Information Governance (InfoGovernance) is the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archiving and deletion of information. It includes the processes, roles, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information to enable an organization to achieve its goals. Information governance should be an element in planning an enterprise's information architecture.

(Gartner Hype Cycle for Legal and Regulatory Information Governance, 2009, December 2009).

An Engagement Area (EA) is an area where the commander of a military force intends to contain and destroy an enemy force with the massed effects of all available weapons systems.

(FM 1-02, Operational Terms and Graphics, September 2004).

Friday, March 27, 2015

Study Shows People Act To Protect Privacy When Told How Often Phone Apps Share Personal Information

By Byron Spice
Message That Grabs Attention: “Your Location Has Been Shared 5,398 Times”
Many smartphone users know that free apps sometimes share private information with third parties, but few, if any, are aware of how frequently this occurs. An experiment at Carnegie Mellon University shows that when people learn exactly how many times these apps share that information they rapidly act to limit further sharing.
In one phase of a study that evaluated the benefits of app permission managers – software that gives people control over what sensitive information their apps can access – 23 smartphone users received a daily message, or “privacy nudge,” telling them how many times information such as location, contact lists or phone call logs had been shared.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Too Many Notes: In re: Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation

By Craig Ball
The core challenge of discovery is identifying information that is responsive but not privileged, achieved without undue burden or expense.  There are multiple ways to approach the task, none optimal. The most labor-intensive method is called “linear human review,” where lawyers (for the most part) look at everything and cull responsive and privileged items.  It sufficed in the pre-digital era when much effort and resources were devoted to recordkeeping.  Despite being costly, slow and error prone, linear review was all we had, so became the gold standard for identifying responsive and privileged information.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Frivolous Law Suits? 26+ Reasons to Laugh at eDiscovery (Cartoon and Clip)

The Cartoon and Clip of the Week for March 25, 2015

Regularly we read, see and hear incredibly serious presentations and pontifications related to the theory, practice and business of electronic discovery.  This week our cartoon and clip features a quick look at Rule 26(f) conference planning for a frivolous lawsuit (cartoon) and a quick reference link to a very serious retrospective listing of 26 eDiscovery-related cartoons (clip).


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The Humor of eDiscovery: 26 Cartoons and Clips

Click here for a short retrospective of 26 recent eDiscovery-related cartoons and clips published on the ComplexDiscovery Blog.



Monday, March 23, 2015

Do smart machines require ethical programming?

From Help Net Security
Realizing the potential of smart machines — and ensuring successful outcomes for the businesses that rely on them — will hinge on how trusted smart machines are and how well they maintain that trust. Central to establishing this trust will be ethical values that people recognize and are comfortable with. “Clearly, people must trust smart machines if they are to accept and use them,” said Frank Buytendijk, research vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “The ability to earn trust must be part of any plan to implement artificial intelligence (AI) or smart machines, and will be an important selling point when marketing this technology. CIOs must be able to monitor smart machine technology for unintended consequences of public use and respond immediately, embracing unforeseen positive outcomes and countering undesirable ones.”

A Look Back: NetDiligence 2014 Cyber Claims Study

From Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry
The NetDiligence 2014 Cyber Claims Study relies on data voluntarily provided by insurers about amounts paid out on cyber claims occurring from 2011 through 2013. Since the Study only accounts cyber claims reported to larger insurers, NetDiligence believes its study only accounts for 5-10% of the total number of all cyber claims handled in those years.
Among the highlights, the Study found that the predominant type of information exposed in any cyber claim remains personally identifiable information (“PII”). Under a definition of PII expanded to include email addresses and passwords, 97% of the information exposed constitutes PII. The remaining data exposed included protected health information (“PHI”) under HIPPA and payment card information (“PCI”).

Friday, March 20, 2015

Ending the Debate on TAR Seed Sets

By Hal Marcus
In the wake of Judge Peck’s recent Rio Tinto opinion on technology assisted review, the ediscovery blogosphere has been repeatedly quoting its bold pronouncements that judicial acceptance of TAR “is now black letter law” and that “it is inappropriate to hold TAR to a higher standard than keywords or manual review.” And rightly so — these statements appear intended to put outdated predictive coding debates to rest once and for all. Yet a good deal of the focus is going to the question Judge Peck raises but does not fully resolve: whether disclosure of TAR seed sets may be required.

‘Have you Taken Leave of Your Senses?': Top 10 Takeaways from 2015 LegalTech Judges Panel

By Tamara Emory
At this year’s Legal Tech, I once again had the honor of moderating the Judges Panel, on which Judge John Facciola (D.D.C., retired), Judge Andrew Peck (S.D.N.Y), Judge Frank Maas (S.D.N.Y), and Judge Elizabeth Laporte (N.D.Cal.) presented.  This time, we had a provocative topic (or, perhaps –as Judge Peck put it–, a depressing one): “What’s Wrong with Discovery?”  The judges had plenty of insight into why discovery has become risky and expensive, what causes attorney misconduct in discovery, and implications for access to justice.  Below are ten highlights of that discussion.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

2015 Big Data and Analytics Survey

By IDG Enterprise
The 2015 Big Data and Analytics study highlights data-driven initiatives and strategies driving data investments within IT organizations. In order to gain a deeper understanding of organizations’ big data goals and tactics, the research shows data deployment trends, future investment growth and opportunities for vendors.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Elephants, Review, and Marilyn Monroe Wallpaper: Why eDiscovery Review is so Inconsistent

By Herbert L. Roitblat
One advantage of using computer assisted review, for example, predictive coding, is that the computer does, in fact, examine all of the available evidence in a document. Unlike human reviewers, the computer sees all parts of the elephant and, as a result, consistently judges documents based on the full complement of information in them. Each of reviewer judgment used to train the system may be based on a sample of features, but the computer system aggregates all of these partial judgments and chooses the category that is most consistent with this aggregation of cues, rather than with any individual sample. As a result, the computer can be more consistent than the human reviewer who trains trains it. Under appropriate circumstances, this consistency further enhances the accuracy and reliability of computer assisted review.

A Short List of eDiscovery Investors

Provided below is a link to short list of 30+ investment organizations that have funded eDiscovery-related companies between 2009 and today.  The list is non-comprehensive and is based on industry mergers, acquisitions and investment tracking by ComplexDiscovery.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The eDisclosure Systems Buyers Guide – 2015 Edition

The eDisclosure Systems – Buyers Guide – 2015 Edition

Authored by litigation support expert Andrew Haslam of U.K. based Allvision Computing, the The eDisclosure Systems Buyers Guide – 2015 Edition, provides an overview of key technology considerations, industry approaches and vendor capabilities regarding the discipline of eDisclosure (eDiscovery).  Covering topics from the EDRM Model to vendor service and software analysis, the guide provides a complete and credible resource for legal and IT professionals seeking to understand and apply eDisclosure (eDiscovery) concepts, processes, techniques and tools.
The guide can be direct downloaded at:
Additional considerations, comments and commendations can he shared with the author at
©Allvision Computing Ltd  2015

The Cost of Email: Metrics and Mentions (Cartoon and Clip)

The Cartoon and Clip of the Week for March 11, 2015

Daily we read, see and hear more and more about the challenge and cost of managing email. This week our cartoon and clip features a metric highlighting one cost of email (cartoon) and four quick reference links to recent mentions of the potential impact of organizational email practices (clip).


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Managing Email? Four Mentions of Interest

Provided below are links (via Twitter) to four recent mentions related to the management of email.
1. CNN: Baron: Use of Personal Email Server 'Highly Unusual' with Jason R. Baron (Click Here)
2. Your Work Emails are Now Worth Millions of Dollars -- to Lawyers by Jennifer Booton (Click Here)
3. What Should Law Enforcement Agents Do If A Suspect’s E-Mails Are Stored Abroad? by Gary Discovery (Click Here)
4. 10 Tips for Crafting a Document Retention Policy by Michael Murphy (Click Here)
Click here to follow all ComplexDiscovery cartoons and clips.

Predictive Coding – what happened to the next big thing?

In 2010, “predictive coding” or “computer-assisted review” was considered the next big thing in ediscovery, destined to replace linear review and keyword searching as the predominant methodology during document review. Fast forward 5 years and where are we? Has the “next big thing” arrived? Predictive coding, which uses computer algorithms to determine which documents are most likely to be relevant based on a sample set of documents reviewed by a subject matter expert (i.e. lawyers), can result in substantial cost savings. It can be used to cull the volume of documents to be reviewed or prioritise […]

Sunday, March 8, 2015

A Short List of Public Companies with eDiscovery-releated Offerings

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Provided below is a short list of 20+ publicly traded companies that offer eDiscovery-related offerings as part of their overall offering portfolio.
The purpose of this short list is to simply highlight those companies with a public status that allows for deeper investigations into the health and wealth of their eDiscovery business.
The “Short List”
Click here to provide additions, corrections and/or updates.
Source: Public Domain

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Judge Peck’s Latest: TAR Now ‘Black Letter Law’; CAL Reduces Significance of Seed Set

In an opinion released yesterday, Judge Peck says that, in the years since Da Silva Moore, “the case law has developed to the point that it is now black letter law that where the producing party wants to utilize TAR for document review, courts will permit it.”
The opinion was issued in the case Rio Tinto PLC v. Vale SA, Case 1:14-cv-03042-RMB-AJP (S.D. N.Y. March 3, 2015). The issue before Judge Peck was approval of the parties’ stipulated TAR protocol. But Judge Peck took the opportunity to address several issues of broader interest to the e-discovery community about TAR cases and protocols.

A Short List of eDiscovery-releated Providers on the 2015 KMWorld 100 List

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Provided below is a short list of sixteen technology/service providers that are highlighted on both the recently published “100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management” listing from KMWorld and on the running “Top 100+Provider” list from ComplexDiscovery.
Both the KMWorld and ComplexDiscovery lists are prepared and presented as subjective (and not all inclusive) listings designed to share a snapshot of important players in the knowledge management and eDiscovery spaces respectively. The purpose of this short list is to simply highlight eDiscovery providers that appear on this year’s KMWorld 100 listing.
The “Short List”
Sources:

Big Data’s Holy Grail: Analyzing Your Facebook Posts

By Peter Barlas
A few of the largest and oldest tech firms may finally get a shot at beating the upstarts in the fast-growing data analytics software market. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ ), Oracle (NYSE: ORCL ) and others are armed with software to tackle what is becoming a growing concern and a big pain for companies: how to derive useful information from the reams of social media conversations, e-mail and other unstructured data on the Internet.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Breaking News: Judge Peck Does It Again, Issues New Predictive Coding Case

By Philip Favro
He’s done it again. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck is at the center of the eDiscovery universe with a new opinion touching on some questions surrounding the use of predictive coding in litigation. On March 2, 2015, Judge Peck issued Rio Tinto Plc v. Vale S.A., approving the parties’ stipulation to use predictive coding in discovery. In connection with his order, Judge Peck offers guidance on the use of predictive coding “because of the interest within the ediscovery community about TAR cases and protocols.”
Most of Rio Tinto is dedicated to discussing the merits of transparency and cooperation in developing predictive coding seed sets. As Judge Peck observes, this issue remains open and there is no definitive answer on the extent of transparency and cooperation required in connection with seed set.

New Video on Best Practices: Protecting Privilege

By Lexbe


Lexbe provides eDiscovery software and services for legal professionals at law firms, corporations, and government agencies.  
Preventing the inadvertent disclosure of privileged information in litigation is increasingly challenging. Technological advancements have ushered in varying mediums of information storage and exchange, such as email and social media, that thoroughly document confidential communications. This data requires additional time and energy to be safeguarded from opposing counsel’s view. Moreover, the volume and location of these privileged communications continue to expand and vary. The consequence for litigation professionals is more privileged documents and data, residing in increasingly disparate formats and locations, with an increased risk of inadvertent disclosure. Fortunately, innovation in eDiscovery technology combined with process and workflow improvements can help you meet the challenge of protecting privilege.
Click here for a demonstration of Lexbe eDiscovery Platform features, a 15 day trial, or for any additional information.
To learn more about Lexbe, visit Lexbe.com

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Prioritizing Information Security? A Reason and Resource (Cartoon and Clip)

Daily we read, see and hear more and more about the challenge of information security for private and public sector organizations. This week’s cartoon and clip features one of the reasons information security is so important to organizational leaders (cartoon) and a quick reference link to one of the most current and comprehensive resources for actionable security-related intelligence for businesses and governments (clip).


InfoSec


Actionable InfoSec Intelligence from Threat Brief

Threat Brief provides info on threats to business, government and personal safety.   
Click here to access the latest threat updates from Threat Brief or follow the latest updates on Twitter via@ThreatBrief.
Click here to follow all ComplexDiscovery cartoons and clips.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Ralph Losey: My Hack of the NSA and Discovery of an Unknown Plan to Use Teams of AI-Enhanced Lawyers and Search Experts to Find Critical Evidence

By Ralph Losey
The Plan for AI-Enhanced search and review is in the form of a detailed 1,500 word outline. It looks like this Plan is commonly used in the future to obtain client and insurer approval of e-discovery review projects. I think that this review Plan of the future is part of a standardized approval process that is eventually set up for client protection. Obviously we have nothing like that now. The plan might even be shared with opposing counsel and the courts, but I cannot be sure of that. I had to make a quick exit from the NSA system before my intrusion was detected.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Here’s Why People Trust Human Judgment Over Algorithms

By Walter Frick
Algorithms make better assessments in a wide range of contexts, and it might seem logical that if people understood that they’d be more trusting. In fact, seeing how algorithms perform makes things worse, because it means seeing the algorithm occasionally make a mistake.

New Webinar – Mitigating the Threat: Lessons Learned from Sony

The attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment exposed sensitive intellectual property, revealed personal employee details, and demonstrated the vulnerabilities of U.S. companies to cyberattack. Two months later, the dust continues to settle as the repercussions of this breach are assessed. Far beyond the millions of dollars in lost revenue, Sony may suffer significant reputational risk and could endure protracted lawsuits for years to come. For the financial industry, the implications of a breach of this magnitude would extend even further, into its fiduciary responsibility to protect the vital economic lifeblood of the United States.
The Sony breach and the recent attack on Swiss bank BCGE should serve as a learning moment at every level of your organization, giving CISO’s and security professionals a greater measure of oversight and demonstrating the importance of optimizing security strategies and investments to executive and board-level decision makers.
Join SRC Cyber and their cyber-security experts to learn from the Sony incident and familiarize yourself with current best practices for building a risk management program for your enterprise.
During this short recorded webinar learn about:
• The Sony breach: malware, data loss, and likely perpetrators
• Lessons learned from 2014 breaches
• Improving cyber situational awareness across the organization
• Executing an incident response plan
• How SRC uses the Cybersecurity Framework to prevent such attacks
Click here to learn more about D.A.R. Partners and how their data sourcing, data sales support, and data consulting services can meet your data, analytics, and research needs.

Relevant Replay: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint

By Elisabeth Bumiller
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.