Electronic Discovery by the Numbers
January 31, 2006 | Filed Under Technology, New Services
The mainstream press is starting to focus on the growth in market demand for electronic discovery services.
AP technology writer Brian Bergstein reports on certain trends, and a few numbers caught my eye:
– $2 billion and 35% (the size and growth rate of the electronic discovery market according to Michael Clark of EDDix LLC).
– Two petrabytes (the the size of the data center at Kroll Ontrack, which has quadrupled in 18 months).
– 120 (the expected 2006 employee count of Fios Inc., nearly triple that of 2004).
At the end of the article Gerald Massey, president of Fios, makes a prediction:
“The ultimate buyers of a company like ours have only just begin to emerge in our space,” […] “The names we’ll associate with the services we provide in three, four, five years from now will be like IBM and EMC and Oracle.”
IBM and Oracle. I think I’ve heard of their work.
Also quoted is Jonathan Redgrave of Redgrave Daley Ragan & Wagner LLP, a firm that specializes in electronic discovery and related litigation issues. One of Mr. Redgrave’s partners is Lori Wagner, who was interviewed last year in this space.
For the companies that are targets of litigation and the consumers of electronic discovery services, one of the long term issues will be document retention. Perhaps IBM or someone else will offer an outsourced, combined document storage/retention/electronic discovery service.
The implicit issue in all this isn’t what to keep. It’s facing the ongoing challenge of what to get rid of. Probably 90%+ of what is on company servers is either unnecessary or redundant.
If a vendor can help figure out the 10% to keep–now that’s something people would listen to.
The Wired GC — Unscripted
January 30, 2006 | Filed Under Legal Resources, General
Broc Romanek, editor of TheCorporateCounsel.net, has interviewed yours truly on his “Inside Track With Broc” series. I like the concise and straightforward approach Mr. Romanek takes with his “subjects.”
The podcast is here, and Broc also finds time to blog as well.
Trying On Spinning Off
January 30, 2006 | Filed Under Organization, In the News
Wall Street can be good for the legal market. But it may not be always good for business.
A recent press report tracks the increasing popularity of large companies spinning off certain business units. This is ostensibly intended to “unlock shareholder value.” Companies such as Tyco and Viacom have these plans underway.
Many of these conglomerates were created through a steady diet of acquisitions during the heady days of the stock markets in the 1990s. At the time, I think I recall justifications like “synergy” or “growing earnings at 15%.”
I definitely recall that administrative functions like HR, finance and legal would allegedly be more efficient since the associated costs could be spread over a larger asset base. Ask someone who has been acquired, however, about getting allocations of parent company overheads, often in amounts that exceed these expenditures prior to closing the deal.
If large companies are slowing down the acquisition train, after the spin-offs will Wall Street look to small company IPOs to fill the deal flow gap?
Maybe not.
Professor Ribstein has recently noted that Sarbanes Oxley may be suppressing IPOs of start-up companies. Perhaps if an IPO is not the default exit strategy for the VC community, more companies will stay private longer, and focus on things like growing products to serve markets, rather than being a source for growing legal and investment banking fees.
Will any of this lead to changes in the VC process? Rick Segal has started just such a dialogue; Doc Searles, Dave Winer and Robert Scoble are chiming in.
IT and the Legal Help Desk
January 27, 2006 | Filed Under Technology, Compliance
Legal technology issues don’t stop at the water’s edge.
UK publication Infoconomy takes a welcome and practical approach to legal issues facing companies regarding technology and operations that do not fit into convenient jurisdictional boundaries.
Here’s a tech guy with a clear eye:
Too many CIOs behave as technology officers and do not take enough of a lead on legal issues, said Michael Colao, director of information management at banking group Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
Relying on legal departments to manage corporate exposure to risk from increasing regulation is a wildly optimistic approach, he told delegates at the Effective IT Summit: Legal departments invariably base their approach on local laws, but this is ineffective in a global economy. “My service delivery follows the sun and is not limited to any one country.”
The article further mentions a requirement for password length under Italian law that can apparently result in jail time for using passwords that are too short.
What is really going on here is a recognition that the modern corporate legal department (CLD) cannot function as a fortress. Virtually all areas of company operations face legal constraints, and the CLD can’t be everywhere, looking over everyone’s shoulder, all the time. A GC and other CLD members have to pick their focus areas carefully, spend time as needed and then move along smartly.
The days of sitting back in the corner office and waiting for people to bring you documents to stamp and initial are long gone.
iCLE and iTunes
January 26, 2006 | Filed Under Legal Ed, Law 2.0, Technology
Will you soon be able to hear Stanford Law’s Lawrence Lessig lecturing on Intellectual Property Reform through your iPod?
Forbes relates an interesting story about how Stanford University is putting course lectures and other Cardinal content on the web through Apple’s iTunes for free download (I was unable to find it on iTunes before I hit my deadline…).
Moves like this can accelerate something else: lawyer CLE options through podcasting technology.
Robert Ambrogi saw the potential for podcasting and lawyer CLE almost a year ago. Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog picked up on it, and Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell were also on the trail. ALM’s Texas Lawyer has put up some examples, as has the LA County Bar Association.
What is fascinating about Stanford’s experiment is that it is giving it all away. This could be disruptive for some business models attached to education and podcasting. It’s probably a Top 10 university strategy for now. But down the road, who knows?
While this trend unfolds, here’s an idea for lawyers. Put up short podcasts on iTunes (say 5 minutes or less) that aren’t ads, but offer concise information on topical areas of the law. It could be better marketing than 95% of what’s out there (which is advertising, is expensive, and very different).
Why? Because one truth lies just beneath the surface of search and the Internet. It is this: when someone finds you, they are interested in your topic and primed for action. Maybe not a fat retainer, but some step toward a potential relationship. Most other advertising is just spraying a fire hose randomly and hoping you hit a customer who’s on fire.
We’ll be listening…
Update: A law student reader here in the Midwest let me know that Slashdot is covering the Stanford/iTunes story; I see Cynthia Brumfield has as well.
Update #2 (29 Jan 06): Here’s the Apple iTunes U site. In addition to Stanford, the University of Michigan School of Dentistry sinks its teeth into iTunes U. ABC News has more.
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