Insight into where e-discovery, information governance cybersecurity, and digital transformation are heading – who is doing what now or in the future, what works and what doesn’t, and what people wish they could do but can’t – gleaned from recent publications

E-DISCOVERY

Next up from ILTA – Incoming ILTA CEO Joy Heath Rush discusses her plans for ILTA.

INFORMATION GOVERNANCE

IG World issue 2 is here – The second issue of Information Governance World is available. I am partial to the article on pages 21-23, but then I am biased.

CYBERSECURITY & DATA PRIVACY

Minority Report redux – A Singapore Airlines passenger found a camera embedded in the back of the seat ahead of him, noted by Sharon Nelson, pointing to a recent CNET post. And news surfaced that for up to a year  Next Secure devices had been shipped with an undisclosed microphone.

Data privacy versus legal holds – Epiq’s Samantha Green discusses the conflict between data privacy under the GDPR and legal holds performed pursuant to US law.

Legislative update – Since the beginning of the year, at least nine states have introduced bills modeled at least in part on the California Consumer Privacy Act, reports Jones Day. The nine are:

LEGAL TECHNOLOGY & DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Task codes redux – More than two decades after the UTBMS codes were introduced, the theme of task codes for lawyers has returned, according to an American Lawyer article.

Corpus linguistics commentary – In a 53-page article, Corpus Linguistics in Legal Interpretation: When Is It (In)appropriate?, Georgetown University Law Center visiting scholar Neal Goldfarb considers potential pitfalls of introducing corpus linguistics (meaning, more or less, the study and analysis of large bodies of machine-readable text) into legal interpretation.

Six lucky small legal tech firms – Collaborate, an initiative launched by Slaughter and May, will select six small legal tech business for a three-month program during which those companies will be able to test and develop products working with Slaughter and May partners and the firm’s clients GlaxoSmithKline, John Lewis, Santander, Standard Chartered, and Vodafone.

AI in law firms – Ed Walters of Fastcase discusses ways law firms use artificial intelligence today.

E-DISCOVERY CASE LAW

Recent e-discovery decisions

2/12/2019 – N.D. Ill. Judge Iain Johnston denied defendants’ motion for leave to amend their counterclaim. Defendants sought to remove a defamation counterclaims while plaintiffs argued that the counterclaim against them should remain in place. Both parties’ positions make sense when placed in context. If the counterclaim against plaintiffs is maintained, that gives plaintiffs the opportunity to seek sanctions for alleged loss of ESI. If defendants are permitted to drop their counterclaim, the ESI issues go away. The Court denied defendants’ motion, ruling that they had failed to show good cause pursuant to FRCP 16 to amend the case management order. DR Distrib., LLC v. 21 Century Smoking, Inc., No. 12 CV 50324 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 12, 2019).