Will Open Source Software Disrupt Law Firm eDiscovery Vendors?

August 25, 2011

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is about to gather in the heart of Opryland for their annual conference. As discussed in “ILTA Open Source Panel Focuses on Bates Stamping, E-Discovery” their agenda includes a discussion about the growing trends in open source software (OSS) for law firms.

The Open Source Gurus panel will be weighing in on several legal applications including their Bates Master software which is aimed to replace the tedious, hand-operated page numbering system used by firms. They will also take a look at FreeEed which is the only open source e-discovery software available to the public. Discovery, which is a fact finding process leading up to trial, traditionally leads to voluminous amounts of documents being exchanged between the parties, but OSS is working to change that.

It seems that open source technology for the legal world is not a big business, but certainly could be a niche opportunity for software developers.

Software for managing unbundled legal services such as document assembly and limited-scope representation could be good fits for the open-source model, whether the users are small firms with limited IT budgets or large organizations that hire contract counsel.

I don’t see open source legal software being used for much more than numbering pages until trusted developers join the fray. The legal community is regimented and until they are confident in open source products, they will not change. So ILTA has their work cut out for itsself if it plans to sway firms–especially the big, traditoinal law firms–to the exciting world of free and open source software.

Jennifer Wensink, August 25, 2011

Comments

3 Responses to “Will Open Source Software Disrupt Law Firm eDiscovery Vendors?”

Weekly Top Story Digest - August 31, 2011 | ComplexDiscovery on August 31st, 2011 7:08 am

[…] Open Source Software Disrupt Law Firm eDiscovery Vendors? – http://tinyurl.com/3k8e5ls (Jennifer […]
The Labor Day (U.S.) weekend edition of the “Top 20 … plus more” – a compendium of e-discovery articles, vendor news and upcoming events | The Electronic Discovery Reading Room on September 3rd, 2011 7:07 am

[…] Open Source Software Disrupt Law Firm eDiscovery Vendors? – http://tinyurl.com/3k8e5ls (Jennifer […]
the man on September 15th, 2011 1:25 pm

“…aimed to replace the tedious, hand-operated page numbering system used by firms”

really, in 2011?

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.