Author: admin

How Relativity + StoryEngine Solved My Unexpected Big Data Marketing Challenges

When I began at Acorn, one of my first challenges was researching all potential previous relations with key accounts, in support of the sales team. StoryEngine

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The task seemed achievable; I had access to a database of all internal emails, approximately 1.7 million, containing every answer I needed. However, without the proper tools, such as Relativty or NexLP’s StoryEngine, to sort and review those emails, all that data was worthless.

Into the Great Email Abyss; Not a Great Outlook

I attempted to search for emails in Outlook to find who had talked to whom. It just led to frustration and disappointment. I either couldn’t find anything related to DCH or the search results were filled with third party newsletters and irrelevant email chains. There seemed no easy solution to reviewing mass amounts of communications, especially those dating back 3-4 years ago.

nexlp storyengine

Maybe I Don’t Need Email at All

I thought I had figured out a work-around to consulting the emails by just talking to people internally. But, I hit a wall with memory and availability there.

nexlp storyengine

nexlp storyengine

It felt hopeless, until I talked to my Project Manager – and he gave me hope once again. So, back into the great email abyss, I went, but this time I was prepared.

Getting the Full StoryEngine

Since Outlook was useless in providing the insights I needed, I turned to Relativity with NexLP’s StoryEngine software on top of it. StoryEngine automatically categorized all the emails into people, developed a visual communication network and gave me a bird’s eye view of everything in a way that was easily digestible. Instantly, I was able to already identify my team’s involvement in these communications and also spot numerous people who might be key relationship.

nexlp storyengine

I used domain searching combined with StoryEngine’s visualizations. I was amazed at how much more efficient this was. I could identify key players in a matter of seconds and eliminate people who were not relevant through a simple point-and-click interface

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I had tried domain searching in Relativity, too. But often I would see a person’s name appear in a disjointed manner across many Relativity documents. StoryEngine’s AI helped me realize that that person was just included in a chain and was a relatively meaningless actor in the greater social dynamic.

The Last Piece of the Puzzle



nexlp storyengine

The real value I found with StoryEngine was identifying gaps in communications. When searching Dewey, Cheatham and Howe for Keith, I found that we had ample communications with them and had even worked with them on two cases before. But, none of the people Keith was interacting with were the people we had worked with before. The two communication networks were completely isolated from one another. I was amazed from this insight, as I would have never been able to have known this valuable insight without StoryEngine.

nexlp storyengine

What’s surprised me even more was that if someone at DCH had direct communication with our team – I could quickly see what they talked about. This helped me discern where we had relationships with decision-makers. Typically, these email threads consisted of 5-10 people CC’d and 90% will not be involved in the actual conversation but are just added as a formality. Being able to analyze the communication flows visually allowed me to spot the person who made meaningful contact with our team and quickly review their communications for the history of the relationship.

I Realize This Was Exactly Like the Services We Offer Our Clients

Utilizing the software, we offered clients to solve my sales research needs, allowed me to fully understand the value that software such as Relativity and StoryEngine bring to our industry. Without initially realizing it, I was performing the tasks our project managers offer to our clients every day. Granted, the scale might not be similar but the efficiency, time saving, and precision I was able to achieve utilizing our product offerings (and asking advice from our expert team) is tremendously valuable.

This work was do-able without StoryEngine, but prohibitively time-consuming (and therefore expensive.) Being able to transform a week, if not month, long process to a casual day to day activity has changed the way I work. Without the capabilities and solutions offered from eDiscovery software, such as Relativity and StoryEngine, as well as the processes and expert teams involved with them, I would either still be reviewing documents to this day. Or, more likely, my organization would just be missing out on some key customer insights.

nexlp storyengine

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

3 eDiscovery PMs Who Might, Literally, Be Santa

Images With the holidays upon us, I was thinking about how impossible Santa’s task seems. Then, I realized that my eDiscovery project managers Tracey, Angela and Josh seem to routinely get the impossible done. If you think about it, there’s really a lot of similarities between our beloved eDiscovery Project Managers and the big bearded man himself, which led me to ponder whether one of them could, literally, be Santa.

Tracey? Santa Is Capable of Changing Directions On The Fly

When navigating complex terrains, such as fluid litigation dynamics and ever evolving data source, surprises can arise anywhere along the channel.

A new custodian or data source can suddenly be discovered, data could be not be as clean as expected, or worse…the client can discover that the responsive ESI resides in an alternative data sources like SLACK – which makes them nervous about collecting and reviewing. A good project manager can adjust quickly and be agile to develop a plan to get the process back on track and make sure deadlines are hit.

Like Tracey, Santa deals with an increasingly complex world. Households are moving to cloud-connected smart-devices and complex entry ways, “Santa” needs to be able to adjust his processes on the go and can’t afford to be held up by an unexpected encounter.

Angela? Santa Provides Consistency and Structure to His Team

Our Project Managers work with the same client on the case from beginning to end and on all their future cases.

They learn how everyone– the paralegals, merits counsel, the eDiscovery attorneys — like to communicate, the preferences that each client has for each case.

Like Angela, “Santa” makes his list and checks it twice so he can accurately manage his workshop of elves year-round. They need to learn the communication style for each of the other reindeer, the route that they are going to take, etc.

Josh? Santa Works Holidays

One of the things I hear repeatedly is the “4:00 PM on a Friday” problem: when a production needs to be done asap but no one finds out about it until 4:00 PM on a Friday.

In most cases, it won’t be done until Monday.

This doesn’t happen with great Project Managers like Josh because if it’s something that is important to your attorneys or the case, he will be in the trenches with you. Seems like Santa isn’t the only man who can make miracles happen overnight.

Like Josh, “Santa” works when it needs to be done, not only during business hours. It’s not the easiest part of their job – but the results are worth it.

I Report, You Decide: Is Santa Actually An eDiscovery PM With A Side Hobby?

So, it seems pretty clear that one of our eDiscovery Project Managers could actually be Ol’ St. Nick, hiding behind the beard or wearing the hat. When deadlines are closing in and complexities continually arise, you need an eDiscovery Project Manager that you can trust to always get the job done on-time every time. Like Santa, there’s nothing more magical than that person.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

Four Ideas I Bring to eDiscovery from R&D

As an eDiscovery outsider, I founded Acorn Legal Solutions to bring advanced technology and rigorous process that doesn’t compromise agility to the industry. The longer I’m in the industry, the more I realize that my career in R&D strategy consulting was a great foundation for this work. Like R&D, eDiscovery is a constantly evolving technology landscape, which requires cross-functional teams to act intentionally in realizing innovative concepts, and whose success depends on consistently applied agile process.

Like R&D, the first step to improving eDiscovery process and adopting new tools is prototyping (aka conducting Proof of Concepts, POCs). This is where a lot of great ideas fail to gain traction because there’s not enough organizational buy-in or clarity around the benefits of the new approach. To ensure ideas maintain momentum at this stage, below are the four things I require my team to outline in every proof-of-concept — whether with internal projects or client-facing projects – before I commit to investing resources in those projects.

1. Clearly and Specifically Define the Proposed Concept Being Proven.

A fully defined concept includes the following six questions: (i) Who is going to use this new technology / workflow? (ii) What benefit is that person seeking from this? (iii) Where in the investigation / litigation process will this be used? (iv) When will the proof of concept start and conclude? (v) Why is this proof of concept worth spending time on (vi) How many resources will be required for this?

2. Concretely Understand the Next Best Alternative to Proposed Solution

It’s very easy to skip this step because the answer seems obvious. The next best alternative to the proof of concept is whatever we’re doing today! However, being disciplined about explicitly outlining what the next best alternative is ensures that all the stakeholders and team members are starting from the same baseline. You would be surprised how often no single person fully understands what an organization’s current solution is. Given that, it’s no wonder that it’s hard to get organizations to change.

3. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

An old engineering adage is “In God we trust, all others must provide data.” While there is always a qualitative aspect to a proof-of-concept, quantitative measures are a must for evaluating a proof of concept. They provide a level of objectivity to the discussion and serve to align all stakeholders to the same goals

4. Outline Goal Required to Justify Change

For a proof of concept to successfully actualize into adoption of new tools or processes, the improvements need to be substantial enough to justify the cost and risk of switching. Typically, I advise clients that they achieve 30% to 50% improvements in their KPIs. Otherwise, the improvement isn’t beneficial enough to outweigh the pain and risk of change. Outlining this number concretely at the outset of the project allows for better collaboration. The internal and external team can iterate on the technologies and processes over the course of the proof of concept, always knowing where their North Star is.

Concluding Thoughts:

The above steps are simple, but they ain’t easy! Like most technology challenges, it’s about the people and the process, not just the technology. Let me illustrate with two examples from my new life in eDiscovery

Example 1 – Typical POC Approach: I want to do a proof of concept with StoryEngine. I’m evaluating it against using Relativity to see if it finds the relevant data more efficiently. If it’s better, we’ll switch.

Example 2 – Disciplined POC Approach: An attorney at my firm is willing to spend 4 hours learning how to use StoryEngine to investigate the document repository when trying to establish fact patterns in support of the initial pleading. Their alternative would be to run searches in Relativity on priority custodians with keywords and have a paralegal manually create a key chronology from the responsive documents. If the StoryEngine solution can reduce calendar-days-to-chronology-completion by 50% (5 business days, instead of 10 business days) and reduces the total-cost-of-chronology-creation to the end-client by 30%, I would be interested in switching our standard process.

The Typical Approach is more comfortable because there’s a lot of unknowns at the outset of a proof of concept. It’s hard to commit to hard numbers and specifics when there’s not a lot of information. And, committing in uncertain environments means the POC is more likely to fail than succeed. R&D Organizations I worked with had the same problem. But, by somebody (anybody, really!) drawing a line in the sand, organizations were able to be more efficient at continuous innovation and more effective in the long-run. Ironically, failing at POCs is one of the best indicators for long-term innovation success. You can always change the proposal, alternative, KPIs or goal as you go through the process and learn more.

Failure contributes to learning and growth which lead to new ideas for new proof of concepts that ultimately succeed. Being disciplined about consistently applying a structured process to a fluid environment actually results in the best outcomes.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

3 Ways I Help My Clients Identify Alternative Data Sources

The simple days of email and phone calls are far behind us. Now businesses have moved toward chat applications such as, SLACK, Yammer, WhatsApp, Trello, Blink, etc. These represent significant challenges for eDiscovery. How do you identify from the myriad of applications that people use? Especially the ones that may not be employer sanctioned.

Here are 3 ways that I help clients identify new data sources.

1. I Help My Clients Craft Questions About Alternative Data Sources for Their Custodial Interviews

Custodial interviews are one of the oldest methodologies to investigations but are easily overlooked in regard to eDiscovery needs. IT Departments and Corporate Legal Departments are not always fully aware of new data sources that are being used by employees (which keeps corporate legal departments up at night). You would be surprised how many times we hear someone say, “Everything that would be important to this case will either be on email or file shares,” Then, after further conversation with custodians they discover a collaborative tool such as Slack being used. For some reason, marketing seems especially inclined to go rogue.

While custodial interviews typically try to focus on identifying key actors and facts related to the litigation, it’s also a quick and easy way to identify alternative data sources, too. Try asking the custodian to walk you through their day, identify which software they typically log into, who they talk to, and how they communicate with those people. In particular, asking someone to look at all the apps on their phone and identify which ones to talk to colleagues with is very effective.

2. I Run Early Data Sets Through Artificial Intelligence Tools to Identify Communication Gaps

There are still a fair share of skeptics doubting how advanced AI truly is and how effective it can be. From my personal experience with AI in eDiscovery… IT WORKS! There are many great AI tools out there that are cost effective and extremely advanced.

I prefer NexLp’s StoryEngine. With this tool, we can run key custodian data through it and have the software do the heavy lifting. The software will not only help us identify Who has been talking with Whom about What, but it will feed information to us regarding any additional data sources that are out there. As an example, we ran two key custodians on a matter once to find out that they were using Slack and spouses’ email accounts to communicate and share information. This was identified through StroyEngine in a matter of minutes.

3. I Take on The Role of An Educator

As a service provider, I owe it to my clients to stay up to date the best workflows, methodologies and technologies. I attend numerous industry events throughout the year to learn more about alternative data sources. Because of this, I am able to stay ahead of the learning curve as possible and be an advocate for my client. Sometimes, I’ll provide consulting at the outset of a matter. Other times, I’ll put on CLEs and workshops to help my clients keep up to date on what the most common alternative data sources are.

Final Thoughts

One thing I think we can agree on is that data continues to grow at a rapid pace with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The way we communicate at work today is quite fascinating when you really think about it. I’m not here to tell you that these 3 ways are the only ones to exist with finding new data sources. But I can assure you that these 3 ways have been extremely beneficial for me and my clients in helping them identify new data sources. Running in depth custodial interviews, using AI and continuous education allows me to help advise my clients successfully on matters they bring over to Acorn.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

On This Thanksgiving, I’m Thankful for ESI Protocols

Without ESI Protocols, you can end up with your goose cooked (instead of your turkey). You won’t know what the productions coming to you are going to look like – which can result in unexpected expenses and time. But ESI Protocols also offer other advantages in litigation. As with everything eDiscovery related, investing time in defining an upfront project plan and budget results in better litigation outcomes – and ESI protocols are another arrow in your quiver to help you think strategically about eDiscovery early in the case.

Here are my suggestions for some Do’s and Don’ts for ESI protocols.

Do get specific about the tactical eDiscovery items. Include the format of production in the ESI protocol. We have all had a messy production to us because an ESI protocol wasn’t established. Those situations create an unneeded and contentious back and forth for opposing to fix the productions, or extra work for to make the productions usable which ends up costing the client money. Things to consider in the ESI protocol are: What format the ESI will be produced, TIFF or native? What metadata fields will be produced? Will hard copy documents need to be scanned and OCRed? Are rolling productions possible? What about email threads and families? Agreeing to these things upfront can save time and money down the road

Don’t use boilerplate language. Although it’s a good starting place, all cases are different and require a different upfront strategy. If you aren’t an eDiscovery expert, you should get advice from your eDiscovery expert on the strategy before going to the meet and confer. There are things that they know that you may not be thinking about that could help you cull down the documents more extensively or make review easier and faster.

Don’t get too specific on issues related to litigation strategy. If your ESI protocol has a list of custodians set in stone, and then you find another relevant custodian during review, make sure that you can add that custodian. If you don’t know the data sources for the corporations, don’t include the exact data sources you will be collecting from in the protocol. You could miss out on data from the company’s messaging applications or other important communications – or you could commit yourself to finding and producing expensive, largely irrelevant data.

Don’t include TAR. Most of the time when opposing counsel wants to exclude TAR or wants to know how you are using TAR, it’s because they don’t understand it. Sedona Principal 6 states that the responding parties are best situated to evaluate the procedures, methodologies and technologies appropriate for preserving and producing their own ESI. You don’t want to waste time and energy negotiating on technicalities that you ultimately don’t have an obligation to disclose.

I’m thankful for ESI Protocols because they help create the eDiscovery strategy from the beginning of the case. ESI Protocols could be a powerful tool to help you save you time and money down the road by putting that eDiscovery strategy in place. If you have any questions when creating an ESI Protocol, feel free to reach out. Happy Thanksgiving!

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

EDiscovery Technology Is Evolving. How Are We?

We’ve all heard the refrain from eDiscovery experts “It’s the people that make the difference; not just the technology”. But, if we keep challenging technology to change and improve, shouldn’t we be forcing ourselves to do the same?

Over the past months, I have attended quite a few conferences and heard a lot of discussions around the need for quality consulting services. In the spirit of continuous improvement, I have turned my lens inward. I graded myself on what I think are the Four Most Important Skills an eDiscovery consultant should have. This was no easy task. Self-reflection can be very difficult but at the same time extremely beneficial if you are someone that wants to improve. When going through this exercise, I held myself to a high bar.

Listen/Ask Questions: B

I think if we all look inward a little bit, we will see that every once in a while, all of us consultants get a little carried away with talking and providing solutions before fully listening to our clients. I know I have every intention to be helpful to our clients, but I’ve realized that many times “less is more”. Taking a step back to ask more questions and really listen to what my clients need can go a long way. Sometimes my clients don’t even know what exactly they are asking for, which is why I’ve found that asking direct questions to get to the root of the problem is a great way for us to both understand the task at hand.

Empathize: A+

Most consultants have feelings and want to help! I know many consultants within this industry that care deeply about their clients and it’s because they are constantly trying to put themselves in their clients’ shoes. For me, I try to fully understand what dynamics my client is dealing with. This has been one of the most important pieces to my consulting success. When I first came into this industry, I had no idea what the technology could do and what value it brought to clients. What really helped me make a huge impact with prospective clients was taking the time to understand what its like to be them. I would try to see things through my clients’ eyes and challenge myself to really understand them.

For example, attorneys are dealing with pressure from their own client to help them in a very difficult situation and at the same time dealing with adversarial opposing counsel, timelines from the court, and little control of the facts of the case on the front end. Managing their own client expectations with very little understanding of all the details is extremely stressful. Understanding this, I try to ask myself “how can we help take some of this stress off the shoulders of an attorney.”

Push Back: C+

This is where I have had to work the hardest. It can be very uncomfortable and easy to shy away from. But, I’ve realized that being the person that says “yes” to everything is not doing the client any favors. The client might think they know what they want and that’s fine, but as a consultants I need to push back on my client to understand the ask-behind-the-ask if I want to help them find better solutions. When I say push back, I don’t mean being argumentative with a client. I do mean trying to open their eyes to alternative solutions. As a consultant, I have a responsibility to make sure I am providing my clients with most effective and efficient workflows. That burden falls on me and I owe that to my clients. After all, I am responsible for keeping up with the latest and greatest technology, workflows and trends. I cannot always expect our clients to know the technology as strongly as I do. So with that understanding be confident in yourself as a consultant and don’t be afraid to push back on your client. Trust me, they will appreciate it in the long run.

Be Transparent: B

Being fully transparent with the client is something I have not only seen first-hand to be extremely beneficial, but I’ve recently heard it quite a few times at the last few conferences I’ve attended. Setting realistic deadlines or taking ownership of mistakes goes a long way. Is it frustrating to the client? Yes. But at the end of the day when things settle down, clients appreciate the honesty.

A lot of eDiscovery Consultants are afraid of how client will perceive them if they don’t know something. Clients appreciate when I am open and honest with them and saying “I don’t know, but I will check on this for you.” I’ve actually referred a client to another vendor on a project where my team knew they didn’t have the expertise. Believe it or not, my client still came back to me and asked if we could figure out the solution with more time. That is because they trusted that we would try to deliver the best possible outcome.

Overall Grade: B+

This was not the easiest thing to do, but I found it to be extremely beneficial. In order for me to continue being a successful consultant I think exercises like this are necessary. It’s very easy to get caught in the day-to-day operations and always think you’re doing a great job, but the reality is that we can all lose sight of things or develop some bad habits unknowingly. When I played college basketball, we would watch game film to look for areas of improvement. One thing I always found fascinating during film sessions was, win or lose it was always the little things that made the biggest difference. My coach would always be most critical of us after a win and I never understand why until now. Looking inward and avoiding complacency is the only way to grow and move forward.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

3 Things Law Firms Should Consider with Their eDiscovery Cost Recovery Strategy

Since I have been in eDiscovery, I have been fascinated with the business of eDiscovery at law firms both when they have a solution in-house and when they outsource. Law firms take different approaches to the business of eDiscovery. Some create profit centers, sometimes with subsidiaries; others absorb the cost of eDiscovery, viewing it as a cost of doing business. When using vendors, most law firms pass the costs through to their client.

By and large, most of my clients have opted for the cost recovery approach to eDiscovery for their cases. Usually they have an internal solution that they use on “smaller cases” and use service providers for larger and specialized cases. I used quotation marks because smaller cases mean something different to every law firm. For one of my clients, it means under 5GB, for another, under 200GB. When talking to people at Relativity Fest, I noticed a trend of firms asking me questions about how others manage cost recovery on more of their cases.

Here is a recap of questions I was asked, and that they had for themselves after going to sessions on this topic:

How Do You Price Cost Recovery to Manage the Inherent Volatility of Litigation?

The irony of hosting economics is that the unit economics are least favorable when business is most tight, and most favorable when business is strongest. Most firms opt for a similar model to service providers with per GB, per user and per hour fees. Trying to set those numbers in advance, at cost recovery rates, is an exercise in moving the goalposts. Most of my clients have a couple cases that account for 50% – 80% of their eDiscovery usage. If either of those cases come offline, then the firm will be significantly underwater on their eDiscovery investment – rather than at cost-recovery.

What is More Important: Defensibility or Simplicity?

Take a very simple example. Your software company charges you based on the number of named users. A single user has access to anywhere between 1 – 5 matters, but the average user has access to 2. In a cost recovery model, would you prefer to charge full freight on the user fees to one matter, and not charge anything on the remaining four matters? Would you prorate each user individually across all their matters? Would you set up a rule that each matter is charged 50% of a user, and expect that in the long run the economics average out? Each law firm, and typically each partner, has a different view on the best approach. But, they each have different implications on economics, ethics and management complexity.

How Do You Factor in the Soft Costs?

Very frequently, firms discover that the cost of an in-sourced solution contains more soft costs than they anticipated. The IT department, which is already extremely busy, is suddenly burdened with extra work, so the firm may need to add headcount there. Lit support may need to train staff on the software. Most firms I know that have gone completely to an in-sourced cost recovery model have needed to hire at least two new employees in lit support. Further, managing the infrastructure requires on-going investment and input from key partners, typically posing a distraction to their core focus. Making sure the methods to capture this information and account for it correctly are important to ensuring all costs are fully reflected in cost recovery.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s not in my nature to say a blanket statement that one-way handling eDiscovery costs is better than another, because each law firm is different. I’ve worked with some firms that have very successful profit centers, and another that has tried and failed at it. There was a great panel about cost recovery with several very successful firms represented on it at Relativity Fest. Most firms don’t want to take on added risks and costs associated with eDiscovery operations but do want to zealously represent their client’s interests – both economically and in terms of service quality. The main challenge is understanding the full scope of those added risks and costs at the outset.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.   

The Semantics of Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence in eDiscovery

Precision Of Language Is Important – Or Is It?

I recently was asked to speak at the SoCal Women in eDiscovery Technology Symposium on the Future of AI + eDiscovery with Cat Casey from Disco (and previously Gibson Dunn) and Christine Milliron at Robins Geller. The panel talked about numerous predictive and automation technologies being adopted in legal services. But we spent the vast majority of our time discussing variations on Technology Assisted Review and Machine Learning in eDiscovery review applications.

Spirited debate on the differences between TAR, Machine Learning, and AI is a favored pastime of slightly tipsy conference veterans [1]. After the panel, an attendee posed a thought-provoking question to me, that I’ve continued to revisit over the past 3 weeks:

“Does drawing a distinction between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence really, ultimately, matter?”
I had very mixed feelings on the topic.

  • On the one hand, I work in an industry fundamentally based on the notion that precision of language is important. Linguistic shortcuts conflate concepts and prevent clarity of thought. Using the terms interchangeably today creates potential for miscommunications tomorrow.


  • Moreover, as a company laser-focused on value delivery, precision in our language is important towards our everyday commitment to setting clear, actionable expectations as to the services that we provide. At Acorn, we mean what we say — we have to; our clients are skilled (professionally trained!) at looking past pretense and fuzzy promises.


  • On the other hand, if sexy terminology drives market exposure to emerging technologies, then who cares about semantics? The pragmatist in me only cares about whether we, as an industry, are collectively raising the bar on efficiency and quality.
After three weeks of ruminating on the topic, I have somewhat ironically settled at a lawyer’s answer: It depends. And what it ultimately depends on is the audience. When I am talking to those who hold themselves out to be sophisticated actors in the space, I will use precision of language on topics like this as a measure of their actual expertise. Experts should have a point-of-view on this. However, when I am encouraging people to explore new technology solutions to old problems, I’ll stay more focused on their excitement than their diction.

Ultimately, eDiscovery is a very tactical field. So, in my day-to-day life, differences in AI semantics matter much less than being specific about technologies, workflows, budgets, timelines, and risks.

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[1] I don’t even think there’s consensus on the definitions of either, other than that they’re vaguely related but still different. Try googling “difference between machine learning and AI” and see if you can make heads-or-tails of the results.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

ACEDS Detroit: No Place Like Home

This past week ACEDS Detroit 4th Annual eDiscovery Symposium at Greektown Casino was a huge success. I first attended this event last year when I moved back to Michigan after living in Denver for a couple years. I was impressed with how active and collaborative the eDiscovery community was here. After the event, I called up my CEO and said “We need to be a part of this”. I spent a year lobbying the management team to invest, and we finally took the leap to sponsor this event. The great news is, I don’t need to convince anyone anymore! After my CEO and project managers joined the event, they immediately saw the value. Acorn will be a part of this event for many years to come and here are just a few reasons why.



Relationships Are A Give And Take:

From the very first time I stepped foot into the Michigan eDiscovery community, each board member of ACEDS has made me feel welcomed. They have expressed interest in me as a person and my company, for which I am very grateful. This chapter continues to grow and help everyone with the resources to get better at their everyday jobs, they embrace collaboration and networking for all. eDiscovery continues to grow and technology changes at a very rapid pace. Most organizations do not have the resources for formal in-house training programs, so collaboration from industry insiders is important in our efforts to collectively learn and grow. I have developed professionally under the guidance of my clients. I feel obliged to give back to the community.



There Is No Substitute For Face-To-Face Dialogue:

One of the benefits of being a local provider was being able to bring our team to this event. Having our team interact in face-to-face discussions with my clients and other attorneys really helped them better understand the specific pains and needs from their point-of-view. My team ended the conference with a deeper understanding of our clients’ perspectives, energized with new ideas for new solutions. I’m willing to bet that many attorneys at this event who were able to speak with our project management team, could hear and feel the passion my team has for helping our clients achieve the best possible outcomes. Personally, I have always felt that my clients feel more comfortable working with my team when they have had a chance to size them up themselves.



Reasonable People Can Disagree:

In meeting with almost everyone at the event, it was amazing to see the wide range of legal professionals all in one room. The room was filled with judges, attorneys, lit support, in-house counsel, project managers, law students and service providers all collaborating with one another and challenging each other. One of the more spirited discussions, as always, was different people’s thoughts on how automation may impact legal careers. Another spirited discussion was around whether a judge has the right, much less should, dictate to the attorneys whether they should use TAR.

Concluding Thoughts:

I think it was very clear that everyone at the event wanted to learn, make connections, and grow professionally. Because life can get away from us and we can sometimes get consumed with projects, cases, etc. It’s really great to be able to attend an event like this, take a step back and reflect on how we are helping one another and how we can continue to get better.

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About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com. 

The Five Types Of People In eDiscovery

Images I recently attended the inaugural ACEDS Ohio event. It was an educational program filled with engaging, interactive content. I found that the most interesting content highlighted the variety of approaches towards handling eDiscovery problems. In particular, the workshop at the end was really illustrative.

Audience members were presented a scenario. There is on-going business-to-business litigation. An employee has responsive ESI on their private phone: text messages they sent to other employees and marketing videos. But, the employee doesn’t want to give you access to the phone. How would you handle that situation?

The answers spanned the gamut. But, in general, it seems like there are five types of professionals in eDiscovery.

1. The Pragmatic Attorney

“Dealing with this issue seems like an unnecessary and counterproductive distraction. Perhaps I should call up the opposing side and see if we can both agree to keep personal devices out of the scope of Discovery. Sometimes what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”



2. The Lawful Attorney

“That employee has an obligation to preserve and produce all information that may be relevant to the litigation. I need to inform them of that obligation. And if they won’t produce willingly, I’ll file a third party subpoena and compel them to produce.”



3. The Accommodating Attorney

“We should ask the employee, ‘Why not?’ Then we can come up with creative solutions that get the job done. The employee might not want to share personal information with their employer. If so, they could engage their own counsel to review and produce what’s only relevant to our litigation.”



4. The Pragmatic Technologist

“Let’s scale the problem. How much ESI is uniquely on the phone? Almost all the data can probably be recovered from their iCloud account on their company laptop, from their company email or from the company devices of other employees. Worst case scenario, they email us responsive screenshots and videos.”



5. The Completionist Technologist

“We absolutely must have the device and collect it in a forensically sound manner to 100% avoid any risk of appearing non-responsive to our preservation obligation and to avoid spoliation claims with certainty, regardless of the cost and disruption.”



Not Present: The Blatant Defier

“Run it over with a car. One of the great challenges of eDiscovery is that when one party fails to preserve evidence, it’s on the other party (the moving party) to establish something remiss has happened.”

Concluding Thoughts

It’s always fun to get multiple points-of-view in a room to tackle challenges together. I thought that this event underscored some of the key challenges of eDiscovery. Namely, that it’s cross-functional, and not everyone is aware of all the options that are available to them. The technical folks don’t always see the legal options and the legal folks don’t always see the technical options.

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Be Sure to Follow Me for the Latest Content and Subscribe For the Latest Acorn Insights! 

About Acorn 

Acorn is a legal data consulting firm that specializes in AI and Advanced Analytics for litigation applications, while providing rigorous customer service to the eDiscovery industry. Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides a high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications. For more information, please visit www.acornls.com.