As I have often said, I am content to stick to my own part of the e-Disclosure / e-Discovery world and leave others to theirs. Deciphering market trends is the job of analysts; journalists can react quickly to news; the clammy dead hand of the industry press release, with its boilerplate verbiage and breathless hyperbole, can find its way round the world in minutes without any help from me; earnest lawyers can deal with properly foot-noted and referenced reports of cases. My role requires me to pull together such of the threads as will encourage lawyers to make the best use of the rules and of the technology to reconcile their clients’ objectives with the requirements of the courts, helping them to understand just enough of the technology to know what is available and broadly what it does.
May is always a busy time, thanks to IQPC’s information Retention and eDisclosure Management Summit in London and Guidance Software’s Computer Enterprise and Investigations Conference (CEIC) in the US, both of which always take place back to back on opposite sides of the world; one year found me rushing straight from Gatwick to IQPC, where I was caught sleeping through a session – fortunately, not one of my own.
This May has brought in addition the Gartner Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software, Autonomy’s acquisition of Iron Mountain’s digital assets and Symantec’s purchase of Clearwell, all on top of Epiq Systems’ acquisition of Encore Discovery Solutions in April. Tens of thousands of words have been written about these things, any one of which would be significant in any month, let alone all of them together. What do they mean for the lawyer, whether in-house or external, who has responsibility for managing electronic disclosure? Is there much to add to what has already been said?
Probably not, but it is worth gathering some of the threads together, using the Gartner Magic Quadrant as a background source. Gartner’s authority in this area needs no endorsement from me, and it is probably not necessary for me to say that I know both the authors, Debra Logan and John Bace. I am, of course connected with many of the names which appear in the Magic Quadrant as well as many who do not. Having pointed you to it, I do not feel the need to mention everyone who appears in it, sticking with those which illustrate some point beyond their bare appearance there. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Chris Dale 
