Tag Archives: Relativity

August 23, 2022 · 10:36 AM

Proportionality Focus Presents Challenges and Opportunities for eDiscovery Service Providers

By John Patzakis

Proportionality is now the hottest legal issue involving eDiscovery, with the largest number of eDiscovery-related cases in the past year addressing the subject. Relativity eDiscovery attorney David Horrigan recently led an informative webinar “Data Discovery 2022 Mid-Year Update” (access recording here) reporting that 642 published court decisions tackled legal considerations involving proportionality in discovery in the first half of 2022. As only a very small number of cases involve a published decision that we can access online, it is safe to assume that several thousand more cases litigated the proportionality issue during this time period.

Proportionality-based eDiscovery is a goal that all judges and corporate attorneys want to attain. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), parties may discover any non-privileged material that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. Lawyers that take full advantage of the proportionality rule can greatly reduce cost, time and risk associated with otherwise inefficient eDiscovery.

While there is keen awareness of proportionality in the legal community, attaining the benefits requires the ability to operationalize workflows as far upstream in the eDiscovery process as possible. For instance, when you’re engaging in data over-collection, which in turn runs up of a lot of human time and processing costs, the ship has largely sailed before you are able to perform early case assessments and data relevancy analysis, as much of the discovery costs have already been incurred at that point. The case law and the Federal Rules provide that the duty to preserve only applies to potentially relevant information, but unless you have the right operational processes in place, you’re losing out on the ability to attain the benefits of proportionality.

An example of a process that effectively applies proportionality on an operational basis would be an iterative exercise to identify relevant custodians, their data sources, applicable data ranges, file types and agreed upon keywords, following the process outlined in McMaster v. Kohl’s Dep’t Stores, Inc., No. 18-13875 (E.D. Mich. July 24, 2020), and Raine Group v. Reign Capital, (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2022), and collect only the data that is responsive to such specific criterion. Both McMaster and Raine Group decisions apply proportionality at the point of identification and collection, not just production. The latest enterprise collection tech from Relativity and X1 enable such detailed and proportional criteria to be applied in-place, at the point of collection. This reduces the data volume funnel by as much as 98 percent from over-collection models, yet with increased transparency and compliance. In other words, a collection process that is targeted, automated and proportional, instead of one that is overbroad and manual.

However, traditional eDiscovery services typically involve manual collection, followed by manual on-premise hardware-based processing, and finally manual upload to review. These inefficiencies extend projects by often weeks while dramatically increasing cost and risk with purposeful data over-collection and many manual data handoffs. However, the first half of the EDRM involving collection and processing are now far more automated than they were even a few years ago. The purchasers of eDiscovery services and software have clearly noticed and are demanding adaptation from vendors, especially service providers. This new normal of proportionality focus presents a very significant challenge to many service providers.

So how can services firms adapt to this new paradigm? Here are few strategies:

First, services firms should move upstream to focus on information governance to reduce the data funnel as soon as possible. The new generation of eDiscovery technology in the areas of collection, identification, analytics and early data assessment, enables enterprises to operationalize proportionality principles. However, this ideally involves high-end strategic consulting to bring these processes together and operationalize them. This also enables services firms to develop direct and ongoing relationships with corporate law departments, IT and other key corporate stakeholders.

Second, service providers should pivot to managed services (like most other IT consultants) instead of a reactive project-based mindset. Fire drill eDiscovery projects by definition lack any process and result in data-overcollection and many other inefficiencies that thwart the realization of proportionality principles. Establishing a managed service relationship “bakes in” the service provider into an established eDiscovery workflow, including information governance, pre-collection analytics, targeted collection and integrated processing and hosting to enable far more proportional eDiscovery efforts, across multiple matters per client.

Third, services firms should find ways to develop or otherwise acquire their own differentiating tech or establish meaningful partnerships with tech platform providers. These partnerships should entail more than merely using the software, but the development of proprietary workflows or even technical integrations that enable unique service offerings that operationalize proportionality.

At the end of the day, eDiscovery is a technical process that is subject to technology disruption just like any other technology-based services industry. eDiscovery services firms that not only adapt to but embrace this change as a strategic opportunity will be the ones who prosper the most.

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Filed under Best Practices, collection, ECA, eDiscovery, Enterprise eDiscovery, Preservation & Collection, proportionality, Relativity

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February 27, 2020 · 9:09 AM

X1 Integrates Social Media and Web Evidence Collections into Relativity

By John Patzakis

As succinctly noted by The Florida Bar Association in its publication, Florida Law Journal: “Social media is everywhere. Nearly everyone uses it. Litigants who understand social media–and its benefits and limitations–can immeasurably help their clients resolve disputes…it is inevitable that the social media accounts of at least one person involved in a dispute will have potentially relevant and discoverable information.“ “Social Media Evidence: What You Can’t Use Won’t Help You” Florida Law Journal, Volume 88, No. 1.

For this reason, X1 announced at Legalweek in New York the integration of its industry-leading X1 Social Discovery technology into the RelativityOne and Relativity server platforms. This development comes three months after X1’s recent announcement of an integration of X1 Distributed Discovery into Relativity via the Relativity Collect interface. X1 now provides integrated and streamlined ESI collection, now including both enterprise and social media data, for all Relativity users, 75 percent of which are Fortune 500 companies.

For social media and web-based evidence, X1’s Social Discovery now displays collected data natively in Relativity. This enables social media and website content, including complex evidence like photos, videos, comments, “likes,” emojis, and linked content, to be displayed and reviewed in Relativity in its native format. X1 delivered this in response to strong demand from the hundreds of organizations that rely on both Relativity and X1 Social Discovery for their daily eDiscovery needs.

As you can see from the screenshot below, this integration is slick. It provides a rich, native view of social media data in the Relativity interface, all normalized so that the X1 Social data can be reviewed and analyzed alongside all other ESI in Relativity. This enables social media and internet-based data to be reviewed in the cloud by teams of reviewers at once, with all the power and collaboration that the Relativity platform has to offer.

social screenshot rel

What sets the X1 Social Discovery/Relativity integration apart is twofold. First, X1 Social performs the data collection in an automated yet very detailed and sophisticated manner. X1 collects all the fields individually, including several dozen metadata fields unique to social media platforms and also to websites. This robust and detailed X1 Social collection capability enables the data to be effectively ported, displayed (in a rich view), searched and analyzed in Relativity. X1 Social is not simply taking a glorified screen shot and converting that to a flat PDF. X1 is collecting each post, each photo, and each video, comment etc., as individual items with all their associated metadata. This is the key to maintaining context, parent-child relationships, defensibility and meaningful review and analysis.

The other key component is the integration plug-in for Relativity. This plug-in enables the viewer for all X1 Social evidence ingested on an automated basis to enable a rich, native display. This integration maps all the correct fields per social media data source, as Twitter will have different metadata fields than Facebook, or YouTube, or websites, etc. It also preserves the parent-child relationships between the various social media items such as comments, photos, replies, comments, emojis, etc., and also maps to correct views and viewers that will natively display those items. None of this is possible with a simple screenshot flat file collection, which is what the other inferior tools provide.

“X1 is a key partner and collaborator for our customers with dynamic eDiscovery needs,” said Drew Deitch, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Relativity. “It’s a major benefit to clients for us to be able to offer a streamlined, end-to-end data collection experience with the ability to dynamically find, analyze, collect and review all kinds of data. We are excited to continue collaborating with X1 moving forward.”

X1 is also excited to continue the collaboration to streamline the data import from enterprise and web-based data sources straight into Relativity. This integration with X1 Social Discovery and Relativity is a key part of that effort.

We recently featured the X1 Social and Relativity integration with an online briefing and live demo. You can access a recording of the briefing via this link.

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Filed under Best Practices, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, ESI, Relativity, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

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March 11, 2014 · 8:51 AM

X1 First To Offer Social Discovery Certification

by Barry Murphy

Education, training, and certification programs are foundational elements of any profession.  When it comes to relatively new functions like social media discovery, the importance of good training and certification options is amplified.  There is a dearth of expertise coupled with the need for corporations and law firms to address challenges quickly – that combination creates an immediate need for formal and effective training.

The activities within the eDiscovery profession tend to be specialized.  For example, forensic disk imaging requires a specific skill set that is very different from the skill set required to run predictive coding review workflows and projects.  As a result, generic eDiscovery certifications have yet to gain mainstream traction in a meaningful way.  This is not to say such programs are not valuable; they are.  However, given the lack of a standards board or independent third-party that has published a treatise on what it means to be qualified to perform “eDiscovery,” it is difficult for any one certification to be an industry standard.  Further, the eDiscovery profession is a sum of many tasks, most of which are performed by various team members (as opposed to one person being responsible for, or capable of performing, all).  What I hear from eDiscovery professionals when it comes to certification is that there is simply not enough definition as to what it means to be a certified eDiscovery professional.

One type of certification that is more important than ever is vendor-specific (or tool-specific) certification.  Previous eDJ Group research had validated the fact that training and education programs are critically important for the practice of eDiscovery.

Vendor certifications

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For years, it has been critically important that forensic investigators be certified on the tools they use – such as Guidance Software’s Encase (EnCE, EnCEP) or AccessData’s FTK (ACE).  Likewise, the Relativity Certified Administrator credential (RCA) from kCura has gained significance in the hosting and review market.  As such, upon joining X1, I was very pleased to hear that the company will offer certification for our X1 Social Discovery tool.  Why is certification for the Social Discovery tool so important?  First, social media is now ingrained in our business lives.  eDJ Group research from September 2013 shows that almost two-thirds of workers now use external social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn for business purposes.

Social Media Part of Business

Click on image to enlarge

Second, social discovery is still fairly new and requires in-depth training.  With X1 Social Discovery, users need to understand how MD5 hash values of individual items are calculated upon capture and maintained through export. They need to understand the automated logging and reports that are generated. They need to be educated on the key metadata unique to social media & web streams that are captured through deep integration with APIs provided by the sites and how this metadata is important to establishing chain of custody and authentication.  Given these new challenges, a certification program just makes sense.  Even better, X1’s Social Discovery tool will be the only one on the market with a certification program in place.  That will be an important distinction in the market, especially given the large amount of law enforcement customers for the product (doing things by the book is extremely critical in law enforcement investigations).

The X1 Social Discovery Certification course, offered by DigitalShield, will cover:

  • Introduction to the foundational skills and knowledge needed to understand social media collection, analysis, review and delivery
  • Best practices for locating and collecting social media
  • Providing investigators, digital forensic examiners and eDiscovery practitioners with the technical skills to use X1 Social Discovery
  • Hands-on training using X1 Social Discovery to collect, manage, and analyze data from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, webmail and websites

To sign up for the training or to learn more, click here >  

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January 15, 2014 · 8:22 AM

eDiscovery Software Industry Faces Transition

changes aheadRecently, the eDiscovery and litigation support field has seen many developments reflecting a significant shift in the eDiscovery software industry. Greg Buckles and Barry Murphy of The eDiscovery Journal report in several articles and notes in the past few weeks that they see a palpable transition away from software back towards services by corporations seeking to address their eDiscovery requirements. So not surprisingly, there had been various reports indicating reductions in force at several of the top eDiscovery software providers.

Not to pick on Guidance Software, my former company, but they are publically traded and recently disclosed their aggressive cost-cutting measures. In their PowerPoint presentation, Guidance states that the eDiscovery software field “is maturing…not as many large deals available there” resulting in a strategy for the company to refocus on core computer forensics and computer security, and to pivot toward profitability over topline revenue growth. And I don’t think what Guidance is experiencing is much different than from what many other eDiscovery software firms in the space are going through.

And neither does industry analyst Barry Murphy. “Based on what I see, KCura with their Relativity product is doing well, and I think there has been some good growth in the mobile forensics space, and X1 has done well with X1 Social Discovery in terms of growth and customer acquisition. Other than that, it seems that the remaining eDiscovery software companies are either contracting or experiencing only very modest growth.”

Part of the problem is that many aggressive enterprise eDiscovery deployments never achieve their promise of global scalability. A little over a year ago, the CEO of another eDiscovery and forensics software firm publicly claimed that enterprise-wide Autonomy implementations for eDiscovery, in his opinion, never really worked that well from what he could see. Without commenting on or taking a position on the accuracy of that assertion, the article does reflect broader frustrations I have heard from IT and in-house counsel about eDiscovery software in general that claims to be an end-to-end solution for aggressive and enterprise-wide deployments. As a result, many corporate legal departments and corporate IT have opted to continue to outsource eDiscovery to service providers over attempting to implement enterprise-wide solutions.

On the other hand, and reflective of this trend, services firms in this space are apparently doing quite well and their numbers are growing. There are clearly hundreds, if not over a thousand consulting firms, in North America providing eDiscovery consulting services. In just one metric, two years since we launched X1 Social Discovery, nearly 200 eDiscovery and computer forensics firms have become paying customers, and many more are currently evaluating. Some firms have a single license of X1, many have multiple, even dozens. I think those figures reflect both the number of service providers in this space and the aggressive spending behavior from the providers.

I also think, and of course being biased, that with X1 Social Discovery gaining over 400 paid install sites in just two years since the launch of the product, with 250 percent increase in annual sales in 2013, is quite an accomplishment especially given the status of this market. I think that reflects both the quality of X1 Social Discovery as well as the compelling use case of the collection and preservation of social media data for discovery and investigative purposes. So I want to take this opportunity to thank our customers for making 2013 a great year for us and driving the further development and enhancements of our products.

I’m looking forward very much to Legal Tech New York this year, both to meet with our customers old and new, and to speak with some fellow executives about how they are adapting to the changes in the eDiscovery market and opportunities in 2014. I hope to see you there!

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