Pro Bono work is extremely noble work.  The good it does for the people helped and for our souls is hard to match.  But like everything in life, there are challenges associated with it.  From not enough time, to not being able to make it work.  And for as much as we'd like, there are some cases, no matter how much we want to take them on, we just can't.

Have you ever tried to find an answer for your litigation support questions? Were you able to find the answers all in one place?  I bet more than once you might have had better luck asking the magic 8-ball.

Does it seem like you spend more and more time reviewing irrelevant document after document, looking for that one important piece of evidence that will crack the case and get a superior to recognize your efforts?  Recognition that will reassure you that the student loan debt you're still paying off was worth it?  

Do you wish there was a better way?

Mark Brophy at Inside Counsel wrote a great post about putting the safety of your law firm or legal department ahead of quick-fix solutions that jeopardize cyber security.  Security issues often crash more than just a server.  Issues that could risk the confidentiality of client files should always be considered.

Are you aware of your firms cyber security policy? Have you valuated the risk associated with client data?  

How safe is that file transfer program you are using?  Do you utilize Dropbox for client files or transfers?  It might be time to look for something better.  

Don't let this happen to your clients, your firm, or you.

Attorney: "Tom, your confidential files got hacked.  I'm sorry."

 

Tom: ***Click*** (hangs up phone, calls new firm, sues old firm)

INTRODUCTION TO ESI REDUCTION:

Interestingly enough, we cant think of any unstructured data in the world with a higher per capita value than Litigation ESI. When one email or document revision can make or break a multi-million dollar case, discovering relevant information quickly is key.

Litigators generally request a broad scope of documents from the opposition to increase the possibility of finding this key evidence, which makes sense; but also creates a new challenge presented in data processing and review initiatives. Per gigabyte processing fees stack up and good reviewers can review 30-50 documents per hour. How do we ensure our reviewers are working with the most probable relevant data in the collection, and how do we modify scope when new key intel is discovered? 

We believe the answer is found in Platinum's ESI Reduction workflow. With no-nonsense solutions like DE-NIST, Deduplication, Keyword and Metadata limiting, we reliably reduce data volume by 95% before review even starts. Furthermore, the Platinum IDS pricing model only applies ESI processing fees against relevant data after culling. This has, and continues to save our clients millions of dollars a year. 

Every now and again, data reduction just isnt an applicable strategy for one reason or another. In those cases, we process the entire collection for $99.00 flat, after de-duplication, de-nisting and threat assessment. This is yet another way we dont tax our clients for situations they cant control.

High volume review presents even more challenges, but you've got Platinum. We provide the most effecient review platform in the world, and Content Analyst TAR for just $.02 cents per document. 

Interested in learning more? We're interested in meeting you.: Until then, enjoy the infographic below, and check out the links for more information. 

• Data Reduction Strategies: with Platinum IDS
• ESI Management: A core proficency
• Digital Forensics: Demystifying Pandora's Box

I have been meaning to say something about the upcoming ILTA annual educational conference.

Platinum IDS proudly welcomes another firm to the family of Hybrid Hosting Clients. 

We keep hearing more about professional competency in our discussions with our clients and even our internal team. Last week I was verbally crucified by an attorney who was convinced a pad of paper for notes and a pot of coffee was all he needed to review 440,000 documents. He had no use for a database or any kind of metadata filtering, keyword querying or date limiting whatsoever. 

Designed to bolster coding and review decisions, XERA's Keyword Reports can be utilized to broaden or limit the scope of review, or assist in prioritizing documents to assign to litigation support and review teams.

Use it or not, advanced review analytics and Technology Assisted Review (TAR) is here to stay.

A question I like to ask in demonstrations: :)

We just attended a great summit in Phoenix where it was demonstrated that with significant resources, 1.5 Terabyte of client data could be processed in 24 hours with a fair level of ease. This represented about 1,500 custodians, 15 million individual text records, with full metadata extraction, text extraction, OCR where possible and a full database index and optimization. The crowd was seriously impressed.

In search of a better workflow, or at least a better cup of coffee; Our heroes embark on a perilous journey to the land of 1000 rattlesnakes.

Have you considered your overall data security risks?

As unfortunate as it may be, many firms simply select the lowest bidder when it comes to ESI processing and overall management. It's absolutely amazing that some firms would push some of the American economies most valuable and contended trade secrets, human resource data, bank and financial information and more to the lowest bidder, without taking the time and energy to evaluate what the vendor's security practices are.

Speed Case Review with XERA’s Latest Enhancements

Join iCONECT’s product experts on Wednesday, May 21^st at 1:00pm EDT for an educational product demonstration, featuring the latest enhancements to the XERA Review Platform.

Click Here to Register

iCONECT continues to advance XERA’s functionality with features that enable reviewers to confidently assess case documents quickly and efficiently. Join us as we highlight new features in the latest release of XERA, including:

iCONECT Adds New Features to Intuitive XERA Review Platform

Brooks Rogers is a dynamic and important part of Platinum's fractional services offering. A father, a husband, an established musician, and practicing lawyer, Brooks has shown aptitude and appreciation in trial preparation, litigation, and document review.

Document review is tough. we get it.

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)?

How do we think? How do we behave? How do we make our decisions? We like to think we're rational people. But are we? Often we have no issue identifying issues in others, but what about when we look in the mirror? Jack Vison talks about Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, another potential book for your night stand.

Dallas, TX, April 24, 2014 – Platinum Intelligent Data Solutions (“Platinum IDS”) is proud to announce it has earned iCONECT Development’s Platinum Partner Award for 2014, which recognizes demonstrated commitment to excellence in litigation support services as an XERA® service provider.

Platinum IDS, the pioneer of Fractional Litigation Support Management™, combines an exceptional professional staff with an impressive portfolio of cutting-edge litigation support services. In addition to the XERA review platform’s intelligent design and intuitive workflow, Platinum enhances its offerings with Infrastructure, consulting, digital and analog services. Platinum IDS is the innovator behind Hybrid Hosting and Fractional Litigation Support, and is changing the document hosting dynamic for legal organizations everywhere.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
- Winston Churchill

Las Vegas, NV, April 23, 2014 –

iCONECT Development LLC, technology leaders who reach beyond the status quo with an intuitive and flexible document review platform that works the way you think, announces the latest enhancements to its XERA® Review Platform, with an exceptional feature set developed to focus on the unique needs of plaintiff firms. iCONECT software has been selected for use in Class Action and Plaintiff projects worldwide, including Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil, Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, and Chinese-Manufactured Drywall. Already in use by prominent firms across the U.S., iCONECT’s XERA is designed to meet the unique requirements of plaintiff litigation.

This is a quick little blog post to get you started. You can easily edit or delete it from the blog dashboard, accessed from the sprocket menu in the upper right corner of your screen. The power is totally in your hands. 

The NSA knew about the Internet security bug Heartbleed and regularly used it to gather intelligence for at least two years, anonymous sources told Bloomberg.

We love ATL. There is probably no finer or comprehensive daily diary of law culture available anywhere. As I read Brian Dalton's piece today, I was prepared to fully agree with his questioning title. Some of his quotes :

We love an article posted at LTN entitled "Vendor Voice: 8 Reasons Why E-Discovery Projects Fail". At Platinum, we try to always begin with the end in mind. Many clients initiated in the world of paper and 'copy label copy x2' are sometimes burdened with this up front project planning and scheduling / organizational event which is so critical to a successful project execution.

We found a fantastic article over at Ars Technica entitled "Putting hard drive reliability to the test shows not all disks are equal" which gives a fantastic overview of hard drive reliability by brand.

Jared Coseglia with TRU Staffing Partners published a great article through ACEDS with 10 'reality-based' predictions for the LTS job market in 2014. This is definitely worth a read. Check out a snip:

There's a great article at Law.com entitled 'No Shades of Gray in the Commoditization of Law' which does a great job of summarizing an 800 lb. gorilla in the room that apparently most of us haven't had the stomach to discuss in depth.

We love IronBow's 'High Tech Highway' site. These guys have done a fantastic job in visualizing and simplifying a daunting subject that regardless of opinion is dominating business worldwide. Cloud Computing. More specifically, SaaS and IaaS. Read more here and check out a blurb from the article below.

So Tim Corcoran writes a great blog post today about big data - defining it, how it pertains to corporate law departments differently than law firms and yadda yadda. It's a good post, please read it all. But I want to zero in on a subsection of his post - almost to the end. Tim says,

Great article from Bob Krantz over at EDD Blog Online regarding visualization in regard to data analytics with a couple of pretty stellar quotes:

Another great article over at Above the Law regarding the shrinking of 'BigLaw' legal teams to bolster profits and reduce overhead. It comes just in time, as I happen to have lunch today with some potential referral partners from a local/national onshore document review company. (Shall remain nameless until we sign paper :)) Regardless, this is what Platinum IDS is all about. It's a perfect fit for Platinum's innovative offering.

According to this article at muckrock, the NSA's Freedom of Information Act requests are up over 1000% since the Snowden leaks. I wonder how far this ripple will be felt, in how many ways. All of this, in the middle of a government shutdown. What a show!

Great article over at the Register which illustrates how important it is to mitigate threat with a well developed datacenter solution. As for the boy arrested, he very likely just became the next Kevin Mitnick, sans the 20-odd year illegal jailing :)

An interesting article at Slashdot builds on the topic of intellectual property in a world where everything is counterfeit-ready.

Reston, VA, September 25, 2013 – iCONECT Development, LLC, technology leaders who reach beyond the status quo with an intuitive and flexible document review platform that works the way you think, announces its latest case study, Can the Use of Analytics in a Review Really Make a Difference?, is now available. Authored by iCONECT President and Co-founder Ian Campbell, in conjunction with Atlanta-based Paragon Legal Technology Support (a member of iCONECT’s worldwide network of hosting partners), the case study profiles two consecutive projects with similar issues, utilizing the same reviewers, dataset and custodians.

Fantastic article with demonstratives over at the washington post detailing how the NSA apparently broke privacy rules thousands of times per year. It's really cool that all this stuff is coming out in a way that the general public can understand.

Great read over at Spiegel discussing something most of us take for granted, the security of our smartphones. In a world of 'Post on Facebook at your own Peril' and 'Sexting', understand that the NSA can easily remote control your device while its in your pocket and perform a number of native functions as if it were in an agents hand.

I'm starting to really like this company again.

Since it’s inception in 2001, Platinum IDS has maintained a strong sense of community and Philanthropy in the markets that we service.

Platinum has developed and commercialized services that enable legal teams to work together, collaboratively like never before. As Platinum’s innovative services line started to flourish, sales grew rapidly and the company became profitable. Although the regions that Platinum services is constantly growing, Platinum’s commitment to its customers and communities remains a priority.

We've really enjoyed this beautiful overview of cloud theory designed and provided by EMC. We proudly use EMC VNX storage for our most demanding operations, such as data ingestion and document hosting initiatives. It makes sense that they understand the cloud better than anyone.

It's about time the world learned about our dark corner of the IT landscape! Check out this clip of iConect being featured on 60 minutes!

Dedicated to the team at Baker Botts.

There’s a really cool article at Law.com detailing what we might see in the upcoming revision to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Sounds like good stuff here, its been what, 7 years or so since the last major update?

I worked at Akin Gump when it rolled out. It seems like a world away. I would be very disappointed in myself if I didn’t have a window by now.

WE’RE ALL FOLLOWING THE APPLE V. SAMSUNG CASE AGAIN. We thought it was over.... .

Meet TexFile, the state’s new electronic filing system, which is expected to cut e-filing fees by 48 percent and allow anyone to search for and view court documents online.

“Potentially the greatest part of this is it reduces the cost so much,” says David Slayton, administrative director of the Texas Office of Court Administration, who announced the news Friday at a meeting of the Texas Judicial Council.