Total Review Cost of Training Selection Methods

By William Webber

My previous post described in some detail the conditions of finite population annotation that apply to e-discovery. To summarize, what we care about (or at least should care about) is not maximizing classifier accuracy in itself, but minimizing the total cost of achieving a target level of recall. The predominant cost in the review stage is that of having human experts train the classifier, and of having human reviewers review the documents that the classifier predicts as responsive. Each relevant document found in training is one fewer that must be looked at in review. Therefore, training example selection methods [...]

Read the complete article at: Total review cost of training selection methods

Is the IRS’s Inability to Find Emails the Result of Unethical Behavior?

By Ralph Losey

The IRS seems inherently incapable of finding emails. The most famous incident that everyone has heard about, and many have complained about, is the loss of emails of key witnesses in a Congressional investigation of the IRS tea party targeting scandal . In June 2014 the IRS admitted that it could not find many of the emails of the key witness, Lois Lerner. Lerner is the first IRS official to admit that agents had improperly scrutinized tax exempt applications. When she was subpoenaed to testify before Congress, she plead the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any questions. She is not the only IRS official [...]

Read the complete article at: Is the IRS’s Inability to Find Emails the Result of Unethical Behavior? New Opinion by U.S. Tax Court Provides Some Clues – Part One

Trademark Infringement in Blogging? (Cartoon and Clip)

Keeping up with the many comments and commentators in the data discovery and governance blogosphere can be quite challenging given the multitude of information, opinion and news blogs. This week’s cartoon and clip features a unique challenge to today’s bloggers  (cartoon) and a non-all inclusive running list of approximately 30 recent and relevant eDiscovery and information governance related blog posts (clip).

Click here to find running listing of the approximately 30 recent and relevant eDiscovery and information governance blog posts as shared on the ComplexDiscovery blog.

At That Time: The Dynamo Case on Predictive Coding

By Hal Marcus

On September 16, I posted about the impact of timing on predictive coding in light of recent caselaw. Timing indeed being everything, an intriguing new opinion on this point was handed down the very next day. In Dynamo Holdings v. Comm’r , the IRS Commissioner sought to compel production of the contents of backup tapes containing at least several million documents. It objected to the producing parties’ request to use predictive coding to review them, calling it an “unproven technology.” In his opinion, Judge Ronald Buch rejects the IRS’ motion, detailing the substantial judicial and industry acceptance of predictive coding. He emphasizes the discretion that producing parties have in conducting document review, bluntly questioning why the use of predictive coding should even be before the court [...]

Read the complete article at: At That Time: The Dynamo Case on Predictive Coding

The Two Deadly Sins Hobbling Technology-enabled Solutions in eDiscovery

By Gerard Britton

There are some interesting observations about predictive coding’s “failure to launch”.Here are two recommendations that mitigate most if not all of the impediments to technology-enabled solutions: inordinate cost and unsatisfactory performance. Cost: Reduce Prices Most knowledgeable people in the industry are aware that predictive coding vendors adopted a discount-off-of-the-alternative-manual-review-cost pricing model that assured hefty profits but bore no rational relationship to their own actual costs.Not only did this in some cases result in no actual savings; most importantly, it has occasioned the re-introduction of a process that advocates promised it would replace: key word culling. As the recall metrics [...]

Read the complete article at: The Two Deadly Sins Hobbling Technology-enabled Solutions in eDiscovery

Why NOT Use PC-TAR?

By Greg Buckles

Extract:  So here are my Top Ten Reasons Why NOT [To Use] PC-TAR:

1. Perception that PC-TAR costs front load the discovery cost for matters that WILL settle before trial.
2. High resistance to analytic upcharges. Have to justify them on every matter, so go with path of least resistance.
3. Complexity of systems and fear that counsel will not be able to defend what they do not understand.
4. Customers on information overload. Marketing fatigue and growing customer indifference.
5. Perception that PC-TAR reinforces known relevant selection and misses unknown/new documents.
6. Rumors of SEC/DOJ in some areas fighting PC-TAR proposals.
7. Realization that 95-99% recall in PC-TAR training will result in 300-500% production size. Exposure of large volumes of non-relevant ESI a serious concern for companies facing serial plaintiffs that are on fishing expeditions.
8. Mature corporate customers already cull and optimize during collection or processing. If they can achieve substantial savings prioritizing/clustering review sets, why pay for actual PC-TAR analytics?
9. Counsel does not want to operate PC-TAR systems. Wants Litsupport or provider to run it.
10. PC-TAR takes money from the firm. Takes away associate jobs.

Do I believe that most of these market perceptions are true. No, I do not. However, they all contribute to the slow adoption rates for actual use of machine learning technology in traditional discovery review for production.

Read the complete article at: Why NOT Use PC-TAR?

Over Delegating e-Discovery Preservation and Search to a Client?

     By Ralph Losey 

Bad things tend to happen when lawyers delegate e-discovery responsibility to their clients. As all informed lawyers know, lawyers have a duty to actively supervise their client’s preservation. They cannot just turn a blind eye; just send out written notices and forget it. Lawyers have an even higher duty to manage discovery, including search and production of electronic evidence. They cannot just turn e-discovery over to a client and then sign the response to the request for production. The only possible exception proves the rule. If a client has in-house legal counsel, and if they appear of record in the case, and if the in-house counsel signs the discovery response, then, and only then, is outside counsel (somewhat) off the hook. Then they can lay back, a little bit, but, trust me, this almost never happens.

Read the complete article at: What Can Happen When Lawyers Over Delegate e-Discovery Preservation and Search to a Client