Post Author: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

5 Tips for Selecting an eDiscovery Partner

eDiscovery is an essential component of litigation, but this phase of discovery has become increasingly complicated as the amount of electronic data and data sources continues to skyrocket in growth year over year. Often, firms may not have the bandwidth or the expertise to handle eDiscovery in-house. Due to these factors, eDiscovery partners have become very common and can be relied upon to handle the large amounts of data needed for litigation.

eDiscovery partners can provide crucial support through the different phases of the discovery process, starting at collection through review, production, and case completion. An eDiscovery partner will also be able to assist you at the beginning of the matter to develop a targeted strategy and workflow with defined goals and budget. This creates not only a seamless, defined, and understood process allowing your case team to work collaboratively with your eDiscovery partner.

It may be overwhelming to choose between an eDiscovery partner out of the many options available today, and there are a few important metrics to take into account when evaluating and deciding on which partner works best for you. The choice of an eDiscovery partner can have a significant impact on the success (and cost) of your case, so it is essential to hire someone you can trust, particularly since you are dealing with sensitive client data.

1) Level of Customer Support

eDiscovery isn’t always simple and clear-cut, which is why it’s necessary to work with a Project Manager who provides dedicated support from the beginning to the end of your case. When looking for an eDiscovery partner, find out whether you will have a direct and consistent point of contact throughout your case. Does the partner pride themselves on being customer-focused? Do they not only provide technical eDiscovery services but also provide insights and consulting?

The technical experience of a project manager is just one piece of finding the right eDiscovery partner. Ensure that you will be working with a dedicated project manager who is available to you and understands the overarching goals of the case and works in collaboration with your team to develop the most efficient and cost-effective workflows for each matter.

2) Capabilities & Expertise

There is a tremendous level of experience required to understand complex eDiscovery software and workflows. When you are searching for an eDiscovery partner, check the years of experience the current project managers on the team possess. Do they have the technical acumen required to successfully handle all the phases of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)? Has the team attained certifications as an expert or master in their current technology platform and do they hold related eDiscovery certifications? For example, if the provider uses RelativityOne, are their project managers Relativity Experts or Relativity Masters?

The technical knowledge of a project manager will likely determine the quality of work with a chosen eDiscovery partner. Not only should your eDiscovery partner have the technical capabilities to complete the phases of eDiscovery, but it’s also important they have the expertise to produce superior outcomes for your case.

3) Service Offerings

Before choosing an eDiscovery partner, you must determine their scope of services and if the services they offer meet your needs. Whether you require assistance with litigation support, consulting, collection, hosting, review, production, or managed review, doing some research into the partner’s service lines is a simple and quick step to ensure the partner has an understanding of your needs and can successfully execute a plan.

4) Technology Offerings

Now that you have determined whether an eDiscovery partner is both capable in the field and provides the services you need, it is imperative to understand the technology they offer. With cyber-attacks becoming increasingly common and the expansion of data privacy laws, data security concerns are at the forefront of many firms’ and corporations’ minds. Evaluating partners and their technology solutions to meet or exceed industry security standards is essential. 

Once you understand the technology the company uses, determine whether it is reliable, secure, and exceeds industry standards.

5) Agile and Scalable

Your project manager should be closely involved in your case so that if your case grows, they can adjust your workflow accordingly. For example, Acorn developed our Small Case Solution for this exact reason. In RelativityOne we created a solution that is designed for cases with small data volumes. Our Small Case Solution allows our clients to have a fixed price for cases that are on the smaller side.

Using the Small Case Solution has allowed our clients to have a very cost-effective option to preemptively evaluate and work on their cases. If the case increases in scope, all of that initial work product is retained and we can easily scale to a larger case without any loss of work product. A case’s scope can abruptly change and there really isn’t a “one size fits all” scenario. It’s important to ensure your eDiscovery partner has solutions customized to your specific case needs.

Find the Right Partner for You

Since eDiscovery is such an important aspect of litigation, taking the time to evaluate potential eDiscovery partners can ensure that your unique needs are met and successful outcomes achieved. Determining the capabilities of the software and services and the level of expertise of your potential eDiscovery partner can start you off on the right foot toward a successful resolution of your cases. Clearly articulating your goals, expectations, and the services you need will help you find an eDiscovery partner that is the right fit.

Be Sure to 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.

Is It Ethical to Gain a Profit from eDiscovery?

You have a case involving a number of documents that will likely be too time-consuming for your in-house team to manually collect. You find yourself in a situation where you need the assistance of an eDiscovery vendor, but you may be concerned about the costs involved. Even though eDiscovery is often an essential part of litigation, many firms cite budget concerns as one of the major challenges within the industry. The good news is that there are ways to recover costs associated with eDiscovery by viewing them from a business perspective and understanding how to effectively manage them.

Is It Appropriate to Generate a Profit from eDiscovery?

While it may be common to recover eDiscovery costs, you may be wondering whether it is ethical to generate a profit from these services. The best way to view this is by understanding that eDiscovery usage is a business decision, not an ethical decision. It is appropriate to bill clients for this work so long as firms develop a reasonable cost recovery approach and communicate it to the client in advance or within a reasonable time of beginning representation.

eDiscovery services are likely benefitting your client in collecting the facts for their case, and you are incurring these costs for the sole purpose of most effectively representing them. Adding on eDiscovery services to your litigation isn’t a cash grab from your clients, it is a method for significantly improving the outcome of their case. In fact, you may even find that you are able to add on an extra fee for eDiscovery services so long as the costs meet the reasonableness standard and are transparently communicated to the client. Keep in mind, this is only applicable if the work and skills required are comparable to the costs that are being charged.

How Firms Can Effectively Recover eDiscovery Costs

There are many costs associated with running a business, and as a law firm, eDiscovery services are likely always going to be part of these expenses. Whether you decide to add an extra charge for these services, or simply want to recover the costs, the most important factor is the need to be transparent as you present them to your client.

There are a few different ways that you can present these costs, depending on the number and types of cases that your firm manages. For example, you may bill these services based on the volume of cases, volume of data, or the amount of users for your services. It is up to your team to determine the best way to define the costs associated with your services, but typically eDiscovery vendors provide pricing that assists with making these strategic decisions.

Billing Made Easy

As you begin working with an eDiscovery vendor, they will be able to provide you detailed, line by line pricing associated with the amount of data you are collecting. When you communicate these costs to clients, it is crucial to outline them as clearly as possible, as well as explaining how these services support them in their matter. If you are to apply a surcharge for the time and effort associated with these services, be sure to explain your reasoning and inform your client of the complexity of these services.

You want to ensure the trust of your clients while making effective business decisions for your firm. By being transparent with your pricing, you not only can provide effective representation, but also create a successful partnership between your firm, your clients, and your eDiscovery vendor.

Be Sure to 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.

Groundhog Day 2022 | Bridging the Gap: Addressing the Need for eDiscovery Staff with Technical Expertise

Acorn’s CEO, Lia Majid, was joined by Miller Johnson’s Director of Information Technology, Joseph Anderson, for this year’s Groundhog Day webinar to discuss the growing need for eDiscovery personnel with technical expertise.

The discussion expanded on how the lack of eDiscovery personnel, along with the increased need for eDiscovery services, has produced significant industry challenges in recent years. When it comes to managing eDiscovery in-house, there is often a lack of personnel whose main function is eDiscovery. As Joseph notes, “We had an eDiscovery practice that consisted of one project manager working on one case professionally, and then we had a handful of paralegals who were working in Relativity and working with the discovery. But not doing it as their main function and goal…that’s not scalable. If you get one big case, then all that time is taken away and there’s no way to expand eDiscovery within the firm.”

Joseph identified a need for strategically leveraging a partnership with an eDiscovery vendor to accelerate and expand eDiscovery in their firm. They initially didn’t have an established process for dealing with vendors and a structured way to put together the documentation and pull in all the relevant information. As Joseph mentions, “There was this idea that we have to get it into Relativity, we have to do the searches, oops we did something wrong. Okay dump everything out and let’s put it back in.” But through their partnership, they were able to establish a standardized process for each case. Now when there is a new case, they move through their standardized process and identify what needs to be produced before putting it into Relativity, avoiding unnecessary rework. With this increased efficiency, their team’s bandwidth was opened and provided more room for scalability.

A large contributor to these standardized processes involved designing a model to their firm’s case needs, especially for smaller cases. Partnering together, we developed a Small Case Solution, allowing them to leverage Relativity for small matters for a flat fee. Utilizing Acorn’s Small Case Solutions, Joseph’s team created a model where they can bring smaller cases into the RelativityOne software and spread this service to other practices within their firm that typically hadn’t leveraged eDiscovery tools. Joseph mentions, “If you told me that General Counsel would use it for a general investigation, or a Real Estate Partner would be using eDiscovery and that we would have 25-30 cases up from 4, I would have thought no way.” Through their partnership, they now can spread eDiscovery across the firm, and offer the right tools at the right time and place.

By using a standardized workflow with a self-service approach, Joseph’s firm was able to take on more work without needing to hire any new eDiscovery talent. With the current landscape of eDiscovery staffing shortages, it is often not feasible for firms to hire a new paralegal each time new cases arise. Investing in talent also presents cost challenges as Joseph notes, “When we brought an individual on, it was only 20 hours a week and we had the ability to scale up. But if we didn’t need 20 hours, we were still paying for it.” Workloads are constantly fluctuating, but with a strategic partnership to help with the ups and downtime in terms of work within the space, they can scale accordingly.

Despite the challenges surrounding access to individuals in the industry with technical expertise, leveraging a strategic partnership allows you to bridge the gap. Working closely with a partner not only offers access to high eDiscovery expertise but helps you create standardized processes, models tailored to your firm’s needs, and leverage powerful tools at the right moments to truly scale and expand your eDiscovery practice. Transforming eDiscovery into a tool can help leverage across more practices and expand your firm’s efficiency and caseload.

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The Benefits of Early Case Assessment in eDiscovery

You may already know that there are alternatives to the “classic” eDiscovery process. One of these alternatives is an Early Case Assessment (ECA). An ECA can be an extremely beneficial first step, allowing you to quickly identify key information and potential evidence at the onset of a legal matter, which can be leveraged to guide case strategy.

With an initial deeper understanding of the data, we can make reasonable considerations of the case’s liability and projected costs and consider if this case is worth going to trial or if a settlement is an appropriate option. Not only can this approach help guide your initial case strategy but is a cost-effective option leading up to Discovery, allowing us to refine our scope and define and refine our key custodians, key words, etc.  

What Is Early Case Assessment?

There’s no doubt that the early phases of Discovery are the most critical. By using an ECA workflow in the initial phases of Discovery, you can refine vast volumes of data and extract the key facts of your case immediately for review before committing to hosting your entire dataset and the associated costs that come along with that. By refining and analyzing your dataset, we can make reasonable, cost-effective considerations of the case’s liability and projected costs and consider if this case is worth going to trial or if a settlement is an appropriate option. Costs can be significantly reduced by analyzing a smaller subset of data initially, rather than going through an entire collection of all your data only to find out that you don’t need to go to trial. 

If you do however decide to go to trial and move to formal Discovery, the work product from your ECA has already helped you refine your data set, with key custodians, key words and documents initially defined. Your data will be easier to work throughout the case since you will have already limited the number of documents that need to be reviewed. You can now also make more informed decisions from the meet-and-confer through the life of the case, keeping your scope defined and costs contained.

Early Case Assessment with RelativityOne

RelativityOne provides a simple Early Case Assessment option, allowing you to access your data in the same workspace interface you’re familiar with but at significantly reduced cost and a few limitations.

Initial stages of an Early Case Assessment in RelativityOne may include:

  • Gathering Information

  • Analyzing key words and evaluating your data

  • Searching data that may be potentially relevant

  • Refining data to be promoted for review

  • Presenting your findings to outside counsel

  • Building your eDiscovery budget and timeline

RelativityOne’s ECA workflow integrates seamlessly through your eDiscovery, allowing you to scale up and down as needed with RelativityOne’s suite of tools with collection, processing, review, and production capabilities. This allows you to facilitate the whole process all in one platform, keeping your data and work product centralized throughout the life of the case.

Is Early Case Assessment Right for You?

When considering an ECA workflow, it’s important to determine what your goals, timelines and budget are and what questions are you looking to answer. Some considerations may be: What deadlines has the court put upon us? Is this something we can manage in house or need to pull in an outside vendor? What is the liability? What are the costs going to be? How much of this data is relevant to the merits of the litigation?

One of the major benefits that you may find from using an ECA tool is that you are able to calculate risk prior to putting documents through a review platform. Nowadays, there is more online data than ever, and it can be difficult and time-consuming to cull down documents on your own without a tool to help you. The advantage of using an ECA tool is that you can eliminate non-relevant data and focus on the facts to determine the potential route and outcome of your case. ECA can be a more cost-effective way to start your discovery at significantly reduced cost, using a reduced amount of data to gain insights into the direction of your case.

Considering using an ECA workflow in your next case? Contact one of our expert Project Advisors for a free consultation!

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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.

Why Is eDiscovery So Expensive?

There is still a common misconception that eDiscovery is expensive. Even though eDiscovery can save you money long term, people are still hesitant to invest in these services. You or the IT department may try to complete discovery requests on their own, and this can be a viable solution but not always. However, eDiscovery professionals are equipped with a significant level of training and expertise that is unique to them and tailored specifically to handle discovery requests. Without this expertise, discovery can quickly become overwhelming or grow out of control. This is why it’s best not to think about eDiscovery in terms of line-item costs, but to consider the big picture, in which the total cost encompasses the expertise, time consumption, and security that is needed to move through the discovery phase most efficiently.

What Training is Required for eDiscovery Professionals?

Just as in any line of work, training is necessary to become an expert at something. For example, most of us could probably handle our own taxes and financials. But how about the taxes for our firm or company as a whole? Would we trust this task to anyone with a basic understanding, no probably not. We would expect at the very least the person was a CPA. The same principles should apply to eDiscovery. You or I could probably search and pull some emails from our accounts but would be the appropriate individual to handle searching various communication sources across 10s of custodians, probably not. These matters required specific understandings of the laws, requirements, and processes, which is why we should rely on the professionals that have dedicated their abilities to become experts.

eDiscovery professionals display most of their expertise through certifications offered by various organizations. Two of the most recognizable certifications are offered by ACEDS and Relativity. ACEDS’ Certified eDiscovery Specialist (CEDS), a trusted global indicator of e-discovery competence, demonstrates an individual’s expertise across the entire e-discovery lifecycle, including e-discovery project planning, international discovery, and ethics in e-discovery. Similar Relativity offers various certifications such as Relativity Certified Administrator (RCA) and multiple Relativity Specialist certifications. After completion of a certain number of certifications, an individuals earns the title of a Relativity Certified Expert and then the scarce honor of Relativity Certified Master.

Your Time is Valuable

Oftentimes, junior associates oversee the discovery phase and could truly benefit from the technology an eDiscovery vendor provides. eDiscovery involves collecting and reviewing a significant amount of data, and it could take hours upon hours to complete this process manually, taking time away from other crucial work that needs to be done.

When it comes to trial, a lawyer often needs to produce a document for court quickly. With eDiscovery software, this is easy to accomplish, but if someone were to look for the document manually, it could take hours of time that many lawyers simply don’t have. Even smaller cases need significant evidence and require large amounts of data. Therefore, the cost of using an eDiscovery service to easily find documents makes the price worth it.

Privacy Risks

When working through the discovery phase, you are often working with sensitive personal data. Unfortunately, in today’s world, it’s becoming more common for computer systems and data to become compromised. Often times we don’t consider the many vulnerabilities we create for our data as we transfer it from one party to the next.

When using an eDiscovery vendor, you don’t have to worry about these security risks. At Acorn, we use RelativityOne built on Microsoft Azure – the most secure cloud on the market. Because of this, RelativityOne meets the industry highest security standards such as ISO 27001; SOC 2, Type II; HIPAA; and FedRAMP. So not only is your data centralized in the cloud, but is also protected to the highest degree.

Is eDiscovery Worth the Cost?

If you’re considering working with an eDiscovery vendor, you may not be viewing the cost in terms of the opportunity. Completing the discovery phase on your own can take countless hours that your team might not have. To successfully complete eDiscovery on your own, there is a level of expertise that is needed. If you want to avoid wasted time, miscommunication, and privacy risks, it may be the best decision to opt for an eDiscovery vendor.

Be Sure to 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.