Author Archives: X1

November 18, 2013 · 9:21 AM

Dr. Michael Levitt: World Famous Scientist, Nobel Laureate, and X1 Power User

Michael Levitt Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013

Michael Levitt
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013

Recently I had the distinct honor of speaking with Dr. Michael Levitt, a 2013 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry, and highly regarded Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University. The Nobel Committee awarded Dr. Levitt a Nobel in recognition of his research in computational biology, “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” He is also a “huge fan” of X1. When Dr. Levitt and I spoke, he discussed his daily use of X1 Search and how it is essential to his research and professional productivity. “X1 saves me many hours per week,” per his unsolicited email to us at X1 that initiated our dialogue, “I cannot survive without it.”

A computer-savvy scientist, Dr. Levitt relies on a Macintosh laptop with VMWare virtualization running a Windows OS, where he stores 200 gigabytes of data, including 40 gigabytes of over 300,000 emails, and of course relies on X1 to make sense of it all. “Next to my computer itself, X1 is the one tool I can’t do without,” explained Dr. Levitt.  “People use the term ‘big data’ a lot these days, but the most important ‘big data’ for me is the 200 gigabytes on my laptop that consists of decades of research, important communications with fellow academics, and other key resources.  X1 enables me to find what I am looking for instantaneously. It is a very effective interface to all of my information.”

Dr. Levitt credits X1’s lightning-fast, iterative and faceted search capability, along with X1’s reliability and stability, as enabling him to quickly and tactically sift through 200 gigabytes of emails and academic research. “X1 is an intimate part of my workflow — it is essentially an extension of my mind when I engage in information retrieval, which is many times an hour during my workday.”

In addition to locating his research and other critical data, X1 proved very handy to Dr. Levitt in managing an important email response project. “When I was awarded the Nobel, I received over two thousand congratulatory emails. I used X1 to cross reference my sent folder to make sure I replied to them all. That X1 shortcut saved me several hours alone!”

Dr. Levitt’s testimonial echoes similar sentiments expressed by many high-powered business professionals at top financial institutions, major law firms, consulting companies and science and engineering firms. They all rely on X1 to dramatically enhance their productivity by quickly locating their information amongst an ever-increasing avalanche of emails and other data.

We here at X1 extend our congratulations to Dr. Levitt for his 2013 Nobel prize in Chemistry, as well as our sincere thanks to him for reaching out to us and sharing his enthusiastic feedback on X1 search, which, incidentally, is completely gratis. “Just keep developing great software” is all he asked for in return.

___________________________________________________________________

For more information about X1 Search 8, including a free 14 day trial, please visit here >

2 Comments

Filed under Case Study, Desktop Search

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 11, 2013 · 11:03 AM

The Post-PC Era Will End eDiscovery Collections as we Know It

Post PC World image

Updated 11/14/2013: Amazon Webs Services announced today a “game changing” cloud-based desktop virtualization offering.

“As of next month, no employees get a new PC, we are going all virtual and B.Y.O.D.” These words, spoken by one of our customers from one of the world’s largest financial institutions, should be disconcerting to anyone in the traditional eDiscovery collection business.  With well over 1000 computer forensics and eDiscovery services businesses in the US and Canada alone, ranging from small shops to large firms with hundreds of eDiscovery professionals on staff, the industry faces substantial disruption going forward. This is because most all of these firms thrive on full disk imaging, or otherwise manual collections, from the PCs and laptops issued to corporate employees, either as a substantial source of revenue, or a foundational first step that feeds into their processing and hosting business.

However, enterprises have entered a “post-PC world,” where desktop virtualization, cloud, social media, and mobile devices are supplanting the traditional PC infrastructure and “local” data storage. In fact, desktop virtualization, which will be about a six billion dollar market in 2016 according to industry researcher the 451 Group, is an ideal infrastructure to enable B.Y.O.D. as employees can have access to a virtual PC across a broad range of devices, from traditional PCs and laptops to smartphones and tablets. However, in such a framework, all the employees’ data and applications are stored and managed centrally in a virtual environment.

In addition to enabling B.Y.O.D., a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) provides IT significant benefits through the ability to centrally manage user desktops, gaining efficiencies in costs and resources. VDI provides for simpler desktop provisioning, lower costs for deploying new applications, improved desktop-image management, and improved data integrity through centralized backup services. In addition to a reduction in both desktop operating costs and call support, there is also a reduction in the number and duration of downtime events.

However, finding content is difficult enough on a traditional desktop, but the issue is compounded with the virtualized variety. There are many compelling benefits to VDI, but the architecture does not facilitate or even enable traditional desktop search solutions or physical disk imaging for forensic examination. X1 Search 8 provides search capabilities across physical, virtual and cloud environments with results returned in a single pane. X1 was specifically architected to uniquely and seamlessly operate in virtual desktop environments, including popular Citrix solutions XenApp and XenDesktop.

To further explore the disruptive challenges and benefits of VDI, X1 is partnering with one of the nations’ top VDI consulting firms, Agile 360 in a November 17 webinar (register here) to outline these challenges and opportunities associated with search and information access in VDI environments. We hope you can attend to learn more about the disruptive changes in store for enterprise search and eDiscovery in the Post-PC enterprise.

1 Comment

Filed under Cloud Data, Virtualized Environment

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 21, 2013 · 10:20 AM

Facebook Spoliation Levels the eDiscovery Playing Field

When an individual or small company plaintiff litigates against deep-pocketed defendants, the eDiscovery burden and risk largely falls on the latter. In employment litigation for instance, the employer must collect, review and produce up to hundreds of thousands of emails and electronic documents, with the plaintiff-employee usually not required to do much at all. The reason for this is obvious, as typically the employer possesses nearly all of the relevant documents. Many individual Plaintiffs achieve knock-out punches by establishing spoliation by a corporate adversary, with Zubulake vs. UBS Warburg being just one of many examples.

However, as Federal District Court Judge Craig B. Shaffer noted last month in his Federal Courts Law Review article, social media can turn the tables. In his co-authored piece “Looking Past the Debate: Proposed Revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” 7 Fed. Cts. L. Rev. 178 (September, 2013), Judge Shaffer, as part of a broader analysis of the proposed amendments to the FRCP that affect eDiscovery, calls out the important new strategic dynamics of social media evidence:

“In the past, particularly in an asymmetrical case (such as a single employee discrimination action brought under Title VII), plaintiff’s counsel might have paid only fleeting attention to his or her client’s preservation obligation since it was presumed that the defendant employer had possession, custody or control of all the relevant ESI. That confidence may be misplaced, however, with the advent of social media. As one court recently observed, there is ‘no principled reason to articulate different standards for the discoverability of communications through email, text message, or social media platforms.’ A party is presumed to have control over their social networking accounts and relevant information on those sites is discoverable…Since the plaintiff controls when litigation commences, as well as the nature and scope of any claims asserted, a plaintiff’s attorney who does not take early and affirmative steps to preserve social media content risks spoliation sanctions.”

The most notable case involving social media spoliation so far this year is Gatto v. United Air Lines, Inc., 2013 WL 1285285, (D.N.J. Mar. 25, 2013). In Gatto, a JetBlue employee filed a personal injury suit, alleging United’s negligence caused a set of fueler stairs to crash into him. Gatto claimed that his injuries rendered him permanently disabled and that his disability limited his physical and social activities. United sought discovery of Gatto’s social media accounts, but Gatto refused to comply and deactivated his account. The court ultimately awarded United an adverse inference instruction based on Gatto’s failure to preserve his Facebook account and his intentional destruction of evidence. (See also, Cajamarca v. Regal Entertainment Group, 2012 WL 3782437, (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 31, 2012) (plaintiff’s counsel sanctioned for failing to advise client to preserve Facebook communications); Katiroll Co., Inc. v. Kati Roll and Platters, Inc., 2011 WL 3583408, (D.N.J. Aug. 3, 2011) (court finds party failed to preserve trademark-infringing Facebook profile and ordered remediation to original state to enable production).

And then there is of course Lester v. Allied Concrete Company, where the Plaintiff’s attorney blithely instructed his client to rid his Facebook page of damaging evidence, resulting in what many attorneys believe is the most severe eDiscovery court sanction imposed upon a lawyer. However, for every situation like the Lester case where relevant social media is brought to the forefront, there are presumably many others where important social media evidence is overlooked by attorneys and their service providers who do not include social media as part of their standard eDiscovery preservation checklist. As it is now established that social media is highly relevant as evidence, it is important that attorneys, paralegals, eDiscovery consultants and investigators proactively seek out such evidence from their clients, witnesses and opponents alike, and include its investigation in their standard processes and checklists. Many courts and legal experts have now weighed in to establish that professional standards of care require it.

__________________________________

For more information about X1 Social Discovery, the leading social media discovery solution, please visit here >

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

October 4, 2013 · 8:42 AM

Social Media Caselaw Update: The Acceleration Continues

Last year our survey of published case law from 2010 and 2011 identified 689 cases involving social media evidence for that time period. Since then, the pace has so rapidly accelerated that it became difficult to keep up with the deluge. quote9bHowever, for this past month of September, a quick tally identifies 88 cases where social media evidence played a key role, which is consistent with our overall analysis that the volume of cases has about doubled year over year. Keep in mind that the survey group only involves published cases on Westlaw. With less than one percent of total cases resulting in published opinions, and considering this data set does not take into account internal or compliance investigations or non-filed criminal cases, we can safely assume that there were tens of thousands more legal matters involving social media evidence that were adjudicated, or otherwise resolved last month alone.

The following are brief synopses of five of the more notable social media cases from September 2013:

State v. Smith, (Supreme Court, Tenn.), Sept. 10, 2013 — S.W.3d —- 2013 WL 4804845; Tennessee Supreme court vacates first degree murder conviction on the sole grounds that one of the jurors communicated with a prosecution witness during trial via Facebook. The court lamented that Internet and social media “has exponentially increased the risk….of extra-judicial communications between jurors and third parties.” This decision is but one example of this common occurrence of juror misconduct through social media use, requiring attorneys and jury consultants to engage in on-going passive monitoring of publicly available social media information.

In re Hydroxycut Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation (US District Court, Calif, Sept. 17, 2013) 2013 WL 5275618. A federal judge disallowed an objection to a $25.3 million class action settlement as not credible. The court relied in large part on the objecting Plaintiff’s Facebook postings where she demonstrated a pattern of recruiting other people to be objectors to various high-stakes class action proposed settlements for compensation, including recent class actions involving HR Block and Discover.  This led the court to conclude that “her posts were aimed toward finding objectors…Clearly, Ms. McBean works closely with others who seek to represent objectors in class action lawsuits.” The court determined that the objecting Plaintiff was not a credible class member and struck her objection to the settlement.

Rodriquez v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (5th Circuit. September 19, 2013)  — Fed.Appx. —- 2013 WL 5274468.  Plaintiff Virginia Rodriguez filed suit against Wal–Mart/Sam’s Club Stores, for discrimination based on age and national origin, and retaliation under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (“TCHRA”). Plaintiff’s serious violation of the company’s social media policy was the decisive employment offense which led to her termination. Wal–Mart’s Social Media Policy prohibits any conduct that adversely affects job performance or other associates. While the Social Media Policy allows employees to post complaints online, the comments cannot appear “unprofessional, insulting, embarrassing, untrue, [or] harmful.” The court determined that Ms. Rodriguez’s insulting Facebook comments regarding a co-worker were legitimate and not pretextual grounds for her termination. The Court dismissed her suit on summary judgment.

Fox v. Transam Leasing, Inc.   US District Court, Kansas. Sept. 18, 2013) 2013 WL 5276111. In this case, Transam Leasing sought the production of current archives of the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the Plaintiffs. The court found that such information would be potentially relevant to the litigation and overruled Plaintiffs’ “unfounded” objections. But the court did provide Plaintiffs the following option for responding to the social media request: “Plaintiffs shall provide the archive information, as requested…As an alternative, however, Plaintiffs may satisfy the requests by providing all of the following information from their respective Facebook and Twitter accounts: any discussions or complaints about defendant(s); any communications regarding the intent of any Plaintiff to sign up to drive for defendant(s); and any discussions about this law suit that is not subject to a legal privilege.”

Daniels Agrosciences, LLC v. Ball DPF, LLC, (US District Court, Rhode Island. Sept. 20, 2013) 2013 WL 5310208. This is another in a long line of cases where social media usage is considered as a factor in establishing minimum contacts for jurisdictional purposes. The fact pattern here is not unique, but this is the most recent example.

__________________________________

For more information about X1 Social Discovery, the leading social media discovery solution, please visit here.

1 Comment

Filed under Case Law, eDiscovery & Compliance, Social Media Investigations

September 19, 2013 · 10:43 AM

Discovery Templates for Social Media Evidence

Book coverAs a follow-up to the highly popular Q&A last week featuring DLA attorneys Joshua Briones and Ana Tagvoryan, they both have graciously allowed us to distribute a few of their social media discovery templates found in the appendix of their book:  Social Media as Evidence: Cases, Practice Pointers and Techniques, published by the American Bar Association, available for purchase online from the ABA here.

The first template is deposition questions relating to social media evidence. The second is a sample of special interrogatories. They can be accessed at this link. Thanks again to Joshua and Ana for their insightful interview, and for providing these resources.  Their book contains many more such templates and practice tips, including sample document requests, proposed jury instructions, client litigation hold memorandums with a detailed preservation checklist, preservation demand letters, and much more.

In other social discovery news, the ABA Journal this month published an insightful piece on social media discovery, featuring attorney Ralph Losey, with a nice mention of X1 Social Discovery. In a key excerpt, the ABA Journal acknowledges that “there is a pressing need for a tool that can monitor and archive everything a law firm’s client says and does on social media.”  The article also noted that more than 41% of firms surveyed in Fulbright’s 2013 annual Litigation Trends report, acknowledged they preserved and collected such data to satisfy litigation and investigation needs, which was an increase from 32% the prior year.

Another important publication, Compliance Week, also highlighted social media discovery, where Grant Thornton emphasizes their use of X1 Social Discovery as part of the firms anti-fraud and data leakage toolset. Incidentally,  when determining whether a given eDiscovery tool is in fact a leading solution in its class, in our view it is important to look at how many consulting firms are actually utilizing the technology, as consulting firms tend to be sophisticated buyers, who actually use the tools in “the front lines.” By our count we have over 400 paid install sites of X1 Social Discovery and over half of those – 223 to be exact – are eDiscovery and other digital investigation consulting firms. We believe this is a key testament to the strength of our solution, given the use by these early adopters.

Leave a comment

Filed under Best Practices, eDiscovery & Compliance, Social Media Investigations

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,