e-discovery 2.0

Apple obtained a narrow discovery victory yesterday in its long running legal battle against fellow technology titan Samsung. In Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, the court ordered non-party Google to turn over the search terms and custodians that it used to produce documents in response to an Apple subpoena.

According to the court’s order, Apple argued for the production of Google’s search terms and custodians in order “to know how Google created the universe from which it produced documents.” The court noted that Apple sought such information “to evaluate the adequacy of Google’s search, and if it finds that search wanting, it then will pursue other courses of action to obtain responsive discovery.”

Google countered that argument by defending the extent of its production and the burdens that Apple’s request would place on Google as a non-party to Apple’s dispute with Samsung. Google complained that Apple’s demands were essentially a gateway to additional discovery from Google, which would arguably be excessive given Google’s non-party status.

Sensitive to the concerns of both parties, the court struck a middle ground in its order. On the one hand, the court ordered Google to produce the search terms and custodians since that “will aid in uncovering the sufficiency of Google’s production and serves greater purposes of transparency in discovery.” But on the other hand, the court preserved Google’s right to object to any further discovery efforts by Apple: “The court notes that its order does not speak to the sufficiency of Google’s production nor to any arguments Google may make regarding undue burden in producing any further discovery.”

This latest opinion from the Apple v. Samsung series of lawsuits is noteworthy for two reasons. First, the decision is instructive regarding the eDiscovery burdens that non-parties must shoulder in litigation. While the disclosure of a non-party’s underlying search methodology (in this instance, search terms and custodians) may not be unduly burdensome, further efforts to obtain non-party documents could exceed the boundaries of reasonableness that courts have designed to protect non-parties from the vicissitudes of discovery. For as the court in this case observed, a non-party “should not be required to ‘subsidize’ litigation to which it is not a party.”

Second, the decision illustrates that the use of search terms remains a viable method for searching and producing responsive ESI. Despite the increasing popularity of predictive coding technology, it is noteworthy that neither the court nor Apple took issue with Google’s use of search terms in connection with its production process. Indeed, the intelligent use of keyword searches is still an acceptable eDiscovery approach for most courts, particularly where the parties agree on the terms. That other forms of technology assisted review, such as predictive coding, could arguably be more efficient and cost effective in identifying responsive documents does not impugn the use of keyword searches in eDiscovery. Only time will tell whether the use of keyword searches as the primary means for responding to document requests will give way to more flexible approaches that include the use of multiple technology tools.

Gartner recently released a report that spotlights the importance of using email archiving as part of an organization’s defensible deletion strategy. The report – Best Practices for Using Email Archiving to Eliminate PST and Mailbox Quota Headaches (Alan Dayley, September 21, 2012) – specifically focuses on the information retention and eDiscovery challenges associated with email storage on Microsoft Exchange and how email archiving software can help address these issues. As Gartner makes clear in its report, an archiving solution can provide genuine opportunities to reduce the costs and risks of email hoarding.

The Problem: PST Files

The primary challenge that many organizations are experiencing with Microsoft Exchange email is the unchecked growth of messages stored in portable storage tablet (PST) files. Used to bypass storage quotas on Exchange, PST files are problematic because they increase the costs and risks of eDiscovery while circumventing information retention policies.

That the unrestrained growth of PST files could create problems downstream for organizations should come as no surprise. Various court decisions have addressed this issue, with the DuPont v. Kolon Industries litigation foremost among them. In the DuPont case, a $919 million verdict and 20 year product injunction largely stemmed from the defendant’s inability to prevent the destruction of thousands pages of email formerly stored in PST files. That spoliation resulted in a negative inference instruction to the jury and the ensuing verdict against the defendant.

The Solution: Eradicate PSTs with the Help of Archiving Software and Retention Policies

To address the PST problem, Gartner suggests following a three-step process to help manage and then eradicate PSTs from the organization. This includes educating end users regarding both the perils of PSTs and the ease of access to email through archiving software. It also involves disabling the creation of new PSTs, a process that should ultimately culminate with the elimination of existing PSTs.

In connection with this process, Gartner suggests deployment of archiving software with a “PST management tool” to facilitate the eradication process. With the assistance of the archiving tool, existing PSTs can be discovered and migrated into the archive’s central data repository. Once there, email retention policies can begin to expire stale, useless and even harmful messages that were formerly outside the company’s information retention framework.

With respect to the development of retention policies, organizations should consider engaging in a cooperative internal process involving IT, compliance, legal and business units. These key stakeholders must be engaged and collaborate if a workable policies are to be created. The actual retention periods should take into account the types of email generated and received by an organization, along with the enterprise’s business, industry and litigation profile.

To ensure successful implementation of such retention policies and also address the problem of PSTs, an organization should explore whether an on premise or cloud archiving solution is a better fit for its environment. While each method has its advantages, Gartner advises organizations to consider whether certain key features are included with a particular offering:

While perhaps not a panacea for the storage and eDiscovery problems associated with email, on premise or cloud archiving software should provide various benefits to organizations. Indeed, such technologies have the potential to help organizations store, manage and discover their email efficiently, cost effectively and in a defensible manner. Where properly deployed and fully implemented, organizations should be able to reduce the nettlesome costs and risks connected with email.

At this year’s EDGE Summit in April, Symantec polled attendees about a range of government-specific information governance questions. The attendees of the event were primarily comprised of members from IT, Legal, as well as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) agents, government investigators and records managers. The main purpose of the EDGE survey was to gather attendees’ thoughts on what information governance means for their agencies, discern what actions were being taken to address Big Data challenges, and assess how far along agencies were in their information governance implementations pursuant to the recent Presidential Mandate.

As my colleague Matt Nelson’s blog recounts from the LegalTech conference earlier this year, information governance and predictive coding were among the hottest topics at the LTNY 2012 show and in the industry generally. The EDGE Summit correspondingly held sessions on those two topics, as well as delved deeper into questions that are unique to the government. For example, when asked what the top driver for implementation of an information governance plan in an agency was, three out of four respondents answered “FOIA.”

The fact that FOIA was listed as the top driver for government agencies planning to implement an information governance solution is in line with data reported by the Department of Justice (DOJ) from 2008-2011 on the number of requests received. In 2008, 605,491 FOIA requests were received. This figure grew to 644,165 in 2011. While the increase in FOIA requests is not enormous percentage-wise, what is significant is the reduction in backlogs for FOIA requests. In 2008, there was a backlog of 130,419 requests and was decreased to 83,490 by 2011. This is likely due to the implementation of newer and better technology, coupled with the fact that the current administration has made FOIA request processing a priority.

In 2009, President Obama directed agencies to adopt “a presumption in favor’” of FOIA requests for greater transparency in the government. Agencies have had pressure from the President to improve the response time to (and completeness of) FOIA requests. Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe wrote,

“a study by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and the Knight Foundation, found approximately 90 federal agencies are equipped to process FOIA requests, and of those 90, only slightly more than half have taken at least some steps to fulfill Obama’s goal to improve government transparency.”

Agencies are increasingly more focused on complying with FOIA and will continue to improve their IT environments with archiving, eDiscovery and other proactive records management solutions in order to increase access to data.

Not far behind FOIA requests on the list of reasons to implement an information governance plan were “lawsuits” and “internal investigations.” Fortunately, any comprehensive information governance plan will axiomatically address FOIA requests since the technology implemented to accomplish information governance inherently allows for the storage, identification, collection, review and production of data regardless of the specific purpose. The use of information governance technology will not have the same workflow or process for FOIA that an internal investigation would require, for example, but the tools required are the same.

The survey also found that the top three most important activities surrounding information governance were: email/records retention (73%), data security/privacy (73%) and data storage (72%). These concerns are being addressed modularly by agencies with technology like data classification services, archiving, and data loss prevention technologies. In-house eDiscovery tools are also important as they facilitate the redaction of personally identifiable information that must be removed in many FOIA requests.

It is clear that agencies recognize the importance of managing email/records for the purposes of FOIA and this is an area of concern in light of not only the data explosion, but because 53% of respondents reported they are responsible for classifying their own data. Respondents have connected the concept of information governance with records management and the ability to execute more effectively on FOIA requests. Manual classification is rapidly becoming obsolete as data volumes grow, and is being replaced by automated solutions in successfully deployed information governance plans.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of data from the survey was the disclosures about what was preventing governmental agencies from implementing information governance plans. The top inhibitors for the government were “budget,” “internal consensus” and “lack of internal skill sets.” Contrasted with the LegalTech Survey findings from 2012 on information governance, with respondents predominantly from the private sector, the government’s concerns and implementation timelines are slightly different. In the EDGE survey, only 16% of the government respondents reported that they have implemented an information governance solution, contrasted with the 19% of the LegalTech audience. This disparity is partly because the government lacks the budget and the proper internal committee of stakeholders to sponsor and deploy a plan, but the relatively lows numbers in both sectors indicate the nascent state of information governance.

In order for a successful information governance plan to be deployed, “it takes a village,” to quote Secretary Clinton. Without prioritizing coordination between IT, legal, records managers, security, and the other necessary departments on data management, merely having the budget only purchases the technology and does not ensure true governance. In this year’s survey, 95% of EDGE respondents were actively discussing information governance solutions. Over the next two years the percentage of agencies that will submit a solution is expected to triple from 16%-52%. With the directive on records management due this month by the National Archives Records Administration (NARA), the government agencies will have clear guidance on what the best practices are for records management, and this will aid the adoption of automated archiving and records classification workflows.

The future is bright with the initiative by the President and NARA’s anticipated directive to examine the state of technology in the government. The EDGE survey results support the forecast, provided budget can be obtained, that agencies will be in an improved state of information governance within the next two years. This will be an improvement for FOIA request compliance, efficient litigation with the government and increase their ability to effectively conduct internal investigations.

Many would have projected that the results of the survey question on what drives information governance in the government would be litigation, internal investigations, and FOIA requests respectively. And yet, FOIA has recently taken on a more important role given the Obama administration’s focus on transparency and the increased number of requests by citizens. While any one of the drivers could have facilitated updates in process and technology the government clearly needs, FOIA has positive momentum behind it and seems to be the impetus primarily driving information governance. Fortunately, archiving and eDiscovery technology, only two parts of information governance continuum, can help with all three of the aforementioned drivers with different workflows.

Later this month we will examine NARA’s directive and what the impact will be on the government’s technology environment – stay tuned.

Gartner recently released its 2012 Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software, which is its annual report analyzing the state of the electronic discovery industry. Many vendors in the Magic Quadrant (MQ) may initially focus on their position and the juxtaposition of their competitive neighbors along the Visionary – Execution axis. While a very useful exercise, there are also a number of additional nuggets in the MQ, particularly regarding Gartner’s overview of the market, anticipated rates of consolidation and future market direction.

Context

For those of us who’ve been around the eDiscovery industry since its infancy, it’s gratifying to see the electronic discovery industry mature.  As Gartner concludes, the promise of this industry isn’t off in the future, it’s now:

“E-discovery is now a well-established fact in the legal and judicial worlds. … The growth of the e-discovery market is thus inevitable, as is the acceptance of technological assistance, even in professions with long-standing paper traditions.”

The past wasn’t always so rosy, particularly when the market was dominated by hundreds of service providers that seemed to hold on by maintaining a few key relationships, combined with relatively high margins.

“The market was once characterized by many small providers and some large ones, mostly employed indirectly by law firms, rather than directly by corporations. …  Purchasing decisions frequently reflected long-standing trusted relationships, which meant that even a small book of business was profitable to providers and the effects of customary market forces were muted. Providers were able to subsist on one or two large law firms or corporate clients.”

Consolidation

The Magic Quadrant correctly notes that these “salad days” just weren’t feasible long term. Gartner sees the pace of consolidation heating up even further, with some players striking it rich and some going home empty handed.

“We expect that 2012 and 2013 will see many of these providers cease to exist as independent entities for one reason or another — by means of merger or acquisition, or business failure. This is a market in which differentiation is difficult and technology competence, business model rejuvenation or size are now required for survival. … The e-discovery software market is in a phase of high growth, increasing maturity and inevitable consolidation.”

Navigating these treacherous waters isn’t easy for eDiscovery providers, nor is it simple for customers to make purchasing decisions if they’re correctly concerned that the solution they buy today won’t be around tomorrow.  Yet, despite the prognostication of an inevitable shakeout (Gartner forecasts that the market will shrink 25% in the raw number of firms claiming eDiscovery products/services) they are still very bullish about the sector.

“Gartner estimates that the enterprise e-discovery software market came to $1 billion in total software vendor revenue in 2010. The five-year CAGR to 2015 is approximately 16%.”

This certainly means there’s a window of opportunity for certain players – particularly those who help larger players fill out their EDRM suite of offerings, since the best of breed era is quickly going by the wayside.  Gartner notes that end-to-end functionality is now table stakes in the eDiscovery space.

“We have seen a large upsurge in user requests for full-spectrum EDRM functionality. Whether that functionality will be used initially, or at all, remains an open question. Corporate buyers do seem minded to future-proof their investments in this way, by anticipating what they may wish to do with the software and the vendor in the future.”

Information Governance

Not surprisingly, it’s this “full-spectrum” functionality that most closely aligns with marrying the reactive, right side of the EDRM with the proactive, left side.  In concert, this yin and yang is referred to as information governance, and it’s this notion that’s increasingly driving buying behaviors.

“It is clear from our inquiry service that the desire to bring e-discovery under control by bringing data under control with retention management is a strategy that both legal and IT departments pursue in order to control cost and reduce risks. Sometimes the archiving solution precedes the e-discovery solution, and sometimes it follows it, but Gartner clients that feel the most comfortable with their e-discovery processes and most in control of their data are those that have put archiving systems in place …”

As Gartner looks out five years, the analyst firm anticipates more progress on the information governance front, because the “entire e-discovery industry is founded on a pile of largely redundant, outdated and trivial data.”  At some point this digital landfill is going to burst and organizations are finally realizing that if they don’t act now, it may be too late.

“During the past 10 to 15 years, corporations and individuals have allowed this data to accumulate for the simple reason that it was easy — if not necessarily inexpensive — to do so. … E-discovery has proved to be a huge motivation for companies to rethink their information management policies. The problem of determining what is relevant from a mass of information will not be solved quickly, but with a clear business driver (e-discovery) and an undeniable return on investment (deleting data that is no longer required for legal or business purposes can save millions of dollars in storage costs) there is hope for the future.”

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software is insightful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how it portrays the developing maturity of the electronic discovery space. In just a few short years, the niche has sprouted wings, raced to $1B and is seeing massive consolidation. As we enter the next phase of maturation, we’ll likely see the sector morph into a larger, information governance play, given customers’ “full-spectrum” functionality requirements and the presence of larger, mainstream software companies.  Next on the horizon is the subsuming of eDiscovery into both the bigger information governance umbrella, as well as other larger adjacent plays like “enterprise information archiving, enterprise content management, enterprise search and content analytics.” The rapid maturation of the eDiscovery industry will inevitably result in growing pains for vendors and practitioners alike, but in the end we’ll all benefit.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Recent transcripts reveal that 7th Circuit Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan has urged the parties in Kleen Products, LLC, et. al. v. Packaging Corporation of America, et. al. to focus on developing a mutually agreeable keyword search strategy for eDiscovery instead of debating whether other search and review methodologies would yield better results. This is big news for litigators and others in the electronic discovery space because many perceived Kleen Products as potentially putting keyword search technology on trial, compared to newer technology like predictive coding. Considering keyword search technology is still widely used in eDiscovery, a ruling by Judge Nolan requiring defendants to redo part of their production using technology other than keyword searches would sound alarm bells for many litigators.

The controversy surrounding Kleen Products relates both to Plaintiffs’ position, as well as the status of discovery in the case. Plaintiffs initially asked Judge Nolan to order Defendants to redo their previous productions and all future productions using alternative technology.  The request was surprising to many observers because some Defendants had already spent thousands of hours reviewing and producing in excess of one million documents. That number has since surpassed three million documents.  Among other things, Plaintiffs claim that if Defendants had used “Content Based Advanced Analytics” tools (a term they did not define) such as predictive coding technology, then their production would have been more thorough. Notably, Plaintiffs do not appear to point to any instances of specific documents missing from Defendants’ productions.

In response, Defendants countered that their use of keyword search technology and their eDiscovery methodology in general was extremely rigorous and thorough. More specifically, they highlight their use of advanced culling and analysis tools (such as domain filtering and email threading) in addition to keyword search tools.  Plaintiffs also claim they cooperated with Defendants by allowing them to participate in the selection of keywords used to search for relevant documents.  Perhaps going above and beyond the eDiscovery norm, the Defendants even instituted a detailed document sampling approach designed to measure the quality of their document productions.

Following two full days of expert witness testimony regarding the adequacy of Plaintiffs’ initial productions, Judge Nolan finally asked the parties to try and reach compromise on the “Boolean” keyword approach.  She apparently reasoned that having the parties work out a mutually agreeable approach based on what Defendants had already implemented was preferable to scheduling yet another full day of expert testimony — even though additional expert testimony is still an option.

In a nod to the Sedona Principles, she further explained her rationale on March 28, 2012, at the conclusion of the second day of testimony:

“the defendants had done a lot of work, the defendant under Sedona 6 has the right to pick the [eDiscovery] method. Now, we all know, every court in the country has used Boolean search, I mean, this is not like some freak thing that they [Defendants] picked out…”

Judge Nolan’s reliance on the Sedona Best Practices Recommendations & Principles for Addressing Electronic Document Production reveals how she would likely rule if Plaintiffs renew their position that Defendants should have used predictive coding or some other kind of technology in lieu of keyword searches. Sedona Principle 6 states that:

“[r]esponding parties are best situated to evaluate the procedures, methodologies, and technologies appropriate for preserving and producing their own electronically stored information.”

In other words, Judge Nolan confirmed that in her court, opposing parties typically may not dictate what technology solutions their opponents must use without some indication that the technology or process used failed to yield accurate results. Judge Nolan also observed that quality and accuracy are key guideposts regardless of the technology utilized during the eDiscovery process:

“what I was learning from the two days, and this is something no other court in the country has really done too, is how important it is to have quality search. I mean, if we want to use the term “quality” or “accurate,” but we all want this…– how do you verify the work that you have done already, is the way I put it.”

Although Plaintiffs have reserved their right to reintroduce their technology arguments, recent transcripts suggest that Defendants will not be required to use different technology. Plaintiffs continue to meet and confer with individual Defendants to agree on keyword searches, as well as the types of data sources that must be included in the collection. The parties and Judge also appear to agree that they would like to continue making progress with 30(b)(6) depositions and other eDiscovery issues before Judge Nolan retires in a few months, rather than begin a third day of expert hearings regarding technology related issues. This appears to be good news for the Judge and the parties since the eDiscovery issues now seem to be headed in the right direction as a result of mutual cooperation between the parties and some nudging by Judge Nolan.

There is also good news for outside observers in that Judge Nolan has provided some sage guidance to help future litigants before she steps down from the bench. For example, it is clear that Judge Nolan and other judges continue to emphasize the importance of cooperation in today’s complex new world of technology. Parties should be prepared to cooperate and be more transparent during discovery given the judiciary’s increased reliance on the Sedona Cooperation Proclamation. Second, Kleen Products illustrates that keyword search is not dead. Instead, keyword search should be viewed as one of many tools in the Litigator’s Toolbelt™ that can be used with other tools such as email threading, advanced filtering technology, and even predictive coding tools.  Finally, litigators should take note that regardless of the tools they select, they must be prepared to defend their process and use of those tools or risk the scrutiny of judges and opposing parties.

Gartner has just released its 2012 Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software, which is an annual report that analyzes the state of the electronic discovery industry and provides a detailed vendor-by-vendor evaluation. For many, particularly those in IT circles, Gartner is an unwavering north star used to divine software market leaders, in topics ranging from business intelligence platforms to wireless lan infrastructures. When IT professionals are on the cusp of procuring complex software, they look to analysts like Gartner for quantifiable and objective recommendations – as a way to inform and buttress their own internal decision making processes.

But for some in the legal technology field (particularly attorneys), looking to Gartner for software analysis can seem a bit foreign. Legal practitioners are often more comfortable with the “good ole days” when the only navigation aid in the eDiscovery world was provided by the dynamic duo of George Socha and Tom Gelbmanm, who (beyond creating the EDRM) were pioneers of the first eDiscovery rankings survey. Albeit somewhat short lived, their Annual Electronic Discovery[i] Survey ranked the hundreds of eDiscovery providers and bucketed the top tier players in both software and litigation support categories. The scope of their mission was grand, and they were perhaps ultimately undone by the breadth of their task (stopping the Survey in 2010), particularly as the eDiscovery landscape continued to mature, fragment and evolve.

Gartner, which has perfected the analysis of emerging software markets, appears to have taken on this challenge with an admittedly more narrow (and likely more achievable) focus. Gartner published its first Magic Quadrant (MQ) for the eDiscovery industry last year, and in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software report they’ve evaluated the top 21 electronic discovery software vendors. As with all Gartner MQs, their methodology is rigorous; in order to be included, vendors must meet quantitative requirements in market penetration and customer base and are then evaluated upon criteria for completeness of vision and ability to execute.

By eliminating the legion of service providers and law firms, Gartner has made their mission both more achievable and perhaps (to some) less relevant. When talking to certain law firms and litigation support providers, some seem to treat the Gartner initiative (and subsequent Magic Quadrant) like a map from a land they never plan to visit. But, even if they’re not directly procuring eDiscovery software, the Gartner MQ should still be seen by legal technologists as an invaluable tool to navigate the perils of the often confusing and shifting eDiscovery landscape – particularly with the rash of recent M&A activity.

Beyond the quadrant positions[ii], comprehensive analysis and secular market trends, one of the key underpinnings of the Magic Quadrant is that the ultimate position of a given provider is in many ways an aggregate measurement of overall customer satisfaction. Similar in ways to the net promoter concept (which is a tool to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships simply by asking how likely that customer is to recommend a product/service to a colleague), the Gartner MQ can be looked at as the sum total of all customer experiences.[iii] As such, this usage/satisfaction feedback is relevant even for parties that aren’t purchasing or deploying electronic discovery software per se. Outside counsel, partners, litigation support vendors and other interested parties may all end up interacting with a deployed eDiscovery solution (particularly when such solutions have expanded their reach as end-to-end information governance platforms) and they should want their chosen solution to used happily and seamlessly in a given enterprise. There’s no shortage of stories about unhappy outside counsel (for example) that complain about being hamstrung by a slow, first generation eDiscovery solution that ultimately makes their job harder (and riskier).

Next, the Gartner MQ also is a good short-handed way to understand more nuanced topics like time to value and total cost of ownership. While of course related to overall satisfaction, the Magic Quadrant does indirectly address the query about whether the software does what it says it will (delivering on the promise) in the time frame that is claimed (delivering the promise in a reasonable time frame) since these elements are typically subsumed in the satisfaction metric. This kind of detail is disclosed in the numerous interviews that Gartner conducts to go behind the scenes, querying usage and overall satisfaction.

While no navigation aid ensures that a traveler won’t get lost, the Gartner Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software is a useful map of the electronic discovery software world. And, particularly looking at year-over-year trends, the MQ provides a useful way for legal practitioners (beyond the typical IT users) to get a sense of the electronic discovery market landscape as it evolves and matures. After all, staying on top of the eDiscovery industry has a range of benefits beyond just software procurement.

Please register here to access the Gartner Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

The 7th Circuit eDiscovery Pilot Program’s Mock Argument is the first of its kind and is slated for June 14, 2012.  It is not surprising that the Seventh Circuit’s eDiscovery Pilot Program would be the first to host an event like this on predictive coding, as the program has been a progressive model across the country for eDiscovery protocols since 2009.  The predictive coding event is open to the public (registration required) and showcases the expertise of leading litigators, technologists and experts from all over the United States.  Speakers include: Jason R. Baron, Director of Litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration; Maura R. Grossman, Counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Dr. David Lewis, Technology Expert and co-founder of the TREC Legal Track; Ralph Losey, Partner at Jackson Lewis; Matt Nelson, eDiscovery Counsel at Symantec; Lisa Rosen, President of Rosen Technology Resources; Jeff Sharer, Partner at Sidley Austin; and Tomas Thompson, Senior Associate at DLA Piper.

The eDiscovery 2.0 blog has extensively covered the three recent predictive coding cases currently being litigated, and while real court cases are paramount to the direction of predictive coding, the 7th Circuit program will proactively address a scenario that has not yet been considered by a court.  In Da Silva Moore, the parties agreed to the use of predictive coding, but couldn’t subsequently agree on the protocol.  In Kleen, plaintiffs want defendants to redo their review process using predictive coding even though the production is 99% complete.  And, in Global Aerospace the defendant proactively petitioned to use predictive coding over plaintiff’s objections.  By contrast, in the 7th Circuit’s hypothetical, the mock argument predicts another likely predictive coding scenario; the instance where a defendant has a deployed in-house solution in place and argues against the use of predictive coding before discovery has begun.

Traditionally, courts have been reticent to bless or admonish technology, but rather rule on the reasonableness of an organization’s process and depend on expert testimony for issues beyond that scope.  It is expected that predictive coding will follow suit; however, because so little is understood about how the technology works, interest has been generated in a way the legal technology industry has not seen before, as evidenced by this tactical program.

* * *

The hypothetical dispute is a complex litigation matter pending in a U.S. District Court involving a large public corporation that has been sued by a smaller high-tech competitor for alleged anticompetitive conduct, unfair competition and various business torts.  The plaintiff has filed discovery requests that include documents and communications maintained by the defendant corporation’s vast international sales force.  To expedite discovery and level the playing field in terms of resources and costs, the Plaintiff has requested the use of predictive coding to identify and produce responsive documents.  The defendant, wary of the latest (and untested) eDiscovery technology trends, argues that the organization already has a comprehensive eDiscovery program in place.  The defendant will further argue that the technological investment and defensible processes in-house are more than sufficient for comprehensive discovery, and in fact, were designed in order to implement a repeatable and defensible discovery program.  The methodology of the defendant is estimated to take months and result in the typical massive production set, whereas predictive coding would allegedly make for a shorter discovery period.  Because of the burden, the defendant plans to shift some of these costs to the plaintiff.

Ralph Losey’s role will be as the Magistrate Judge, defense counsel will be Martin T. Tully (partner Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP), with Karl Schieneman (of Review Less/ESI Bytes) as the litigation support manager for the corporation and plaintiff’s counsel will be Sean Byrne (eDiscovery solutions director at Axiom) with Herb Roitblat (of OrcaTec) as plaintiff’s eDiscovery consultant.

As the hottest topic in the eDiscovery world, the promises of predictive coding include: increased search accuracy for relevant documents, decreased cost and time spent for manual review, and possibly greater insight into an organization’s corpus of data allowing for more strategic decision making with regard to early case assessment.  The practical implications of predictive coding use are still to be determined and programs like this one will flesh out some of those issues before they get to the courts, which is good for practitioners and judges alike.  Stay tuned for an analysis of the arguments, as well as a link to the video.

Courts are becoming increasingly cognizant of the eDiscovery burdens that the information explosion has placed on organizations. Indeed, the cases from 2012 are piling up in which courts have rejected demands that sanctions be imposed for seemingly reasonable information retention practices. The recent case of Grabenstein v. Arrow Electronics (D. Colo. April 23, 2012) is another notable instance of this trend.

In Grabenstein, the court refused to sanction a company for eliminating emails pursuant to a good faith document retention policy. The plaintiff had argued that drastic sanctions (evidence, adverse inference and monetary) should be imposed on the company since relevant emails regarding her alleged disability were not retained in violation of both its eDiscovery duties and an EEOC regulatory retention obligation. The court disagreed, finding that sanctions were inappropriate because the emails were not deleted before the duty to preserve was triggered: “Plaintiff has not provided any evidence that Defendant deleted e-mails after the litigation hold was imposed.”

Furthermore, the court declined to issue sanctions of any kind even though it found that the company deleted emails in violation of its EEOC regulatory retention duty. The court adopted this seemingly incongruous position because the emails were overwritten pursuant to a reasonable document retention policy:

“there is no evidence to show that the e-mails were destroyed in other than the normal course of business pursuant to Defendant’s e-mail retention policy or that Defendant intended to withhold unfavorable information from Plaintiff.”

The Grabenstein case reinforces the principle that reasonable information retention and eDiscovery processes can and often do trump sanctions requests. Just like the defendant in Grabenstein, organizations should develop and follow a retention policy that eliminates data stockpiles before litigation is reasonably anticipated. Grabenstein also demonstrates the value of deploying a timely and comprehensive litigation hold process to ensure that relevant electronically stored information (ESI) is retained once a preservation duty is triggered. These principles are consistent with various other recent cases, including a decision last month in which pharmaceutical giant Pfizer defeated a sanctions motion by relying on its “good faith business procedures” to eliminate legacy materials before a duty to preserve arose.

The Grabenstein holding also spotlights the role that proportionality can play in determining the extent of a party’s preservation duties. The Grabenstein court reasoned that sanctions would be inappropriate since plaintiff managed to obtain the destroyed emails from an alternative source. Without expressly mentioning “proportionality,” the court implicitly drew on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(2)(C) to reach its “no harm, no foul” approach to plaintiff’s sanctions request. Rule 2626(b)(2)(C)(i) empowers a court to limit discovery when it is “unreasonably cumulative or duplicative, or can be obtained from some other source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive.” Given that plaintiff actually had the emails in question and there was no evidence suggesting other ESI had been destroyed, proportionality standards tipped the scales against the sanctions request.

The Grabenstein holding is good news for organizations looking to reduce their eDiscovery costs and burdens. By refusing to accede to a tenuous sanctions motion and by following principles of proportionality, the court sustained reasonableness over “gotcha” eDiscovery tactics. If courts adhere to the Grabenstein mantra that preservation and production should be reasonable and proportional, organizations truly stand a better chance of seeing their litigation costs and burdens reduced accordingly.

The myriad of published material regarding predictive coding technology has almost universally promised reduced costs and lighter burdens for the eDiscovery world. Indeed, until the now famous order was issued in the Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe case “approving” the use of predictive coding, many in the industry had parroted this “lower costs/lighter burdens” mantra like the retired athletes who chanted “tastes great/less filling” during the 1970s Miller Lite commercials. But a funny thing happened on the way to predictive coding satisfying the cost cutting mandate of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1: the same old eDiscovery story of high costs and lengthy delays are plaguing the initial outlay of this technology. The three publicized cases involving predictive coding are particularly instructive on this early, but troubling development.

Predictive Coding Cases

In Moore v. Publicis Groupe, the plaintiffs’ attempt to recuse Judge Peck has diverted the spotlight from the costs and delays associated with use of predictive coding. Indeed, the parties have been wrangling for months over the parameters of using this technology for defendant MSL’s document review. During that time, each side has incurred substantial attorney fees and other costs to address fairly routine review issues. This tardiness figures to continue as the parties now project that MSL’s production will not be complete until September 7, 2012. Even that date seems too sanguine, particularly given Judge Peck’s recent observation about the slow pace of production: “You’re now woefully behind schedule already at the first wave.” Moreover, Judge Peck has suggested on multiple occasions that a special master be appointed to address disagreements over relevance designations. Special masters, production delays, additional briefings and related court hearings all lead to the inescapable conclusion that the parties will be saddled with a huge eDiscovery bill (despite presumptively lower review costs) due to of the use of predictive coding technology.

The Kleen Products v. Packing Corporation case is also plagued by cost and delay issues. As explained in our post on this case last month, the plaintiffs are demanding a “do-over” of the defendants’ document production, insisting that predictive coding technology be used instead of keyword search and other analytical tools. Setting aside plaintiffs’ arguments, the costs the parties have incurred in connection with this motion are quickly mounting. After submitting briefings on the issues, the court has now held two hearings on the matter, including a full day of testimony from the parties’ experts. With another “Discovery Hearing” now on the docket for May 22nd, predictive coding has essentially turned an otherwise routine document production query into an expensive, time consuming sideshow with no end in sight.

Cost and delay issues may very well trouble the parties in the Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation matter, too. In Global Aerospace, the court acceded to the defendants’ request to use predictive coding technology over the plaintiffs’ objections. Despite allowing the use of such technology, the court provided plaintiffs with the opportunity to challenge the “completeness or the contents of the production or the ongoing use of predictive coding technology.” Such a condition essentially invites plaintiffs to re-litigate their objections through motion practice. Moreover, like the proverbial “exception that swallows the rule,” the order allows for the possibility that the court could withdraw its approval of predictive coding technology. All of which could lead to seemingly endless discovery motions, production “re-dos” and inevitable cost and delay issues.

Better Times Ahead?

At present, the Da Silva Moore, Kleen Products and Global Aerospace cases do not suggest that predictive coding technology will “secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Nevertheless, there is room for considerable optimism that predictive coding will ultimately succeed. Technological advances in the industry will provide greater transparency into the black box of predictive coding technology that to date has not existed. Additional advances should also lead to easy-to-use workflow management consoles, which will in turn increase defensibility of the process and satisfy legitimate concerns regarding production results, such as those raised by the plaintiffs in Moore and Global Aerospace.

Technological advances that also increase the accuracy of first generation predictive coding tools should yield greater understanding and acceptance about the role predictive coding can play in eDiscovery. As lawyers learn to trust the reliability of transparent predictive coding, they will appreciate how this tool can be deployed in various scenarios (e.g., prioritization, quality assurance for linear review, full scale production) and in connection with existing eDiscovery technologies. In addition, such understanding will likely facilitate greater cooperation among counsel, a lynchpin for expediting the eDiscovery process. This is evident from the Moore, Kleen Products and Global Aerospace cases, where a lack of cooperation has caused increased costs and delays.

With the promise of transparency and simpler workflows, predictive coding technology should eventually live up to its billing of helping organizations discover their information in an efficient, cost effective and defensible manner.  As for now, the “promise” of first generation predictive coding tools appears to be nothing more than that, leaving organizations looking like the cash-strapped “Monopoly man,” wondering where there litigation dollars have gone.

It’s no surprise that the eDiscovery frenzy gripping the American legal system over the past decade has become increasingly expensive.  Particularly costly to organizations is the process of preserving and collecting documents, a fact repeatedly emphasized by the Advisory Committee in its report regarding the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP).  These aspects of discovery are often lengthy and can be disruptive to business operations.  Just as troubling, they increase the duration and expense of litigation.

Because these costs and delays affect the courts as well as clients, it comes as no surprise that judges have now heightened their expectation for how organizations store, manage and discover their electronically stored information (ESI).  Gone are the days when enterprises could plead ignorance for not preserving or producing their data in an efficient, cost effective and defensible manner.  Organizations must now follow best practices – both during and before litigation – if they are to safely navigate the stormy seas of eDiscovery.

The importance of deploying such practices applies acutely to those organizations that are exploring “cloud”-based alternatives to traditional methods for preserving and producing electronic information.  Under the right circumstances, the cloud may represent a fantastic opportunity to streamline the eDiscovery process for an organization.  Yet it could also turn into a dangerous liaison if the cloud offering is not properly scrutinized for basic eDiscovery functionality.  Indeed, the City of Los Angeles’s recent decision to partially disengage from its cloud service provider exemplifies this admonition to “look before you leap” to the cloud.  Thus, before selecting a cloud provider for eDiscovery, organizations should be particularly careful to ensure that a provider has the ability both to efficiently retrieve data from the cloud and to issue litigation hold notices.

Effective Data Retrieval Requires Efficient Data Storage

The hype surrounding the cloud has generally focused on the opportunity for cheap and unlimited storage of information.  Storage, however, is only one of many factors to consider in selecting a cloud-based eDiscovery solution.  To be able to meet the heightened expectations of courts and regulatory bodies, organizations must have the actual – not theoretical – ability to retrieve their data in real time.  Otherwise, they may not be able to satisfy eDiscovery requests from courts or regulatory bodies, let alone the day-to-day demands of their operations.

A key step to retrieving company data in a timely manner is to first confirm whether the cloud offering can intelligently organize that information such that organizations can quickly respond to discovery requests and other legal demands.  This includes the capacity to implement and observe company retention protocols.  Just like traditional data archiving software, the cloud must enable automated retention rules and thus limit the retention of information to a designated time period.  This will enable data to be expired once it reaches the end of that period.

The pool of data can be further decreased through single instance storage.  This deduplication technology eliminates redundant data by preserving only a master copy of each document placed into the cloud.  This will reduce the amount of data that needs to be identified, preserved, collected and reviewed as part of any discovery process.  For while unlimited data storage may seem ideal now, reviewing unlimited amounts of data will quickly become a logistical and costly nightmare.

Any viable cloud offering should also have the ability to suspend automated document retention/deletion rules to ensure the adequate preservation of relevant information.  This goes beyond placing a hold on archival data in the cloud.  It requires that an organization have the ability to identify the data sources in the cloud that may contain relevant information and then modify aspects of its retention policies to ensure that cloud-stored data is retained for eDiscovery.  Taking this step will enable an organization to create a defensible document retention strategy and be protected from court sanctions under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) “safe harbor.”  The decision from Viramontes v. U.S. Bancorp (N.D. Ill. Jan. 27, 2011) is particularly instructive on this issue.

In Viramontes, the defendant bank defeated a sanctions motion because it timely modified aspects of its email retention policy.  The bank implemented a policy that kept emails for 90 days, after which the emails were deleted.  That policy was promptly suspended, however, once litigation was reasonably foreseeable.  Because the bank followed that procedure in good faith, it was protected from sanctions under Rule 37(e).

As the Viramontes case shows, an organization can be prepared for eDiscovery disputes by appropriately suspending aspects of its document retention policies.  By creating and then faithfully observing a policy that requires retention policies be suspended on the occurrence of litigation or other triggering event, an organization can develop a defensible retention procedure. Having such eDiscovery functionality in a cloud provider will likely facilitate an organization’s eDiscovery process and better insulate it from litigation disasters.

The Ability to Issue Litigation Hold Notices

To be effective for eDiscovery purposes, a cloud service provider must also enable an organization to deploy a litigation hold to prevent users from destroying data. Unless the cloud has litigation hold technology, the entire discovery process may very well collapse.  For electronic data to be produced in litigation, it must first be preserved.  And it cannot be preserved if the key players or data source custodians are unaware that such information must be retained.  Indeed, employees and data sources may discard and overwrite electronically stored information if they are oblivious to a preservation duty.

A cloud service provider should therefore enable automated legal hold acknowledgements.  Such technology will allow custodians to be promptly and properly notified of litigation and thereby retain information that might otherwise have been discarded.  Inadequate litigation hold technology leaves organizations vulnerable to data loss and court punishment.

Conclusion

Confirming that a cloud offering can quickly retrieve and efficiently store enterprise data while effectively deploying litigation hold notices will likely address the basic concerns regarding its eDiscovery functionality. Yet these features alone will not make that solution the model of eDiscovery cloud providers. Advanced search capabilities should also be included to reduce the amount of data that must be analyzed and reviewed downstream. In addition, the cloud ought to support load files in compatible formats for export to third party review software. The cloud should additionally provide an organization with a clear audit trail establishing that neither its documents, nor their metadata were modified when transmitted to the cloud.  Without this assurance, an organization may not be able to comply with key regulations or establish the authenticity of its data in court. Finally, ensure that these provisions are memorialized in the service level agreement governing the relationship between the organization and the cloud provider.