corporate counsel are bringing more EDD work in-house. E-discovery counsel and e-discovery manager positions are being created. Larger departments seem further along in this regard. They're typically using project teams and/or outside consultants to identify and develop best practices and processes, tie the knot with enterprise IT and use in-house resources for smaller collections. With this said, they still tend to use outside vendors and consultants for larger volume and/or more sensitive cases. Web-based software platforms have rapidly gained favor, as they tend to remove some of the pain of using different interfaces and enable easier access for geographically diverse team members. As companies and law firms do more with web platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint, the “portalization” effect has enabled consolidation and standardization of various workflows.

The fallout from the Qualcomm case and related sanctions has clearly illustrated the need for early data and case assessment and having a clearly defined data map so teams know where to find the information. A growing number of vendors such as Clearwell Systems and MetaLINCS have developed applications or in-house appliances designed to scoop up e-mail, apply first-pass filters to weed out spam and non-relevant items, and provide an early review system.

In addition automated review has begun to arrive on the scene. Since review is usually the most expensive e-discovery phase, companies are looking for more cost-effective ways to search and categorize items. Some providers claim that with an iteratively refined approach, automated review can be more accurate than human reviewers. One panel discussion raised the issue as to what will become the higher standard of care for review–human or automated? Also, if you begin to rely upon an automated review process, it's recommended that you clearly document it so it passes muster as a reasonable and defensible process. However, keep in mind that while automated systems may ultimately be able to determine relevancy on par with or better than human resources, there is still the need for an appropriate privilege review. The new rules allow for clawback agreements, but parties would still be greatly disadvantaged in producing large amounts of responsive, but otherwise privileged, data.

With e-mail continuing to play a pivotal role, especially in heavily regulated industries, in-house counsel need to engage the CIO to discuss the pros and cons of e-mail archiving versus journaling versus other approaches. (E-mail archiving occurs after the fact, typically by the user, while e-mail journaling occurs in real-time as the e-mails are sent and received.)

As records retention is squarely in the corporate spotlight, enterprise content management (ECM) and document management (DM) are gaining further traction to help address the unstructured data floating about many companies. Another strong theme was simplifying retention codes–typically developed from the paper world–to make it much easier to deal with electronic documents and data. In-house lawyers are also beginning to pay greater attention to the proper expiration of data hosted by their outside firms when a matter has concluded.

Enterprises are also examining their current and future storage/backup options with respect to records retention and data accessibility. A number of LegalTech panelists agreed that backup tapes are not necessarily made “inaccessible” by default under the new federal rules. In addition, some companies have recognized the need to at least know what's on their legacy tapes. Some even used outside vendors to restore them to more accessible media and catalog the contents. As a result they can make more knowledgeable determinations as to what to keep and what to expire appropriately.

Solutions are emerging to help companies take a more proactive approach to e-discovery. Companies such as PSS Systems, Orchestria, and Exterro offer systems that address some of the information handling, preservation and retention/expiration tasks earlier than many companies have done previously. Many at the conference agreed this remains a challenging problem to solve on your own. With the big dollar sanctions we've seen in recent years, many companies are finding it more cost-effective to engage litigation readiness and records retention consultants, making them part of their teams. This helps prevent corporate myopia and aids in the development of best practices and processes.

Market volatility among legal technology providers continues, as the larger ones continue to acquire more business segments. However, there are murmurings that as the shakeout continues, we could see several earlier acquisitions break apart.

On a more positive note, collaboration and relationship building seem to be on the rise between corporate and outside counsel. As both work to further their diversity and pro bono goals, this is providing additional opportunities to work together under less stressful situations, which only helps to improve their working relationship. Some law firms are even adopting or at least giving Six Sigma a trial run. Typically it's not a full adoption, but rather taking some of the analysis and process discipline and working it into their overall project management approach.

With recessionary concerns, we'll continue to see increased attention on cost reduction throughout 2008. E-discovery and records retention will also continue to dominate many discussions, with an emphasis on refining them into more repeatable, defensible and cost-effective processes.

———-

As usual LegalTech New York–the country's largest legal technology show–did not disappoint. There was a consensus among vendors, colleagues and fellow panelists that much is happening with legal technology.

First off rapid globalization is affecting many decisions and influencing software vendors' product offerings. Supporting more complex languages, such as Chinese, requires Unicode support. All you really need to know about Unicode at a high level is that it supports much larger character sets than the English language. In terms of indexing and searching foreign documents and other data, Unicode support is a big thing. Make sure you ask any prospective vendor (e-discovery, document or enterprise content management, etc.) whether they support it in their current versions. Likewise, international data privacy and information security are growing concerns, particularly in e-discovery situations where the information needs to be shared for review and ultimately produced.

If there was one overarching theme at the show, it was cost reduction. E-billing is catching on as corporate law departments are being asked to do more with less. An effective combination of e-billing and matter management allows departments to generate more useful analytics and metrics regarding their outside counsel's performance and overall cost management. As no single system does everything, the three-prong question most departments are asking is whether to A) implement a best-of-breed e-billing system and integrate it with their existing matter management system; B) implement a matter management system with e-billing “light” features built-in; or C) go with an e-billing solution that also doubles as a “light” matter management system. The answer, of course, depends greatly on the legal department's existing legacy systems, department size, number and complexity of matters, and human and capital resources.

Then there's the giant elephant in the room: E-discovery. The following are my observations from the show and from speaking with numerous legal departments, colleagues and consultants over the past year:

Corporate counsel are bringing more EDD work in-house. E-discovery counsel and e-discovery manager positions are being created. Larger departments seem further along in this regard. They're typically using project teams and/or outside consultants to identify and develop best practices and processes, tie the knot with enterprise IT and use in-house resources for smaller collections. With this said, they still tend to use outside vendors and consultants for larger volume and/or more sensitive cases. Web-based software platforms have rapidly gained favor, as they tend to remove some of the pain of using different interfaces and enable easier access for geographically diverse team members. As companies and law firms do more with web platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint, the “portalization” effect has enabled consolidation and standardization of various workflows.

The fallout from the Qualcomm case and related sanctions has clearly illustrated the need for early data and case assessment and having a clearly defined data map so teams know where to find the information. A growing number of vendors such as Clearwell Systems and MetaLINCS have developed applications or in-house appliances designed to scoop up e-mail, apply first-pass filters to weed out spam and non-relevant items, and provide an early review system.

In addition automated review has begun to arrive on the scene. Since review is usually the most expensive e-discovery phase, companies are looking for more cost-effective ways to search and categorize items. Some providers claim that with an iteratively refined approach, automated review can be more accurate than human reviewers. One panel discussion raised the issue as to what will become the higher standard of care for review–human or automated? Also, if you begin to rely upon an automated review process, it's recommended that you clearly document it so it passes muster as a reasonable and defensible process. However, keep in mind that while automated systems may ultimately be able to determine relevancy on par with or better than human resources, there is still the need for an appropriate privilege review. The new rules allow for clawback agreements, but parties would still be greatly disadvantaged in producing large amounts of responsive, but otherwise privileged, data.

With e-mail continuing to play a pivotal role, especially in heavily regulated industries, in-house counsel need to engage the CIO to discuss the pros and cons of e-mail archiving versus journaling versus other approaches. (E-mail archiving occurs after the fact, typically by the user, while e-mail journaling occurs in real-time as the e-mails are sent and received.)

As records retention is squarely in the corporate spotlight, enterprise content management (ECM) and document management (DM) are gaining further traction to help address the unstructured data floating about many companies. Another strong theme was simplifying retention codes–typically developed from the paper world–to make it much easier to deal with electronic documents and data. In-house lawyers are also beginning to pay greater attention to the proper expiration of data hosted by their outside firms when a matter has concluded.

Enterprises are also examining their current and future storage/backup options with respect to records retention and data accessibility. A number of LegalTech panelists agreed that backup tapes are not necessarily made “inaccessible” by default under the new federal rules. In addition, some companies have recognized the need to at least know what's on their legacy tapes. Some even used outside vendors to restore them to more accessible media and catalog the contents. As a result they can make more knowledgeable determinations as to what to keep and what to expire appropriately.

Solutions are emerging to help companies take a more proactive approach to e-discovery. Companies such as PSS Systems, Orchestria, and Exterro offer systems that address some of the information handling, preservation and retention/expiration tasks earlier than many companies have done previously. Many at the conference agreed this remains a challenging problem to solve on your own. With the big dollar sanctions we've seen in recent years, many companies are finding it more cost-effective to engage litigation readiness and records retention consultants, making them part of their teams. This helps prevent corporate myopia and aids in the development of best practices and processes.

Market volatility among legal technology providers continues, as the larger ones continue to acquire more business segments. However, there are murmurings that as the shakeout continues, we could see several earlier acquisitions break apart.

On a more positive note, collaboration and relationship building seem to be on the rise between corporate and outside counsel. As both work to further their diversity and pro bono goals, this is providing additional opportunities to work together under less stressful situations, which only helps to improve their working relationship. Some law firms are even adopting or at least giving Six Sigma a trial run. Typically it's not a full adoption, but rather taking some of the analysis and process discipline and working it into their overall project management approach.

With recessionary concerns, we'll continue to see increased attention on cost reduction throughout 2008. E-discovery and records retention will also continue to dominate many discussions, with an emphasis on refining them into more repeatable, defensible and cost-effective processes.

———-