Catalyst Touts its Insight Predict eDiscovery Platform
February 8, 2013
Another eDiscovery company purports to bring efficiency to data with software that can sort the crucial from the disposable. Catalyst promotes their Insight Predict predictive ranking tool:
“Predictive Ranking uses artificial intelligence to enhance human review. By enabling your review team to start with the most relevant documents first, your entire workflow is more focused and efficient. That translates to greater speed, lower risk and reduced discovery costs–and a lot fewer documents to review.”
Sounds familiar. Catalyst also offers yet another predictive solutions white paper, “Predictive Ranking: Technology Assisted Review Designed for the Real World.” The description explains:
“Most articles about technology assisted review (TAR) start with dire warnings about the explosion in electronic data. In most legal matters, however, the reality is that the quantity of data is big, but it is no explosion. The fact of the matter is that even a half million documents—a relatively small number in comparison to the ‘big data’ of the web—pose a significant and serious challenge to a review team. That is a lot of documents and can cost a lot of money to review.”
It goes on to insist that Catalyst’s solutions, of course, will save you much of that money. Our question– can we use this system to predict which company in the predictive analytics game is the best? It can be really difficult to tell. We’re still waiting for the shooting star in this field.
Catalyst began in the mid-90s as part of a major law firm, building their own secure, web-based document repositories. In 2000, the company launched as an independent contender in the eDiscovery field. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Cynthia Murrell, February 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
eDiscovery: A Source of Thrills and Reduced Costs?
February 2, 2013
When I hear the phrase “eDiscovery”, I don’t get chills. I suppose some folks do. I read after dinner last night (February 1, 2013) “Letter From LegalTech: The Thrills of E-Discovery.” The author addresses the use of search and content processing technology to figure out which documents are most germane to a legal matter. Once the subset has been identified, eDiscovery provides outputs which “real” attorneys (whether in Bangalore or Binghamton) can use to develop their “logical” arguments.
A happy quack to
One interesting factoid bumps into my rather sharp assessment of the “size” of the enterprise search market generated by an azure chip out. The number was about $1.5 billion. In the eDiscovery write up, the author says:
Nobody seems to know how large the e-discovery market is — estimates range from 1.2 to 2.8 billion dollars — but everyone agree it’s not going anywhere. We’re never going back to sorting through those boxes of documents in that proverbial warehouse.
I like the categorical affirmative “nobody.” The point is that sizing any of the search and content processing markets is pretty much like asking Bernie Madoff type professionals, “How much in liquid assets do you have?” The answer is situational, enhanced by marketing, and believed without a moment’s hesitation.
I know the eDiscovery market is out there because I get lots of PR spam about various breakthroughs, revolutions, and inventions which promise to revolutionize figuring out which email will help a legal eagle win a case with his or her “logical” argument. I wanted to use the word “rational” in the manner of John Ralston Saul, but the rational attorneys are leaving the field and looking for work as novelists, bloggers, and fast food workers.
One company—an outfit called Catalyst Repository Systems—flooded me with PR email spam about its products. I called the company on January 31, 2013. I was treated in an offhand, suspicious manner by a tense, somewhat defensive young man named Mark, Monk, Matt, or Mump. At age 69, I have a tough time figuring out Denver accents. Mark, Monk, Matt, or Mump took my name and phone number. He assured me that his boss would call me back to answer my questions about PR spam and the product which struck me as a “me too.” I did learn that he had six years of marketing experience and that he just “push the send button.” I suggested that he may want to know to whom he is sending messages multiple times, he said, “You are being too aggressive.” I pointed out that I was asking a question just like the lawyers who, one presumes, gobbles up the Catalyst products. He took my name, did not ask how to spell it, wrote down my direct line and did not bother to repeat it back to me, and left me with the impression that I was out of bounds and annoying. That was amusing because I was trying hard to be a regular type caller.
A happy quack to Bitter Lawyer which has information about the pressures upon some in the legal profession. See http://www.bitterlawyer.com/i%E2%80%99m-unemployed-and-feel-ripped-off-by-my-ttt-law-school/
Mark, Monk, Matt, or Mump may have delivered the message and the Catalyst top dog was too busy to give me a jingle. Another possibility is that Mark, Monk, Matt, or Mump never took the note. He just wanted to get a person complaining about PR spam off the phone. Either way, Catalyst qualifies as an interesting example of what’s happening in eDiscovery. Desperation marketing has infected other subsectors of the information retrieval market. Maybe this is an attempt to hit in reality revenues of $1.5 billion?
Kroll Takes on Search and Restoration Software
December 16, 2012
With a current arsenal of ediscovery and data recovery options, Kroll Ontrack is now offering a new search and restoration tool, Ontrack PowerControls through a partnership with Info X. The press release was found on Business Wire “Kroll Ontrack Partners with Global Distributor Info X to Address Demand for Granular Search and Restoration Software.”
Info X provides storage solutions to clients worldwide. Their partnership with Kroll Ontrack ensures that resellers will have access and technical support for the software solution. This is to replace a full-site restore or backup.
Exchange and SharePoint are the culprits of annual data loss according to a recent Kroll Ontrack survey of 326 individuals in IT, engineering and sales. Nearly half of organizations have this problem.
Sr. Manager of Enterprise Software Dan Leary, Kroll Ontrack was quoted in the article:
“This partnership with Info X enables more resellers to offer a powerful tool that addresses a common, but time-consuming problem. Ontrack PowerControls works directly with your backups and allows you to extract and restore only the items that you need, saving IT administrators 50 percent of restoration time when compared to using traditional methods.”
Altergrity Kroll expands into search and restoration software. Is this a sign there is room in the market or just a company putting feelers out in every possible arena? Time will tell.
Megan Feil, December 16, 2012
Sponsored by Arnold IT.com, developer of Augmentext
X1 Discovery and NW3C Offer Social Discovery Class
December 13, 2012
We’ve made a discovery regarding eDiscovery. The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) has teamed up with X1 Discovery to offer some social media eDiscovery training. So far, their “X1SD Class List” is quite short, with one low-profile event scheduled to be held in Dec 2012 in New York City. The class description reads:
“This course provides ‘hands-on’ training designed specifically to address the needs of social media investigators. Participants will develop the practical skills, insights, and knowledge necessary to successfully gather data from Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln in a manner and form conducive to an investigation, whether that investigation is civil or criminal in nature.
“X1 Social Discovery Training will:
- Familiarize students with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln;
- Teach Students how to use X1 Discovery to address social media content and information:
- Teach Students how to collect and authenticate information relevant to their investigations;
- Teach Students how to prepare reports; and
- Provide the students with practical exercises to enhance their skills.”
A central resource for state and local agencies fighting economic and high-tech crime, NW3C began in 1978 as the Leviticus Project, and was originally devoted to a specific multi-state investigation. In 1991, its mission was expanded to providing training, maintaining databases, and providing analytical services to agencies in all 50 states. Renamed the following year, the Center has vastly expanded its membership throughout the U.S. and into fifteen other countries.
Not surprisingly, X1 Discovery focuses on eDiscovery, with a current emphasis on social media and cloud-based data. The company designs its eDiscovery and enterprise search solutions specifically for IT and legal professionals. Originally founded by Idealab in 2011, X1 is based in Pasadena, California.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
eDiscovery Market Quandrant Analyzes Top eDiscovery Solutions
December 12, 2012
Market Watch recently reported on a competitive analysis for the market of eDiscovery solutions in the news release, “The Radicati Group Releases eDiscovery Market Quadrant 2012.”
According to the article, the eDiscovery Market quadrant provides a competitive analysis of the eDiscovery market by ranking solutions based on a four quadrant system breaking them into categories of: “Mature Players,” “Specialists,” “Trail Blazers,” and “Top Players”. Each solutions ranking is based on features, functionality, and market share.
When describing the field of eDiscovery, the article states:
“eDiscovery solutions enable organizations to identify, preserve, collect, process, review, analyze, and produce enterprise data. The eDiscovery process enables businesses to satisfy their corporate compliance, retention records, internal investigation, and legal discovery requirements. Data can be collected from various corporate repositories and can include: email, text documents, images, databases, audio files, web sites, computer applications, and more.”
We are not sure what a market quadrant is, nor what a Radici is. But this sure sounds impressive. Not quite at the Nate Silver “predictive analytics” level of visibility but certainly a step forward.
Jasmine Ashton, December 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
ZyLAB Offers a Monkey
December 4, 2012
Though trade show freebies have been in hiding lately, ZyLAB recently offered one that caught our eye. A representative of the 2012 LawTech Europe Congress (LTEC), held November 12 in Prague, tweeted, “Get Your ZyLAB Monkey.” The link offers only a photo with no explanation, but we think this treat should please many of those interested in legal technology.
ZyLAB was one of the sponsors of the Congress, which was convened to address a pressing global imbalance in the eDiscovery world. The LTEC home page explains:
“Over the past few years there have been huge advances in Electronic Evidence support and guidelines for civil litigations in America and Western Europe. These advances have not been adequately mirrored in Central and Eastern Europe. As a result, multi-jurisdictional disputes have become more drawn out and complex in nature. In criminal proceedings, the lack of clear guidelines for the collection and processing of electronic evidence has led to low crime detection rates and ineffective criminal prosecutions. What this annual congress aims to achieve is address the imbalance by bringing together, the brightest minds in technology, law, governance, and compliance.”
The LTEC drew 640 participants with a roster of speakers prominent in the field. The list of sponsors is long, and includes some names very familiar to us, like Autonomy, Recommind, and, as mentioned, ZyLAB. I was interested to see that Mercedes Benz was also involved; I wonder if they gave away anything interesting.
ZyLAB was founded 1983, with its release of the first full-text retrieval software for the PC. Its current flagship product, the eDiscovery and data management solution ZyLAB Information Management Platform, was released in 2010. The company maintains headquarters in the Netherlands and the United States, and has offices around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, December 04, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
eDiscovery Definition Confusion is Common but Unnecessary
November 20, 2012
Confusion over eDiscovery practices is common, even when turning to those that are supposed “experts” in the field. According to the post “Many Practitioners ‘Dazed and Confused’ Over Electronic Discovery Definitions” on the Clearwell Systems eDiscovery blog, numerous and various definitions on the term “electronic discovery” exist across the industry.
The blog post takes a look at the differences and missing factors in the definitions across the board:
“First, the EDRM definition focuses (as some might expect) on the tactics and practice of eDiscovery. This is a useful starting place, but they’ve missed out on other elements, like the overall market dynamics, which are discussed (again not surprisingly) by Gartner. Gartner likewise addresses how eDiscovery is accomplished, referencing the need for software and the escalating trend of taking eDiscovery tools in house. Sedona (coming from a legal theory perspective) relies heavily on the legal definition of ‘discovery,’ properly referencing its context in the legal process […]”
If experts do not seem to agree on even a definition and key points, what else is inconsistent in the field? Costs, risks, and and uses are likely conflicting as well. We cannot help but notice a striking similarity to the confusion about business intelligence and Big Data analytics. What is not confused today?
Andrea Hayden, November 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
ZyLAB on Mixing Social Media with Business
November 15, 2012
EDiscovery and social media: another tricky content issue. The CodeZED blog offers, “Compliance in the Cloud: How to Deal with Social Media in the Workplace.” Writer Brenda Mahedy succinctly lays out the problem. For example, she writes:
“The combination of business sensitive information and a mass broadcast capacity keeps legal departments awake at night! Have you thought of some of the legal challenges facing the use of social media at the workplace?
- At this moment there are no specific laws and regulations for the governance of social media.
- There is no generally recognized right to privacy in social media postings.
- The effects of publicly available information stretch out beyond the recruitment process and are entering courts.
- More and more legal cases insist on the production of social media e-discovery as evidence…
- Social media information lives on servers that are not in the enterprise’s direct custody or control.”
All important points to consider. Despite the title, the article directly offers no actual solutions for dealing with social media in the workplace. Instead, the ZyLAB blog suggests a ZyLAB white paper (registration required), titled “Compliance in the Cloud: How to Deal with Social Media in the Workplace” by Annelore van der Lint. It is probably a good idea to check out the paper if you use, or plan to use, social media in connection with your business. As Mahedy reminds us, research firm Gartner has predicted that, “by the end of 2013 half of all companies will have been asked to product material from social media websites for e-Discovery.”
ZyLAB was founded 1983, with its release of the first full-text retrieval software for the PC. Its current flagship product, the eDiscovery and data management solution ZyLAB Information Management Platform, was released in 2010. The company maintains headquarters in the Netherlands and the United States, and has offices around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, November 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Keep It Separated
November 14, 2012
Respect data decentralization. That is the key to “The Challenge of Defensible Deletion of Distributed Legacy Data,” according to the eDiscovery Law & Tech Blog at X1 Discovery.
Blogger John Patzakis submits that, for large enterprises with data subject to governance requirements, centralization can make it hard to create a defensible retention schedule. Most archiving systems require that bits of data be pulled from their cozy homes on group and departmental silos and dumped into a central system before any retention and management process can even begin. He writes:
“Forcing centralization on these many pockets of productivity is highly disruptive and rarely effective due to scalability, network bandwidth and other logistical challenges. So what this leaves is the reality that for any information remediation process to be effective, it must be executed within these departmentalized information silos.”
Not surprisingly, Patzakis recommends one of X1’s own products, X1 Rapid Discovery, to do just that. The company has produced an hour-long webinar outlining their method. According to the article:
“X1 Rapid Discovery represents game-changing technology to effectuate the remediation of distributed legacy data due to its ability to install on demand virtually anywhere in the enterprise, including remote data silos, its light footprint web browser access, and intuitive interface. X1 Rapid Discovery enables for effective assessment, reporting, categorization and migration and remediation of distributed information assets by accessing, searching and managing the subject data in place without the need for migration to the appliance or a central repository.”
Sounds good. It may well be that X1 Rapid Discovery is the best solution for this process, or maybe not. Either way, the webinar could be worth a gander.X1 Discovery makes e-discovery tools and enterprise search solutions for IT and legal professionals. Founded by Idealab, the company is located in Pasadena, CA.
Cynthia Murrell, November 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
RenewData Adds Clearwell to Technology Quiver
October 12, 2012
RenewData, a full-service eDiscovery provider, has announced that Clearwell Systems has been added to the company’s quiver of technology. According to the recent article on Compliance Week, “RenewData Adds Clearwell e-Discovery Software,” the company has joined forces with the eDiscovery platform Clearwell, which helps organizations identify, collect, analyze, and review data. This software combination will allow users to achieve maximum value in the eDiscovery process.
We learn more about the RenewData technology addition in the article, which tells us:
“‘The complexities and amount of data involved in eDiscovery today dictate that there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach to review,’ said RenewData Vice President of Marketing Joe Garber. ‘The addition of Clearwell Systems, along with our company-specific offerings like Language-Based Analytics, allows our clients a combination of speed, transparency, precision and insight into data as well as review cost reduction.’”
The technology should allow clients to make more informed decisions by finding the relevant information they need. However, it appears that government compliance and constant changing regulations are fueling an interest in content solutions as users hustle to comply. The large collections of data and shifting regulations offer a motive to find a valid content and big data solution.
Andrea Hayden, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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