Illuminating eDiscovery

This past year, I traversed the country to absorb and evangelize the current state of ediscovery and the rapidly evolving world of legal technology. From Legaltech to ILTA and RelativityFest to Georgetown AEDI, many lessons were learned - not only on where we are, but also where we’ve been. Common themes emerged that can help propel us forward and fully embrace a bold new world of ediscovery in 2019. Are you ready?

Legal technology for ediscovery is no longer niche, but not due to the efforts of ediscovery vendors.

In case you missed it, Relativity Fest 2018 is over and in the books, bringing together over 2,000 ediscovery fans in downtown Chicago from across the global community, eager to explore the intersection of law and technology. This year’s four-day conference featured an impressive 300 speakers, 200 sessions, and an undeniable feeling of possibility.

The 2018 Corporate Counsel Forum, held over a sunny two days in September, proved interesting and thought provoking. It was also reassuring to learn that what I set out in my first article (pre-2018 Corporate Counsel Forum), was true. Corporate data can be a beast to deal with because of complexities of legacy data systems, the need to stay current with the data privacy agenda, and the slow, difficult nature of inaccessible data when in house legal teams need to respond to regulatory and legal requests. The beast is still very much alive!

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the largest ever ILTACON, the annual meeting of the International Legal Technology Association. While many noteworthy topics were discussed as the creative juices flowed among the best and brightest of the legal IT world, below are the top five buzzworthy themes that stood out after attending (and tweeting about) dozens of sessions.