Proof Finder: 1,000 Nuix licenses at $100 for charity – you learn eDiscovery while others learn to read

EDiscovery software provider Nuix has come up with an imaginative plan which simultaneously provides lawyers and others with hands-on opportunities to develop technical eDiscovery skills and helps increase literacy skills to children in developing countries.

Like so many imaginative plans, it is easily understood: you pay $100 for Proof Finder, which gives you the same processing, search and analysis capabilities as other Nuix eDiscovery solutions with a 10 Gb data limit. Nuix will give the entire proceeds to a charity called Room to Read, which works in developing countries to increase literacy skills among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school.

1,000 such licences are to be made available over a 10 week period and the licence itself lasts for 12 months. Proof Finder is available at www.prooffinder.com.

There is an obvious connection here – though I do not think that it is what drove Nuix’s choice of charity. Literacy is a basic skill which people need to make progress in life. You cannot move beyond the basics without getting your hands on books. Lawyers, in-house information managers and those with responsibility for law enforcement and investigations can develop their skills in a practical way if they can actually use software designed for the purpose. It is rarely possible to gain such experience without significant investment in software licenses.

The scheme is explained in this press release. You get hold of the software in the same way as you acquire many more everyday applications by making an online payment, downloading a file and entering a licence number given at the time of payment. Working with a fully expanded dataset of up to 10 Gb, you can catalogue and search files and e-mails, look for particular types of file or content, and undertake an early case assessment through a user-friendly interface.

Nuix is giving live training webinars starting on 7 December, and online support is available in a variety of forms, including peer-to-peer help as well as user documentation, FAQs and training videos. The idea is not simply passive learning – you can use this on live cases immediately, getting your hands dirty on real data and finding out what this kind of software can do.

One of my recurring themes this year is that lawyers have difficulty in understanding what actually happens when eDiscovery applications are brought to bear on their clients’ documents and data.  Craig Ball, who is a lawyer as well as a skilled forensic investigator, often reminds us of the days when a client would bring in a file and you could dive straight into it and start giving initial advice. This  initiative gives lawyers the opportunity to see the transition from the source electronic documents to a reviewable body of data with the same immediacy.

The cause, Room to Read, is obviously a good one, and worth a $100 donation anyway. To help children to read whilst giving yourself a new set of skills is not something to be missed.

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UK accountancy firm BDO LLP selects Digital Reef for its eDiscovery work

The London member of business and advisory firm BDO International has taken Digital Reef to support its eDiscovery work. The selection was made through Digital Reef’s UK partner e-Origin.

William Wilkinson, Head of Technology Forensics Services at BDO, said “by processing our eDiscovery work through Digital Reef, we will be able to deal with larger volumes of information in a timelier manner than ever before.”

Digital Reef’s fast processing and analytic capability, with its focus on early case assessment, was not the only reason for the choice. Connectivity with kCura’s Relativity review platform was also significant..

There is further information about this deal here.

BDO is not a firm with which I have had any connection recently. I will leave it a while for the new system to bed in, and then try and get an invitation to find out more about them and their e-Discovery practice.

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The FBI buys Clearwell eDiscovery Platform

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has chosen Symantec’s Clearwell eDiscovery Platform for its eDiscovery investigations. There is a press release about the deal here.

Criminal investigators have much the same requirements as those in the civil fields – and the same costs pressures. They need to search and analyse large volumes of data, to review and tag them, and to make them available to others.

Government bodies are increasingly arming themselves with the ability to get ahead of those whom they investigate. Companies which have not yet got around to information governance and who possess large volumes of data which they do not control properly are frequently surprised to discover that prosecutors and regulators are equipped to find information which the company did not know it had – something it might regret when the investigator finds it first.

The FBI has now put itself in a position to do just that with people and companies who fall under its eye.

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Huron Legal’s Nigel Murray to take part in CEO Fast for Famine

LexisNexis Australia has been rounding up CEOs to take part in CEO Fast for Famine, an initiative led by UNICEF to raise money for its emergency relief program. The countries chiefly affected are Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

LexisNexis asked me to draw attention to their recruitment drive, which I would have done anyway. Shortly after I heard about it, I saw Nigel Murray, managing director of Huron Legal in London and discovered that he was amongst those recruited for the fast. As regular readers will know, Nigel makes an annual appearance in these pages for his sterling work raising money for Help for Heroes by cycling across northern France. This is a rather different opportunity for him to tackle his waistline in a good cause.

LexisNexis has a press release about this from which you will see that the participants have agreed to fast from midnight on Monday 12th December to midnight on Tuesday 13th December. There is also a registration page at which you can donate or, indeed, register to take part in the fast.

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