Gartner’s Debra Logan and others at ZyLAB Universe 2011

If you cannot actually attend a conference, the next best thing is to read Project Counsel’s live tweets of the event and their subsequent reports. I was not able to attend ZyLAB Universe 2011 in Amsterdam on 24 November, but learned enough from the tweets to wish that I had been there. Project Counsel’s report is now out and is well worth reading for reasons which go well beyond even ZyLAB’s broad reach.

It does not diminish the importance of the other speakers to say that the presentation by Debra Logan of Gartner got the most attention. Her starting point was the five myths of eDisclosure, beginning with my favourite: that eDisclosure and litigation are “American problems”. This myth is patent nonsense if you do business with US companies or if your company is the parent, subsidiary or sister company of a US company. Even if you have no business connections with the US, you can no longer ignore the need to meet the demands of regulators, to face up to prosecutors like the UK’s Serious Fraud Office with its wide ranging remit under the UK Bribery Act, and to conduct internal investigations.

I will leave you to read Project Counsel’s report for yourself, not merely of Debra Logan’s speech but of what was said by ZyLAB’s Johannes Scholtes and others. Between the coverage of the speeches and the ancillary comment and illustrations you will get a good overview of what is coming in 2012 and beyond.

I should also, modestly, draw attention to the paper and webinar which I recently did with ZyLAB on the gap between business, legal and compliance, and IT departments within companies, a subject which recurred throughout the day.

I also note, with curiosity more than anything else, that Debra Logan is reported as referring to “eDisclosure“. In narrowly technical terms, this term refers to civil discovery under the Civil Procedure Rules of England and Wales. I prefer the universally accepted term eDiscovery except where referring specifically to the CPR. It is interesting to see Debra Logan apparently going the other way.

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Epiq Systems acquires De Novo Legal to expand its Managed Review Services

It is only eight months since Epiq Systems significantly increased its legal technology reach by the acquisition of Encore eDiscovery. It has ended the year by acquiring De Novo Legal LLC, whose particular strength is managed review services.

The acquisition significantly expands a review service which Epiq grew organically out of its software and services base in 2009. Like so many acquisitions, the commercial logic seems obvious once it has happened, with the two 2011 acquisitions significantly extending Epiq’s potential client base simultaneously with the ability to service it.

The press release is here. Despite its timing between Christmas and New Year, this transaction has attracted a lot of press attention – see, for example, the article headed EPIQ’s Acquisition Of De Novo Legal A Sign Of Things To Come by eDiscovery Journal’s Barry Murphy, which sees the acquisition as fulfilling eDiscovery Journal’s own predictions about market consolidation and about geographical, as well as functional, spread by fewer and stronger players.

I hope to find out more when the world starts moving again and will come back to this subject.

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