The e-discovery market is in an interesting place right now. It's in the middle of a rash of M&A deals—just look at everything that happened back in May—with razor-thin margins for many companies and a battle over an Am Law 200 and Fortune 500 set of client organizations that now have established e-discovery protocols.

And on top of that is the actual technology itself. With pretty much every segment of the EDRM having been picked apart, analyzed and mined for greater efficiencies, how can e-discovery companies truly be innovative today? To do so, takes some outside the box thinking, a healthy knowledge of the industry, and perhaps even a little luck and timing.

On June 6, DTI hired a new chief innovation officer to spur this forward thinking, bringing Clifton C. “Cliff” Dutton on board. Dutton most recently worked as senior vice president, director of strategies and director of e-discovery at American International Group, Inc. (AIG), where he focused on legal vendor management, e-discovery process innovation, and other legal operations initiatives. He also has credentials dating back to the early days of formalized e-discovery, having been national technical editor of the first electronic discovery reference model (EDRM) project in 2006.