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Category: Uncategorized

How to Effectively Run a Review: Reduce Overall Costs by Up to 30% with Successful Project Ramp Up & Management

Continuing on the subject of review, the largest cost driver within the EDRM, we will consider how the factors of rework and throughput can often be hidden burdens to managing a review project.  

Last time, we focused on defining these infrequently discussed cost drivers of review. Today, we will hone in on how to reduce costs through an effective project ramp-up and successful review management. 

Establishing the Numbers 

Let’s recap the assumptions we will continue to work off of. In this scenario, we have 100,000 documents that need to be reviewed, with 15,000 documents needing to be re-reviewed (reworked) at a review throughput rate of 40 docs/hour, at a $42/hour rate. With these rework and throughput rates accounted for, this results in 115,000 effective documents reviewed. 

In today’s exercise, we will take a look at how optimizing your review team from the start and effectively managing your team throughout the project can have significant cost savings. 

Is a Large Review Team Worth It? 

In our previous Groundhog Day webinar, Senior Project Advisor Robin LeDonne discussed the importance of choosing a small efficient team of high-skilled, quality, trained reviewers, “Like a coach preparing for a game, you need to figure out who would be good on which review project and why,” Robin explained. 

By keeping track of your pool of reviewers who have a proven track record of good performance, along with being familiar with your processes, you can rest assured that your review will likely move in a positive direction. And just to be sure, let’s take a look at what the numbers say. 

In the example above, we see that having an efficient review team that has been properly trained results in the number of documents reviewed increasing by 6 additional documents/hour. Just by being strategic on who you pick on your review team, this will lower the number of documents that need to be reworked by 12%. This shows how small tweaks to your review project from the beginning can lower the overall cost of the budget by almost 20%! 

Does Reviewer Efficiency Factor into the Puzzle? 

Reducing review costs doesn’t stop at the beginning of the project. To consistently reduce review costs, you need to lower the amount of rework. So, monitoring your review team becomes increasingly important. Using reports and statistics to actively monitor your team will show you how many documents reviewers are coding per hour, as well as the overall pace of the project. 

Let’s say, for example, you have six reviewers on a project and the standard norm for reviewers is roughly 40-50 documents an hour. Like the example below, you may have one rockstar reviewer that is reviewing 90 docs/hour, have some reviewers who are reviewing in the 40-45 range, one reviewer that is a little bit below the bar, and two reviewers that are way below the average. 

Robin discussed, “So, if I was managing this team, I would coach reviewer 1, cut reviewer number 2 and 3 immediately since they are below average, and I would flag reviewer 6 to peek at later to make sure that their coding is consistent, and they aren’t just flying through without making informed decisions on each document.” 

Robin’s decision to cut reviewers 2 and 3 in this scenario shows that although the weeks to complete the review may increase by 1.3 weeks, the throughput of the reviewers is also increasing from 41 documents/hour up to 53 documents/hour. 

Even though this sample review project was extended for an additional week, it still allowed for a decrease in costs. By reducing the team, it increased documents reviewed to 53 from 40, aka 13 more documents an hour, and lowered rework by 6% which is a 30% reduction on total cost. 

How You Can Apply This 

You may fear cutting low-performing reviewers in order to meet deadlines on time, but this scenario shows that quality reviewers have a more significant effect on the budget than time to completion. Through strategic, incremental changes to your review team, you can see how using a small, efficient team reduces risks of inconsistencies that can affect the quality and costs of your review. 

Stay tuned for next month as we continue this exercise and examine how we can leverage advanced technologies to further streamline our review and further reduce our total costs. 

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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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on March 27, 2023March 27, 2023Categories Uncategorized

Announcing Acorn’s CEO Lia Majid’s AI Visionary Award

Relativity Names Lia Majid a 2023 AI Visionary

The list honors leaders who have taken seminal steps in advancing AI adoption within their industries

CHICAGO, IL – March 23, 2023 — Acorn Legal Solutions today announced that CEO Lia Majid has been named an AI Visionary by global legal technology company, Relativity. Relativity’s annual list of AI Visionaries recognizes and celebrates early adopters of AI, particularly in areas where managing risk is a top priority and the approach to technology adoption has traditionally been more conservative. 

Lia has made AI a cornerstone of Acorn’s services offerings and has set a high bar for technological competence and AI prowess for her organization. She also firmly believes that educating clients with hands-on experience empowers them to leverage self-service tools and drives greater efficiency within their teams.

“AI is important for the way that I manage Acorn because my team works with this technology across many platforms and on numerous landmark cases,” said Lia Majid. “We help clients incorporate AI technologies into their e-discovery operations or legal practice by automating their review process in order to assist with saving money, driving faster insight, and avoiding inadvertent privilege disclosures. My team utilizes AI to help our clients get better control of facts and provide a clearer scope of e-discovery.”

“Although this is an award recognizing me, it really is a recognition of the outstanding team at Acorn” said Lia. “In particular, our Director of Advanced Analytics, Josh Treat, has been involved in AI workflows for over 10 years building the foundation of our AI expertise. Our Director of eDiscovery, Tracey Oldenburg, has been developing custom scripts and views to make the process as seamless as possible to end users. Our Vice President of Client Solutions, Zef Deda, has been a thought leader on how to apply AI solutions to drive client outcomes and client satisfaction. Thank you for all your hard work and many hours teaching me about this technology.”

“We are excited to once again spotlight an incredible group of evangelists who are redefining the power of AI, and exemplify the intersection of AI and human intelligence,” said Phil Saunders, Chief Executive Officer at Relativity. “This year’s AI Visionaries embody the trailblazing spirit, tenacity and creativity required to advance a technology that is becoming increasingly commonplace. Today, we honor these innovators and applaud their efforts to uncover novel applications of AI and drive change within their own organizations.”

Read Lia’s full AI Visionary Award interview with Relativity here!

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. Although capable of serving AmLaw 100 Law Firms and Corporate Legal departments, Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications.

About Relativity

Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product, RelativityOne, manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 198 of the Am Law 200. Please contact Relativity at sales@relativity.com or visit www.relativity.com for more information.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on March 23, 2023March 23, 2023Categories Uncategorized

Groundhog Day 2023 | How to Effectively Run a Review Project: Not Your Standard View

Every year, Acorn presents our Groundhog Day webinar to address changes and trends within the ever-changing and growing eDiscovery industry. With budgets and economic concerns currently at the forefront in every industry, Acorn’s CEO, Lia Majid, and Senior Project advisor, Robin LeDonne, approached the largest cost driver within the EDRM – review. Instead of explaining review in terms of line-item costs, they addressed the not-so-frequently discussed cost drivers that can secretly cause review budgets to escalate. 

Recently, our team presented with Lawline CLE to discuss the largest cost driver of the review cycle, which is the actual reviewing of the documents. However, pricing as a means to reduce the total cost of review has largely been pushed as far as it goes. We’ve found that for the most part, the prices for services have really been squeezed as much as they can, and there just isn’t any more juice to give. Where there is room, though, is with strategic workflows.  

So, what drives the costs of document review to the point that the document review process is the biggest cost driver? 

Cost Drivers of Document Review 

This leads us to two of the major cost drivers in review: rework and throughput. Lia defined review in terms of these Six Sigma techniques, relating them to Gordon Ramsey’s popular TV series Hell’s Kitchen.  

Throughput 

She described throughput as the total document views per hour, not the total unique document views per hour. Lia explained. “Let’s use Hell’s Kitchen as an example. There are two sources of throughput: the non-controllable factor (fish per hour made at the stove) and the controllable factor (fish going out to the customer). If 50 documents are each reviewed 2 times in an hour, or 100 documents are reviewed once in an hour, the throughput is going to be the same.”  

Rework 

The difference between the two throughput definitions is primarily how we’d define rework. For example, if the chef presents 1 raw fish for every 10 fish he completes, his rework would be 10%.  

For 50 dishes ordered in an hour, the Effective Ordering Rate is now cooking 55 fish every hour to deliver the 50 he needed. Similarly, a document review may have 100,000 documents to review, but 115,000 Effective Documents to review. 

What Matters More? 

 Since both rework, which evaluates the efficiency of the reviewer and throughput, the hourly rate of the reviewer matter a lot in terms of cost, how do we choose which one matters more?   

We know that we want efficient, knowledgeable reviewers that also have a high review rate. However, although they do exist, they are rare. Generally, we must make a choice, and a lot of times that choice is going to be based on the type of review – is it a basic responsive review, or is it going to be an issue driven review with several issues that will also need to be reviewed for privilege. With a basic review, the focus may be on just getting through a first pass on the documents, in which case the hourly rate matters. The latter, an issue driven review where there are tons of issues and privilege calls to be made, efficiency may matter more. ​ 

But what if there is a way to always know what should matter more?  

In our upcoming series, we will be addressing the improvements that need to be made throughout a review project in order to improve standard review operations and significantly cut costs. Using a typical review framework, we will show how an effective project ramp up, successful review management, reviewer optimization, and coding consistencies can lead to a predictable, stress-free review. 

Stay tuned for our upcoming blog series to stay informed of these actionable strategies that can immediately combat significant cost drivers of review! To view the full 2023 Groundhog Day session, click here. 

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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023Categories Uncategorized

Lawline CLE Recap | Managing the Total Cost of Review: A Step-by-Step View

Our CEO Lia Majid and Senior Project Advisor Robin LeDonne recently presented with Lawline CLE on actionable strategies to improve your workflow leading up to review. Within their CLE, Lia and Robin walked through a series of scenarios to demonstrate how your choices prior to review affect the total cost of review. 

Reduce Costs with Strategic Workflow 

Robin and Lia identified one scenario that showed how targeting and narrowing the scope of collections reduces review costs by up to approximately 30%. Secondly, Robin and Lia identified how an early investment in Early Case Assessment to reduce your cull rate by a few percent leads to cost reductions of up to approximately 15%. Lastly, they identified how investing in advanced analytics, such as active learning, can lead to significant cost reductions of up to approximately 30%. 

Talking through these scenarios, Lia and Robin explained how strategic workflows can provide a significant amount of budget efficiency beyond just line-item reductions. By identifying strategic opportunities throughout the life of your project, you can continue to seize all possible cost savings. Lia and Robin identified these 3 effective ways to do so and stressed that they all don’t need to be utilized, but by adopting just one of these approaches you are going to see significant results pretty quickly.   

Court Decisions Supporting TAR Workflows 

Next, Robin discussed how courts have increasingly accepted technology assisted review (TAR) tools and workflows to assist parties in meeting their discovery obligations, and specifically covered the Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Grp. case which was the first case to approve the use of TAR. Robin also mentioned the Rio Tinto PLC v. Vale, S.A., et al. case which highlighted how case law has developed to the point that it is “now black letter law that if the producing party wants to utilize TAR for document review, courts will permit it.” 

Recent Case Law Supporting Analytics 

Robin then went on to explain two recent cases supporting TAR and Analytics, which were the Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation and the City of Rockford v. Mallinckrodt. Within these two cases, the court established a detailed TAR Review Protocol that included document culling, repetitive keyword searching that accounts for synonyms and misspellings, and emailing threading to cull out duplicative emails. The court also established a validation or QC process that satisfies the FRCP 26(g)(1) requirement that “made a reasonable effort to assure that the client had provided all the information and documents available that are responsive to the discovery demand.” 

Information Governance 

Another big cost driver Robin and Lia discussed that is specific to corporations is information governance. Information governance refers to a strategic framework for managing information at an organizational level – in a digital context, as well as physical assets, such as devices and printed documents. There are many regional and international standards for managing information at scale, and the regulatory compliance landscape is evolving every year. 

Lia and Robin explained how changes to data privacy regulations have brought about changes to data security policies, including GDPR laws. Changes to regulation mean changes to information governance policies which will in turn drive the cost of information governance in total. 

Data Mapping  

They then explained how a good real-life example of the application of information governance is legal hold. A legal hold (also known as a litigation hold) is a notification sent from an organization’s legal team to employees instructing them not to delete electronically stored information (ESI) or discard paper documents that may be relevant to a new or imminent legal case. 

The most important step before even preserving the data is data mapping.  Data mapping is the process of creating a comprehensive inventory of an organization’s data. Data maps for eDiscovery generally include the following:  

  • Data Locations – where does the data live? How is it stored?  
  • What types of data is your company creating – such as with Teams, Zoom, Slack, etc.   
  • What kind of information is in the data?   
  • Custodian – Who creates the Data 
  • Who is responsible for keeping or deleting the data?   
  • Are the people responsible educated on their duties?  
  • Are there retention policies around the data?  
  • Who is responsible for retrieving the data if needed? 

Having this legal data audit provides you with information to proactively manage your data map, which ultimately manages costs, reduces risk associated with legal data, and creates a roadmap for managing legal data on an on-going basis. 

Throughout their course, Robin and Lia discussed how review has long been a huge expense in the eDiscovery process. However, it is now facing added pressures from new challenges with evolving data types and volumes, data privacy regulations, and considerations for managing remote review teams as well. Even with these new challenges, creating efficiency for your review can still be easily achievable through information governance, data mapping, and legal holds, which directly translates to reduced total costs. Since review is always the greatest cost driver, Lia and Robin mentioned, any opportunity you have to reduce its scope—and, in turn, its costs—should be seized. 

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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on January 19, 2023January 19, 2023Categories Uncategorized

Announcing Acorn’s Justice for Change Partnership with Child Justice

Acorn Legal Solutions Establishes Pro Bono Hosting Partnership through Relativity’s Justice for Change

Acorn will support Justice for Change grant recipients in their use of RelativityOne 

CHICAGO, IL – November 23, 2022 – Acorn Legal Solutions, a woman-led eDiscovery firm headquartered in Chicago, today announced its designation as a Hosting Partner with Relativity’s Justice for Change program. This partnership will enable Acorn to provide hosting, administrative and project management support to grant recipient organizations in their use of RelativityOne.

“We are proud to be a Hosting Partner of the Justice for Change program as it fosters an opportunity for us to have a positive impact on racial and social justice in our communities,” said Lia Majid, CEO at Acorn Legal Solutions. “I am grateful that our team can make a difference by democratizing access to eDiscovery technology and providing support for those organizations in need of it.”

Acorn will be partnering with Maryland-based non-profit Child Justice to provide hosting and production of documents related to a case of child abuse. Child Justice’s cases are often highly document intensive as allegations of abuse often involve multiple expert witnesses as well as medical and mental health records. Acorn will help Child Justice manage and organize this large volume of documents using RelativityOne to present as evidence to the court.

Relativity’s Justice for Change program focuses on increasing access to justice by providing free use of its cloud-based e-discovery product RelativityOne to organizations tackling legal cases and academic and policy research related to racial and social justice. Specifically, Justice for Change has allocated 100TB of RelativityOne data to be used on pro bono projects led by customers or nonprofit organizations. Through the Justice for Change hosting partnership, Acorn is committed to the continuous pursuit of justice through great pro bono work and building important connections with Child Justice.

“We are grateful that Acorn is providing access to RelativityOne in order to defend our client’s case and shed light on other horrific cases of child abuse,” said Eileen King, Founder & Program Director at Child Justice. “The ability to use this technology will not only help our current client but can show other parents in similar situations that limited resources should not prevent them from accessing the justice they deserve.”

Child Justice’s cases often contain thousands of documents, making them quite complex for family court matters. Utilizing RelativityOne will provide the Child Justice team the tools to tag and search documents for multiple issues, utilize Case Dynamics for timelines and chronologies, prepare witnesses and experts for testimony, fulfill discovery requirements, and identify all issues in their case.

“We are thrilled to welcome Acorn as a Justice for Change Hosting Partner. Lia and the team are incredibly supportive of the program’s mission, and it is clear they are dedicated and determined to help organizations like Child Justice succeed in their fight for justice,” said Jaclyn Sattler, Manager for Strategy and Business Operations at Relativity. “Watching organizations like Acorn commit to the program is so inspiring and we can’t wait to see how they continue to leverage their resources for those seeking justice.”

Organizations, including current Relativity customers, doing legal work on behalf of racial justice that would benefit from software to help them organize and search documents and build out a case narrative can apply for free use of our cloud-based e-discovery product, RelativityOne. To learn more, visit: https://www.relativity.com/company/giving-back/justice-for-change/

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. Although capable of serving AmLaw 100 Law Firms and Corporate Legal departments, Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications.

About Child Justice

Child Justice is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that advocates for children’s rights when the courts fail to protect them in cases of abuse and domestic violence. Child Justice is dedicated to ensuring a child’s right to be legally protected from an abusive parent. Working with well-respected law firms, Child Justice provides legal services that protect Maryland children “lost in the system” after exposure to family violence, physical and/or sexual abuse, substance addictions or neglect. Pro Bono attorneys working with Child Justice provide abuse victims with highly skilled legal services for lower court and appellate court cases. These free legal services help to keep children out of the hands of their abusers.

About Relativity

Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product RelativityOne manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. The AI-powered communication surveillance product, Relativity Trace proactively detects regulatory misconduct like insider trading, collusion and other non-compliant behavior. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 199 of the Am Law 200. Relativity has been named one of Chicago’s Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for 12 consecutive years. Please contact Relativity at sales@relativity.com or visit http://www.relativity.com for more information.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on November 23, 2022November 23, 2022Categories Uncategorized

Relativity Fest Roundup: RelativityOne Technology Updates & Integrations 2022

This year’s keynote at Relativity Fest demonstrated how Relativity continues to stay at the forefront of innovation within the industry, solidifying their mission “to organize data, discover the truth, and act on it”. Relativity’s roadmap was filled with updates and improvements to the technology’s functionality and capabilities, a few of note are: 

  • Import/Export: Getting data in and out of Relativity will be easier than ever, bringing data transfer capabilities to all users with drag-and-drop functionality. 
  • Automated Workflows: Out-of-the-box automation will drive efficiency by eliminating manual steps and reduce risk of human-error. Soon, you’ll be able to sync changes to these workflows just as quickly and incorporate even more efficiency into your case setup, like automatically running mass operations you perform every time you bring in new data. 
  • Case Dynamics and Transcripts: Case Home was announced, which is a centralized location in RelativityOne to review documents, build deposition outlines, collaborate, and prepare exhibit bundles—with a presentation mode. 
  • Translate: Announced in September, Translate in RelativityOne  provides machine translations in 112 languages (and counting) right within the platform—no downloading, exporting, or uploading required. 

Of course, it is impossible to capture everything, and this was just to name a few. The keynote set the stage for the week, reinforcing Relativity’s commitment to innovation and set the stage for the following great moments and sessions throughout Relativity Fest. Below is a roundup of two sessions regarding RelativityOne integrations that truly caught our attention.  

  1. Improve Your Firm’s Efficiency through RelativityOne and iManage

Relativity has taken another step towards a holistic solution to encompass the management of the entire litigation lifecycle through its integration with iManage. Now you can seamlessly collect data from iManage by custodian, without your data ever leaving the security of Azure.  

In this presentation, the iManage team discussed the various use cases that require its integration with RelativityOne, including: 

  • Data transfers due to a client transferring to another firm 
  • Internal investigations 
  • File transfers 
  • Knowledge management  

As Claire Oxley-Barnes, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Relativity discussed, “Relativity can bridge gaps between platforms that are otherwise very siloed because it’s a flexible platform. You can get very custom and granular in some different ways and that’s the unique aspect of combining these systems.”  

It was very insightful understanding the numerous ways the integration of these two technologies will improve workflows and allow firms to explore new business developments and case strategies, integrate review intelligence into their case strategy, and store intellectual property all in one place. 

  1. Reducing e-Discovery Risk with Archive360 and Relativity

Archive360, a cloud-based repository for semi-active and inactive data, is another useful technology that can be integrated with RelativityOne. In the session, Bill Tolson, Vice President of Compliance & eDiscovery at Archive360, informed the audience on how the two platforms allow organizations to address regulatory and technical obligations due to the seamless access Relativity provides to Archive360. Addressing information management needs with Archive360 can allow for: 

  • Greater control of data  
  • Greater data protection  
  • Greater visibility due to archiving any file/data type 
  • Access to both structured and unstructured data 
  • Faster onboarding  
  • Defensible compliance for large volumes of content with legal holds 

This collaboration between the two platforms provides a consolidated, secure, archive for eDiscovery searches in Relativity, “Being able to know where all your data is, manage it, and secure it is becoming a very high focus for many companies as well as federal agencies, and state agencies” Tolson mentioned. 

As the eDiscovery landscape continues to change, combining these highly secure technologies can be beneficial as concerns surrounding data protection and data privacy continue to grow. We look forward to working with these new RelativityOne capabilities and features and guiding our clients through the continuing changes and enhancements within this technology in the year to come. 

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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on November 16, 2022November 21, 2022Categories Technical People, Uncategorized

Relativity Fest Roundup: Data Management Strategies, Innovation Award Lightning Round Session, and More!

The Acorn team was delighted to join everyone at this year’s Relativity Fest in-person to reconnect and stay informed of the latest developments and innovations in the industry and RelativityOne.  

With informative sessions covering everything from managing and protecting modern data, navigating data privacy risks in the current digital landscape, and using RelativityOne integrations to solve these challenges, this year’s event was filled with pertinent information regarding the current state of the industry and its dynamic changes to come.  

1. FTI-Relativity General Counsel Report 

Ari Kaplan, Principal, Ari Kaplan Advisors 
David Horrigan, Discovery Counsel & Legal Education Director, Relativity 
Wendy King, Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting 
Celia Perez, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, FreightCar America 

Ari Kaplan discussed that data protection and privacy were the top two concerns of legal risks for business today due to remote work, changes in technology, GDPR requirements, data breaches, and ransomware attacks. Regulatory compliance was also listed as a major concern, “There is a lot of uncertainty since there are so many different avenues in which the regulations can change in fundamental ways, and I think this is amplified from administration changeovers when you have different focuses from presidential administration which impacts the way the FDA will inspect. Overall, this affects the thread of class action litigation which is tied to regulatory lapses based on false advertising or failure to disclose” Kaplan observed. 

The report found that legal departments are also being greatly impacted by demands in capacity, resources, and budgets, as many law departments mentioned experiencing some level of strain surrounding growth, talent retention, and inability to hire talent with specialized skillsets. It came as no surprise that 67% of respondents are considering the role of AI to alleviate these capacity demands. With greater concern surrounding data privacy, using high-powered technology and AI can help to relieve the burden on legal teams who are experiencing strains on capacity and resources.  

From our point of view, the growing concerns regarding data privacy risks as well as the current lack of eDiscovery talent and expertise all point to a need for corporate teams to more pro-actively partner with providers to manage their data.  

2. How Modern Corporations Should Approach Owning Their Data

Michallynn Demiter, eDiscovery Expert, Bayer 
Rishi Chhatwal, Director & Associate General Counsel, Coinbase 
Kristin Sunderman, Litigation Support Director, Freddie Mac 
Eduardo Martinez Jr., Senior Counsel, Litigation & Investigations, UPS 
Charles McCloughan, Sales Engineer, Relativity 

This session revealed that data volumes are expected to experience significant growth in the next three years. eDiscovery teams can ensure their data is being managed appropriately by completing a full assessment to determine where data is located. Speakers also mentioned the importance of limiting the amount of data that leaves your company, minimizing data transfers, and creating data retention policies for each platform in your organization.  

Migrating data into RelativityOne can be an effective solution for data management. Rishi Chhatwal, Director & Associate General Counsel at Coinbase discussed how “technology allows us to consolidate our data. If you pick the right partner for your solution, you can consolidate where your data lives, and how much it costs to host it, which creates lasting efficiencies to pull, collect, search, and view that data.” 

As we continue to see the increasing need for data management strategies, this session furthered our view that utilizing highly secure technology can be beneficial for keeping data safe. 

3. What to Expect in the New Frontier of Corporate e-Discovery

Jason Pickens, VP Cybersecurity, JP Morgan Chase & Co 
Henry Link, Associate General Counsel – eDiscovery & Information Governance, Meta Platforms 
Andrew Watts, Chief Customer Officer, Relativity 
Nirav Shah, eDiscovery Manager, The Home Depot 
Mrs. Jessica Abud, Manager, Legal Operations, Kyndryl 

In this session, corporate speakers emphasized the common challenge of collecting and preserving new data types that have emerged in recent years. Collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams have posed many challenges, as Henry Link at Meta discussed, “There is no longer just a communication tool where you can collect linear ESI. The sad thing with Teams and these modern communication platforms is that you can go back and reply to previous messages, which can lead to issues with discovery.” 

As modern data becomes more of an interconnected web between different platforms, legal departments are working with eDiscovery partners to understand the scope of these new challenges. Completing discovery for new collaboration software often requires more attention to content sentiment, context, and collection of less structured data. Utilizing AI can solve some of these challenges but can also pose issues around bias and missing the nuances of human thought and communication. 

With these upcoming challenges in mind for the future of eDiscovery, our project managers continue to use RelativityOne’s integrations with collaboration platforms to gain an accurate representation of the data collected.  

4. Lightning Round: Innovation Award Tech Finalists

Not only did we have a chance to learn more about how to effectively use Relativity technology at Relativity Fest, we were also proud to be nominated in both the Customer Experience and Solution Provider categories of the Innovation Awards this year. Our Director of eDiscovery Tracey Oldenburg presented in the Innovation Award Lightning Round Session with information about Acorn’s eDiscovery BackOffice™ Mass Export Natives application. 

We were eager to share our app development within RelativityOne, as well as stay informed of the continual enhancements to RelativityOne technology at this year’s event. Despite the exciting changes and advancements regarding eDiscovery data and technology, we found that law firms and corporations are aware that these developments can also come with risks. This year’s Relativity Fest was an important opportunity for our team to better understand the eDiscovery concerns our clients currently face, and to learn how RelativityOne is working to combat security risks and provide safe data management options.  

We are grateful that the information from this year’s Relativity Fest will help us to be a better guide for our clients as we take on the challenges of the dynamic eDiscovery landscape. 

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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on November 16, 2022November 21, 2022Categories eDiscovery Attorneys, Merits Counsel, Uncategorized

Seeing Triple: How 3 Culprits Complicate Deduplication

Over the past years we’ve heard increasing complaints from clients of a lot of duplicates in their hosting and review databases. When we look into the matter further, these “duplicates,” although substantively the same content, are not exact copies of each other from an evidentiary perspective. For example, migrating email to an archiving system might cause slight changes to the formatting of the header that results in the emails not being viewed as duplicates by the processing platform. 

We are seeing an increasing need for defensible, technology-based deduplication beyond just MD5 hashing. The industry standard is to use MD5 hash to identify any duplicates of a document that has been processed and suppressing them, saving clients the time, money, and headache of reviewing duplicative data.

As a first step, clients use solutions provided by RelativityOne such as the Processing Duplication Workflow application. Within this application, users can identify primary and duplicate documents, all custodians, and all source files for documents. It also provides capabilities to identify unique, primary and duplicate files based on a relational field.  

This worked fairly well for a long time, but as email and archive systems have continued to evolve, the MD5 hash is no longer as effective at identifying duplicates as it once was. I want to lay out some of the business practices that are causing challenges with the MD5 hashing strategy for deduplication and propose that we start using Message-ID in addition to metadata as a supplement to deduplication. 

Culprit 1: URL Rewriting 

We’ve all seen the typical phishing email. It is usually formatted in a non-standard way, or requesting an invoice or documents we’ve never heard of, or from a person we know wouldn’t be sending or requesting this information. Those are the obvious ones.  Every year we see them, all slightly different but always evolving to appear authentic. Phishing scams typically go about disguising hyperlinks to appear authentic on the surface but will send users to a malicious site. One way to bypass this bait and switch is to hover over the hyperlink, and see if you are being directed to the location you should be. One example I have seen is an email or text from my bank that is asking me if I authorized a charge and includes a link to log in and approve that charge, however when I look at the link it wants me to click it has nothing to do with my bank. 

A security feature you may not even be aware of that is working hard in the background is URL rewriting. IT security professionals created this as a mechanism to catch these attacks before users can click on the malicious link. When an email is received, URLs are rewritten in the body of the email. When a user clicks the link, it passes through a service where it is analyzed for security before sending the user to the original link location. If the link is determined to be bad, the site is blocked. While this is an excellent technology to thwart malicious attacks, URL rewriting can create unique hyperlinks in each email copy making them unique when hashing.  

Culprit 2: External Email Warnings 

Another feature used to protect against phishing emails is the use of external email warnings. Attackers will emulate an email to look like it is coming from a trusted associate or organization. By putting a warning at the top of the email that it was received by an external source, readers can be aware that the email did not originate from inside the organization before clicking any links. This external warning message will also make an email unique when hashing. The MD5 hash takes into account the body and header of an email during processing, the system is going to think that this email is now a unique document even if the only difference between that email and the sender’s email is “External” at the top of the email. Not to say you shouldn’t implement these policies, but many companies have instituted this policy wholesale and may not have thought about the discovery implications on cost to review and size to host, never mind the frustration of having to review multiple copies of the same document.  

Culprit 3: Emails Rebranded  

In addition to phishing, email marketing strategies are another culprit of email duplicates. A prominent marketing innovation companies have started using is centralized signature management. This allows a company to customize signatures for marketing campaigns by adding or omitting information, promotions, content, etc. from a centralized third-party platform. These signatures are not integrated directly into the users email account but are applied when the email is sent. The sender’s copy doesn’t have the signature, but a recipient’s email copy does, even within the same organization. This creates unique copies of an email just due to the signature block being different between the two versions even though ostensibly this is the exact same document. Consider how this might affect your electronic discovery obligations and timelines if you must review multiple copies of the same document. It can quickly become an exponentially growing headache for companies.  

What Can We Do About It? 

Acorn has been working behind the scenes to support our clients in the never-ending duplication struggle. We have developed custom proprietary tools to analyze email data and identify duplicates within RelativityOne using a combination of the Message-ID and additional metadata fields. Message-ID is a property added to outgoing emails by the sending mail system. It is retained in the recipient’s copy of the email as well.  It isn’t always unique and it isn’t always populated which is why it shouldn’t be the only method of deduplication. This property in association with other metadata can identify duplicative emails. In one project alone, we were able to reduce the review population by 15%. This translated into roughly a savings of $40,000 by reducing the number of documents to review. 

I’m not here to argue the efficacy of using the Message-ID and metadata for deduplication purposes, I will leave that to the attorneys. What I can verify is the increasing number of duplicates in email collections that need to be managed. 

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.

Author Luke RiddlePosted on October 13, 2022January 3, 2023Categories eDiscovery Attorneys, Technical People, Tracey Oldenburg, Uncategorized

Announcing Acorn’s RelativityOne Data Migration Competency

Acorn Legal Solutions Earns RelativityOne Data Migration Competency

Acorn was recognized for their expertise in migrating data from Fortune 500 enterprise environments to RelativityOne 

CHICAGO, IL – September 19, 2022 – Acorn Legal Solutions, a woman-led eDiscovery firm headquartered in Chicago, today announced it has earned its RelativityOne Data Migration Competency. Through this Competency, Relativity acknowledges that Acorn has exhibited an enhanced level of proficiency in data migration services. With the Data Migration Competency, Acorn has demonstrated their knowledge of RelativityOne best practices for data migration and has proven customer satisfaction with data migration work. Partners with this Competency provide expanded or enhanced offerings of value for data migrations, including but not limited to customized workflows or applications.  

Having completed migrations for both Am Law 200 and Fortune 500 clients, Acorn proved its migration competency in a number of scenarios: (i) migrating a workspace mid-review from on-premise Relativity to RelativityOne, Relativity’s cloud-based solution, (ii) migrating an entire eDiscovery environment from on-premise to RelativityOne, (iii) migrations from other platforms to RelativityOne.

The Acorn team has developed a proprietary process for migration that places high importance on managing communications, providing training to clients and ensuring the environment configuration aligns with stakeholders’ litigation and onboarding needs. The team’s years of experience in data migration, along with Acorn’s efficient customer service, have provided a significant benefit to their customers and led them to reaching their Data Migration Competency. Clients cited how smooth the process was. In addition, Acorn’s Director of eDiscovery, Tracey Oldenburg, was particularly cited for her successful management of complex migrations, and Acorn’s Account Manager Luke Riddle was commended for his project management skills and effective communication among teams.

“Acorn became an early adopter of Relativity’s cloud-based solution as we saw the potential for significant improvements in technology-enabled operational by moving to the cloud. I am proud that my team is able to facilitate these migrations painlessly so that our clients can start realizing the full value of RelativityOne,” said Lia Majid, CEO at Acorn Legal Solutions. “We are grateful to receive this recognition from Relativity as the team has put a lot of hard work into our proprietary migration workflows.”

 In addition to passing a complex scenario exercise on data migration, to achieve the RelativityOne Data Migration Competency, partners must provide Relativity at least four unique client references and be a published thought leader in the solution area. For more about Acorn’s data migration services, visit https://acornls.com/relativityone-migration-services/.

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. Although capable of serving AmLaw 100 Law Firms and Corporate Legal departments, Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications.

About Relativity

Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product RelativityOne manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. The AI-powered communication surveillance product, Relativity Trace proactively detects regulatory misconduct like insider trading, collusion and other non-compliant behavior. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 198 of the Am Law 200. Relativity has been named one of Chicago’s Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for 10 consecutive years. Please contact Relativity at sales@relativity.com or visit http://www.relativity.com for more information.  

Author Luke RiddlePosted on September 19, 2022September 29, 2022Categories Uncategorized

Announcing Acorn’s RelativityOne Silver Partnership

Acorn Legal Solutions Becomes RelativityOne Silver Partner

Acorn develops new app, eDiscovery BackOffice™ Mass Export Natives as part of commitment to partnership with RelativityOne

CHICAGO, IL – August 18, 2022 – Acorn Legal Solutions, a woman-led eDiscovery firm headquartered in Chicago, today announced that it has become a RelativityOne Silver Partner for providing exceptional service experience to its RelativityOne end users.  

Staffed exclusively by Relativity Masters, Experts, and JDs, the team at Acorn Legal Solutions averages 22 years of experience in eDiscovery project management, processing, hosting, case documents including ESI, paper documents, and other media. Acorn focuses on designing and implementing proportional, defensible approaches to manage high volume ESI projects, thereby minimizing clients’ legal risks and costs.

As part of their commitment to expand their usage of RelativityOne, Acorn has recently developed an app, eDiscovery BackOffice™ Mass Export Natives, that allows users to select documents in their document list or search result list and use a common mass operations workflow to download files. The application is simple to use, allowing users to mass export natives rather than downloading them one by one, and enables users to take control of a common support task for deposition and trial prep.

“We are very excited for this opportunity to grow our partnership with RelativityOne,” said Lia Majid, CEO at Acorn Legal Solutions. “Not only have we enjoyed working on custom solutions with Relativity’s available tools, but we are also looking forward to introducing new tools like Legal Hold to our services so that we can continue to provide the best possible workflows for our clients.”

“Acorn Legal Solutions’ commitment to providing customized and secure eDiscovery services exemplifies the values of our partnership program,” said James Zinn, Director of Commercial Partnerships at Relativity. “We congratulate the team at Acorn Legal Solutions on reaching RelativityOne Silver Partner status and look forward to seeing how they will continue to exceed client expectations.”

The RelativityOne Silver Level is part of the Relativity Partner Program and recognizes organizations that have reached a high bar for experience, customer satisfaction, and staff training and certifications. These partners are also proven innovators, with at least one custom application available in the Relativity App Hub. Their ability to make clients successful with RelativityOne is demonstrated and impressive. 

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. Although capable of serving AmLaw 100 Law Firms and Corporate Legal departments, Acorn primarily works with large regional, midsize national and boutique litigation firms. Acorn provides high-touch, customized litigation support services with a heavy emphasis on seamless communications.

About Relativity

Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product RelativityOne manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. The AI-powered communication surveillance product, Relativity Trace proactively detects regulatory misconduct like insider trading, collusion and other non-compliant behavior. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 198 of the Am Law 200. Relativity has been named one of Chicago’s Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for 10 consecutive years. Please contact Relativity at sales@relativity.com or visit http://www.relativity.com for more information.  

Author Luke RiddlePosted on August 18, 2022September 29, 2022Categories Uncategorized

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