Bored Contract Attorney writes blog...little less bored now

I have been following this blog called Freeloader Attorney for a while now. The author is a contract attorney who is writing about his experiences doc reviewing. I find it to actually be rather interesting. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially contract attorneys.

If you don't know the first thing about e-discovery, click the link below

This is one of the best blog posts I have seen about e-discovery. It is exceptionally detailed. The blog is call E-discovery Team, authored by attorney Ralph Losey. I have added the blog to my law links. If you don't know the first thing about e-discovery, click here.

Quick Hit: If you think Six Flags is fun, checkout this webinar Best Practices for Gaining Control over Corporate E-Discovery, yeah...

Just an FYI for anyone interested, from the EDD Blog:

"Clearwell Systems Inc. has announced a free web seminar with Google. The seminar will feature Vivian Tero, Program Manager for Compliance Infrastructure at IDC. It is titled "Weathering the E-Discovery Perfect Storm: Best Practices for Gaining Control over Corporate E-Discovery," and will be held on Tuesday, June 3 at 10 AM PDT. Go here to register."

Is G-Discovery the new E-Discovery?

"There is no bigger idea in enterprise technology than the idea of “cloud computing“. What does it mean? Simply put, the idea is that enterprises will cease to buy hardware, software, and all the headaches that come with them. Instead, companies will rent whatever applications they need and access them over the internet. Software vendors will keep their applications on a pool of shared infrastructure (the “cloud”), which will automatically allocate resources between applications according to demand. Using a common analogy, we will move from today’s world where companies are buying and building their own electricity generators, to a world where there are power companies distributing electricity over a grid."

"E-discovery is no exception to this mega-trend, and I expect a portion of the e-discovery software business to move to the cloud. How quickly this happens depends on how easy it is for companies to adopt cloud-based e-discovery solutions, which is why Google’s recent moves into e-discovery are so significant.

Google is by far the largest cloud computing company in the world. Its cloud-based Google Apps suite of applications was only launched in 2007, but is already being used by several hundred thousand businesses and, Google tells me, 2,000 new businesses sign up every day. Today, the customers are mainly small to medium sized businesses (500-5,000 employees). But as its functionality improves, larger companies will increasingly start asking why they should pay for Microsoft Office when cheaper alternatives exist."

Ok, sometimes my wacky sense of humor can go over the head of say, everyone?

I forget sometimes that not everyone reads up on e-discovery issues the way that I do. I have been getting a few emails about this so I thought I would address it. On my Lazy Sunday Links this last Sunday, I had written the following blurb:

Burgess also has the link for some boring book
from this thing called the “Sedona Conference.”

The remark was one of sarcasm. I am well aware of what the Sedona Conference is, and in fact I tried to go to one of their meetings last year, but unfortunately the company I worked with then would not fund it. I absolutely would love to go to one of their meetings. Just meeting the various players in the industry alone would be invaluable, irrespective of anything I would learn.

For those of you who don’t know about the Sedona Conference, the remark I made would have been the equivalent to me saying “some Christian guy is trying to sell me some boring book called the ‘New’ Testament.” That is because in the world of e-discovery Sedona is the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and any other Apostle you want to throw in there.

Here is their website. I encourage any legal professional that is going to have a future dealing with e-discovery issues to check them out.

Blog from the Financial Times Boldly states what most Contract Attorneys already know

From FT.com:

"To many, “e-discovery” still sounds like an internet start-up, although the term - short for “electronic discovery” - is rapidly becoming commonplace, especially in the finance world, where rogue traders and rumour mongers are prompting more focus on e-surveillance and a company’s ability to find the right electronic documents to respond to a lawsuit.

In the wake of scandals such as Jerome Kerviel’s alleged rogue trading at Societe Generale, or the aggressive rumour-mill that undermined banks including HBOS and Bear Stearns, banks are now eyeing an emerging new range of “spy software” that can even monitor instant messaging dialogue, utilising powerful computers that can read emails, listen to telephone conversations and analyse chat conversations as participants type, reports Reuters.

The software that enables the recording and monitoring of employee activity can help companies collect huge amounts of internal information - which they may increasingly need in the face of lawsuits spawned by the subprime crisis, or to meet rising regulatory demands, the report adds."

Lazy Sunday Links: It’s crappy Treo picture time!

• Breaking news: that whole “subprime” thing is spanning a lot of lawsuits.
• Burgess Computer Forensics makes the most groundbreaking statement of the year.
• If you work for a bank now would be the time to clear your cache of any steamy emails or sites that may be considered “questionable.”
• Burgess also has the link for some boring book from this thing called the “Sedona Conference.”
• This is actually an interesting piece from the FCPA Blog as to why we need the FCPA.
  

So I went to pentagon city mall to get a haircut anf an umbrella, and instead I ended up buying over a hundred dollars in video games. (Jeesh, I never thought I would actually say that.) Didn't get the umbrella, nor the haircut, I know responsible, eh?

Below are some of my mall musings.

I thought this mug was rather amusing
My buddies Barack and John were there.
I would have bought this shirt if I didn't buy so many video games.
I think it is cool seeing my name on those little license plates. I never used to see my name on those things when I was a kid.

Attenex one step closer to complete world domination

From Barry Murphy at Mimosa:

"Lots of chatter on the recent Kazeon / Attenex announcement that promises eDiscovery processing costs as low as $4.30 per Gigabyte. Many experienced eDiscovery folks have cried foul, citing the intricate details of eDiscovery processing and the inherent costs. C'mon folks - somewhere the twain shall meet. eDiscovery processing costs are going to come down no matter what. The technology for processing is getting better and, more importantly, organizations are starting to proactively manage much of their discoverable information (though not enough for my liking). How fast we go from $2,000 per GB for processing to less than $5 per GB remains to be seen. That debate, frankly, takes us away from the more important issues to be solve. Why? Because everyone is focused on the ability to collect and find legacy information that is traditionally unmanaged. What the focus should be on is proactively managing this information. That's right - setting retention policies, getting rid of non-necessary content; these types of actions are what will eventually lead to the elimination of processing fees. But, the legacy data messes that exist within organizations will keep processing vendors busy for quite some time."

I did not cover the Kazeon/Attenex alliance orginally for a few reasons. First this blog tries to focus more on the attorney review side of e-discovery, although I do venture into technology from time to time, because I think it is important, especially for contract attorneys, to be up on the lastest trends. The other reason is that I research a ton of websites a day on this topic, and there are countless articles on what technology vendor is partnering with who and what. I could spend all day filling the blog with info like that.

That being said, 5 bucks a gig, wow. If they can pull that off, it would definitely be pretty revolutionary.

Breaking News: E-discovery Technology Specialist Found having Good Humored Personality, and Seems Rather Normal

I have been checking out this new blog Hack-igations by Benjamin Wright. Turns out he wrote a book on e-discovery so that makes him an expert. I like the site and encourage you to check it out. Lot of stuff on there about email protection and safety.

E-Disc Quick Hit: What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

I have added a blog to the links section entiltled What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate. The blog is mainly about e-discovery issues and I think will be informative. The latest entry is about the first five steps for email retention.

"The first five steps you should take to enact an e-mail archiving and retention plan. The wrong time to enact an e-mail archiving and retention plan is after your company gets audited or sued. The best way to protect your company, of course, is by developing a plan for managing and legally deleting your data before something happens. For companies just starting to look at their e-mail data retention policies, here are five steps to follow:"

Read the rest of the entry here.

Featured Contract Attorney: Joseph Miller

Joseph Miller currently works as a contract attorney in Washington, D.C., and is the founder of JDWired.com.

Before becoming a lawyer, he worked in advertising sales, production, and music research at New York City radio stations, including New York’s legendary WQXR-FM, The Classical Station of the New York Times--the oldest radio station in New York City. He also interned at 103.5FM WKTU, 95.5FM WPLJ, and at WQHT (Hot 97), where he also worked part-time while he was still in high school. At the time, he was the youngest person working in New York City radio. He is also a trained musician. Before college, he attended the Mannes Conservatory Preparatory School and the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and the Performing Arts, which was popularized by the "Fame" television show, film, and Broadway show. He earned a B.S. in Mass Communications, with Concentration in Music and Minor in Business Administration, from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, where he worked as a Resident Advisor, Jazz Ensemble Pianist, and Program Director of the college radio station. At Plattsburgh, he was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, The National Leadership Honor Society.

He attended the New York Law School at night while, during the day, he worked in various administrative positions at the McGraw-Hill Companies. While in law school, he served as an editor of that law school's Media Law & Policy journal. Upon obtaining his Juris Doctorate, he worked in advertising sales at CBS-TV in New York, from 2003-2004. He then went to work for Pace University, from 2004-2005, where he served as the Assistant Director of Pace’s business incubator program.

Joe moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 2005 where he held a one-year fellowship with the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. He is admitted to practice law in New York. Originally from New York City, he now lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Disclosure: 90% of that I took from Joe's linkedin.com site. I really like what he is doing with jdwired.com. I encourage everyone to check out the site.