Early Case Assessment (ECA) is the e-discovery solution most in demand, according to the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Report. In my blog post, E-Discovery Takeaways, I discussed the various methods clients are using to reduce the cost of handling e-discovery such as by in-sourcing and moving data to the cloud. Many corporations and law firms are also pinning their hopes on ECA. This hope, however, is often misplaced; effective ECA requires detailed process know-how and avoiding undue faith in a single application touted as an ECA panacea.

The report describes industry wide confusion between perceived and true functionality offered by ECA applications:

“ECA has been a hot topic for the past two years. We believe a major factor for this level of popularity is that it is being portrayed by many as a silver bullet for constraining runaway costs. A concise, generally accepted definition of ECA does not exist. Consequently, defining ECA depends on who you ask. Some purveyors of products are working at rebranding old tools as ECA adding to the confusion.” [emphasis added]

The survey results also indicate that “overselling” by software providers is one of the biggest problems in e-discovery related to ECA. Hand-in-hand with this problem is the need for ESI-specific lawyer education and mentoring.

From Silver Bullet to Gold Rush

Consumers of e-discovery services and software should take note of the Socha-Gelbmann report’s warning. It is always wise to be wary of applications that promise to “do it all”. Most applications do one or two things well and the rest poorly. Recently, it seems that developers slap “Now with ECA!” stickers on products that could potentially be used for ECA (often with an enormous amount of effort) but which don’t actually include any new functionality specifically designed for this purpose.

The confusion surrounding ECA recently prompted George Socha and Tom Gelbmann to author an article on the subject, Don’t Box ECA (Law Technology News, June 2010). They point out that, while ECA can intersect with the discovery process, it actually goes beyond it. For the purpose of this blog post though, I’ll focus on how ECA does apply to discovery.

The Truth about ECA

At Integreon, because we consult with organizations at every stage of the EDRM framework, we have been beating the ECA drum for a long time. There is no replacement for old-fashion know-how, preparation and organization. True ECA is a managed process where the litigation team creates and reviews data maps, conducts and reviews potential custodian interviews, and looks at sample data. There are tools that can make some of this process easier but nothing really replaces this litigation-research.

It is nice there are tools that help litigation teams get a whiff of the data without having to fully process significant numbers of PSTs (a common type of mailbox archive file) or restore stacks of backup tapes. Integreon uses tools such as Index Engines (i.e. Advanced Tape Discovery) and Clearwell (i.e. First Line Analysis), but these are only the tools deployed as part of a comprehensive, documented ECA process.

Simply put, discovery related ECA is all about scope. The goal of this “assessment” or “analysis” is to make an educated prediction as to how much data should be preserved, collected and processed; how much the full discovery effort might cost; and benefits and risks to the client in a variety of discovery scenarios. If the ECA effort is effective, the litigation team will be able to put a relative value on the litigation, prepare for the meet and confer or settlement conference, and correctly target its collection efforts to the truly, potentially responsive custodians and data stores.

Based on a review of interview memoranda and data maps, attorneys should also work with in-house specialists or outside consultants to analyze representative samples of data to understand and document data types, thread topics, participant interaction, timelines, etc. The team can run searches on this data to attempt to extrapolate the amount of information which may be potentially responsive and that will eventually need to be sent into review.

After this phase, which is aided by e-discovery applications but is certainly not a “magic” turn-key process, the team should be able to formulate an initial strategy. If formal discovery is called for, they should be able to make an informed decision as to what to collect. Helpful ECA should allow the team to collect less data overall, and produce more responsively.

Again, ECA is a human process. One hundred custodians dumped into an ECA tool will not miraculously percolate a case strategy, and could be an even bigger waste if the case might be won by collecting only twenty custodians. If the litigation team hasn’t done its homework, then no ECA tool in the world will be helpful. It will be like that All-in-One power tool that just collects dust in the basement, or that blender that is supposed to delicately crush ice but instead makes margarita soup.

Perhaps the persistent underlying distaste for e-discovery is part of the reason that some attorneys look for a magic ECA tool to make all their troubles go away. The Socha-Gelbmann survey had an interesting comment on this:

“As one survey participant put it, ‘electronic discovery is viewed as something you have to do, rather than something that is vital to learning about the case.’ Fortunately, some organizations understand this imperative and have been developing technologies and techniques to help electronic discovery practitioners craft and tell a persuasive tale.”

I reiterate that true early case assessment isn’t primarily about e-discovery. It’s about litigation tasks such as interviewing potential custodians and witnesses. I often hear attorneys complain that document review and production management “aren’t why I went to law school”, and yet I hear almost as often that many of these same attorneys don’t bother to draft or review interview memoranda. I have also experienced litigation teams that don’t even want to look at evidence until it’s been pared down by review and production.

Perhaps the mountain of electronically stored information (ESI) is so daunting that attorneys don’t think they can tackle it early in the process. I believe that litigators will not regain their confident management of the entire discovery process until they are extensively schooled in e-discovery management. The 2009 Socha-Gelbmann survey results do show that education is the weakest link in the e-discovery industry today.

A Need for ESI Professionals

If litigators are beginning to agree that e-discovery is really just part of discovery, then all litigators will have to have some level of comfort with e-discovery management — from Information Management at the far left of the EDRM framework through Presentation. No litigator, or even an attorney in another practice area, should be truly free from the responsibility of attaining basic competence in this area. However, this does not mean that the industry doesn’t need specialists. I may be a real home DIY-er but I still hire a plumber or electrician to do the professional work.

Effective participation in the management and processing of ESI requires a similar level of specialization. The Socha-Gelbmann survey respondents decried the lack of good project managers and litigators who are able to participate fully in cases that involve ESI.

“[M]any participants estimated that no more than 100 to 200 lawyers in the entire country [USA] really get electronic discovery.”

This is especially problematic for law firms and corporate legal departments that are seeking to recruit members to an e-discovery team or practice group. As mentioned previously, corporations are hiring full-time ESI and litigation support personnel.  According to the survey, law firms are doing likewise:

“Law firms, for whom the move in‐house means taking on activities previously delegated to providers, hope to retain relevance. Increasingly they feel the need to replace [the] dwindling volume of large case review projects with new electronic discovery revenue streams.”

To meet the demand, new ESI professionals will need to be “created” by the e-discovery community. Early and on-going ESI education — in law schools, firms and corporate legal departments for attorneys, paralegals and litigation support professionals — should be a priority for 2010 and 2011. The curricula should include case law, technology, and project management training. A recent positive sign is that law schools are indeed beginning to offer classes in ESI; note Ralph Losey’s law school lectures available via his blog.

Industry organizations are also stepping in with certification and training programs. For example, the Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) and the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) are both offering online training courses.

However ESI program creation cannot be limited to education and mentoring. ESI competency needs to be a prerequisite for advancement. Conversely, don’t sideline ESI attorneys as “nerds” and push them off of the partner track — a fear I’ve heard articulated more than once from junior associates. Another issue is the time training can take away from reaching billable quotas. Associates should be rewarded for updating their skills, not penalized.

Fernando M. Pinguelo, Esq., of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A. told me, recently, that his e-discovery class at Seton Hall Law School is one of about a dozen or so such courses dedicated solely to e-discovery taught in US law schools. His class members maintain a blog, www.eLLblog.com, as part of their course work which seems like a great way for law students to encourage their peers to sharpen their skills.

If only 100-200 litigators in the USA “get it,” then more attorneys should be availing themselves of the services of a qualified ESI consultant. It is no sin to admit you’re not a techie; rather it’s a sign of foresight to bring in the right kind of technical assistance. Ralph Losey’s blog post from January 12th makes the case that hiring a consultant can in fact be a sign of competence, rather than weakness. Similarly, a recent report of recommendations for changing how e-discovery is handled in New York State Courts states that:

“Court rules should be amended to require that counsel appearing at the PC possess sufficient knowledge about client technology systems to competently discuss them with the court and opposing counsel; counsel may, as appropriate, associate themselves with and bring client representatives or outside experts with knowledge of the issues.”

Clearly, there is much credence to supporting e-discovery educational opportunities and bringing in ESI professionals in order to ensure that an efficient, accurate, and defensible process is conducted.

In the third and final post of this e-discovery blog series, I will next discuss another trend reported in the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann survey: Data Analytics.

The EDRM 2010 Spring kick-off meeting this week in St. Paul Minnesota had nearly 100 attendees turnout, which may show that the electronically stored information (ESI) community is regaining some of its former optimism.

The work of EDRM (The Electronic Discovery Reference Model) is done by a series of project teams and committees. Each reported on progress over the last twelve months and goals for the next year and I share some highlights here.

Data Set Project

One of the big challenges in e-discovery (EDD) is creating a large, freely available data set, against which lawyers and vendors can test software or develop new semantic or text handling algorithms. The Data Set project has soared past their initial goal of 100 GBs of unencumbered data and is currently offering three different sets of helpful test data.

As reported last year, they are reaching out to other organizations to work for the betterment of the ESI community. Their very productive interaction with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has even resulted in receiving a copy of NIST’s source code used to run Hash values. (A hash is a mathematically generated ’signature’ for any digital file. Each is a limited and fairly small number of characters, irrespective of file size. Hashes are used to identify and compare files.)

Data Set is supporting the TREC Project, the Text Retrieval Conference, run by NIST. EDRM Data Set is helping to create an improved set of sample data for this year’s TREC legal track. The goal is to create an enhanced, canonical set of public Enron data that accurately represents Enron’s email environment. This year’s TREC sample will grow from 104 to 150 Custodians.

The Data Set project group sees their work as very practical, even though it sounds very techie on the surface. They are dedicated to lowering the cost of ESI processing. Their current goal is to answer the question, “What if there was a way to probabilistically determine if any file was user-generated or not?” They believe that non user-generated files could be automatically stripped out during pre-processing for most cases. With this in mind, they are working on creating the grandly named, Probabilistic Hash Data Set (“PHDS”). Success would mean reducing the cost of processing and reviewing ESI by eliminating irrelevant files early in the process.

Evergreen Project

The Evergreen Project is the group responsible for keeping the original content of EDRM, the information that matches the Model, or Framework itself, up to date. Evergreen is roaring out of the gate, having spent a year dedicated to completing and updating all EDRM Framework content.

Julie Brown must be lauded for her dedication to this work. She co-chaired the project and spent an enormous amount of time and energy shepherding the various nodes toward the goal of complete content. Julie is remaining with Evergreen, thank goodness, but is handing over her co-chair responsibilities to Therese Carey. I am staying on as the other co-chair and Therese and I are very excited about the progress made last year and the plans for the next twelve months.

Evergreen will be accomplishing the following enhancements to the website and its content by May 2010: A “Pack and Play” download for each phase of the EDRM framework containing a Standards document, supported by tools such as check lists and templates, case studies and an introductory, educational PowerPoint presentation. Evergreen is so fired up that you may see some of this material in Podcasts, Vcasts and live presentations.

Information Management Reference Model

IMRM or Information Management Reference Model project is still a new addition to EDRM and has already created useful content. They envision themselves as an “entirely new reference model – separate counterpart to EDRM.” Look for their helpful graphic on their page http://edrm.net/activities/projects/imrm

Model Code of Conduct

MCOC, led by Eric Mandel, is determined to have final content available for public comment by May 2011. It may seem like the code is taking a long time but the project is tackling very complex issues and they don’t want to give short shrift to the various points of view and factors related to these spiny issues.

Public Relations

The PR Committee has broadened its mandate to include entertainment. They put together a sneak-peak of a game show they are working on for LegalTech. They will be soliciting additional questions and answers from the ESI community.

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Once again, St. Paul, was lovely in the Springtime and the residents were welcoming and helpful. I managed to make it to the Minnesota Science Museum for a very quick look at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, before the reception Tuesday evening. I doubt the work of EDRM will last 2000 years but at least we don’t have to produce TIFFs on papyrus.

The full version of the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Report was finally published in December 2009 after exhaustive work by George Socha and Tom Gelbmann. It is the largest ever Socha-Gelbmann report; a compendium of trends, charts, and results spanning over 600 pages. The findings are fascinating and worth discussing, but so far surprisingly few in the industry have really given it much comment.

Once again George and Tom provide the 35,000 foot view of the industry and a detailed market analysis.  The hotly contested vendor rankings have now been replaced by 250 pages of additional content.

2008-2009 Market – In-source / Out-source / Right-source

Overall, the e-discovery market, like everything else in 2008, shrunk quickly and significantly.

This is not surprising given that many law firms and corporations did cut back on their spending levels due to the recession. However, Socha-Gelbmann survey respondents felt the industry may be starting its recovery.

“Despite the market slowdown in 2008, consumers and providers continue to tell us they expect this market to expand by … about 25% in 2010.”

While the market as a whole did shrink, the report shows that larger providers actually gained market share (Tier 1 up 16%) vs. the mid-size providers (Tier 2 down 14%) and smaller providers (no growth for Tier 3). There was also growth shown in the DIY segment, comprised of those corporations and law firms that like to manage their own internal efforts.

In-sourcing

The Survey reports that client control of the e-discovery process is finally reaching its long awaited tipping point:

“Who Buys; who should control – After years of disparity with law firms favoring law firms, companies favoring companies on this question, I am seeing agreement with the consensus showing 60/40 in favor of the client.”

“Moving Electronic Discovery In‐House – Companies, law firms, and providers all report new or expanded efforts to move electronic discovery activities in‐house, with a strong emphasis on legal hold, litigation preparedness and compliance.”

I am heartened by the survey’s positive outlook for the industry, but I am skeptical that corporations’ in-sourcing of ESI management will be the primary factor in dampening the impact of growing volumes of ESI. I believe that proactive creation of and adherence to document retention policies will have the most profound effect on the volume of ESI that makes it out of the email, file or document management system and into a collection.

I believe that the more expertise clients bring in house, by recruiting experts or through closer relationships with vendors, the more they will understand the rather arcane and mysterious process of processing and producing ESI. And the more they will see that the ultimate cost savings is in efficiently storing only what is necessary for business record keeping and compliance.

The combination of storing less unnecessary information and in-house ESI management should lower the cost of managing ESI from collection through review  more significantly so than the mere reduction in processing unit costs, data culling, or lower rates for offshore attorney review.

We must remember, however, that there are significant risks for organizations who bring ESI management in-house (recall In re Fannie Mae Securities Litigation, in which the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight hired 50 contract attorneys and spent $6 million, or 9 percent of its annual budget, only to be held by the court in contempt for failing to meet its e-discovery deadline). Many corporations and law firms prefer having an outside vender act as a buffer between them and potential concerns about production of data.

The report mentions that not everything can be moved in-house and that for those types of activities, “companies and law firms alike are expressing a growing desire to be able to work with a single provider.”

Out-sourcing

In the 2009 report, we see just as many clients are outsourcing ESI work. Hosted review is one of the solutions in highest demand of all services and software. Two other solutions cited as highest in demand are data analytics and early case assessment, which are important trends that I will cover in a later Integreon blog post.

Outsourced attorney review receives its first analysis in this year’s report. This probably reflects a growing acceptance and trust in legal process outsourcing (LPO) services, as well as demand for contract attorney and staffing services too.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) rounds out the new out-trends that are profiled in this year’s report. The cloud computing debate around SaaS is just getting started as it populates the blogosphere and Twitter-verse. It is still much too early to determine the ultimate ramifications to privacy and discovery due to porting applications and data to a third party.

SaaS, outsourced attorney review, and hosted review are all identified in the report as the three fastest growing services in e-discovery, which illustrates that many organizations do see outsourcing as a very compelling method for lowering discovery costs and risks.

Right-sourcing

Keeping ESI close-to-home by in-sourcing may offer tighter risk management and cost control, however the findings from Socha-Gelbmann suggest that in-house departments and applications may be strained by large or exotic data sets. The report made a point of warning readers about recent marketing of some applications as “silver bullet” solutions. It may be tempting to bring an application in house that processes, analyses, produces and even convection grills in order to eliminate the need for vendors. However, there will always come a time when the software or hardware platform cannot keep up with the data volume or unusual data types or even unique production requirements. Simply put, it is always risky to have only one tool in the tool box.

Relationships with vendors should be put in place, even if only as a fall-back position, so that the vendor is prepped with knowledge about the client’s information architecture, data types and litigation requirements. Pre-existing rate agreements and communication protocols can make the client’s life much easier when having to find a vendor to handle an avalanche of data or technical issues at the eleventh hour. Careful consideration must be made to right-source the best elements for a comprehensive and defensible discovery process that will include the most effective in-sourced and out-sourced components.

We already know just how important meet and confer is for electronic discovery. But, do you also know who should be at the meet and confer?

Here’s a pop quiz:

What makes a good meet and confer team?

(a) Crack team of e-discovery professionals
(b) Lone-wolf litigator
(c) Group of attorneys with varying levels of ESI acumen

Choice (a) would seem like a great answer, but unfortunately this answer is rarely the “final answer”.

I recently conducted an informal survey of ten high-profile, experienced e-discovery/litigation support professionals and found that four had never been to a Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 26(f) “Meet and Confer” meeting. The six who had done so averaged 3.8 meet and confers per person since the amended rules took effect in December 2006, over the last three years.

All ten e-discovery professionals believe their firms are missing out on an opportunity to tap their skills and experience. Of course, many practicing attorneys have become proficient in matters involving electronically stored information (ESI) or are themselves e-discovery professionals. However, most litigators can benefit from specialists who spend their days ‘living and breathing’ e-discovery.

A practicing attorney may be a brilliant strategist, possess a photographic memory of case law, and have superlative negotiation skills, but may not know the nuts and bolts of ESI management. Many e-discovery failures are the result of seemingly small details or technological nuances. It is for these details and nuances that the litigation support professional serves as an invaluable member of the case team.

The FRCP implicitly supports the idea that e-discovery professionals should be part of the team. For example, Rule 26(a)2(B) sets standards for data accessibility (“not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost”). The e-discovery professional is well placed to help assess the practical factors that govern application of this standard. This person is familiar with not only with various IT infrastructure scenarios but typically has a wealth of experience organizing collections and even personally collecting data from multiple systems. More importantly, the e-discovery professional is usually the person at the firm who is most familiar with budgeting for discovery projects and so understands the associated costs of access.

Beyond the question of accessibility, litigation support and e-discovery professionals can also help lawyers negotiate appropriate search terms. This idea is supported in the FRCP comments, which state:

“The volume of – and the ability to search – much electronically stored information means that in many cases the responding party will be able to produce information from reasonably accessible sources that will fully satisfy the parties’ discovery needs. In many circumstances the requesting party should obtain and evaluate the information from such sources before insisting that the responding party search and produce information contained on sources that are not reasonably accessible…”

Defensible search and care in specifying search terms and strategy have received much press of late. I believe the message is that e-discovery data analytics and sophisticated search are professional disciplines. Certainly Magistrate Judge Facciola has made this point strongly in U.S. v. Michael John O’Keefe, 2008 WL 449729 (D.D.C.) where he noted  that establishing the appropriate search terms:

“is a complicated question involving the interplay, at least, of the sciences of computer technology, statistics, and linguistics… Given this complexity, … [t]his topic is clearly beyond the ken of a layman and requires that any such conclusion be based on evidence that, for example, meets the criteria of Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.”

I believe that by “layman,” Judge Facciola meant an IT professional or attorney who is not familiar with the complexity of searching ESI. The layman won’t be conversant with sophisticated Boolean, proximity and meta data search syntax, let alone the pitfalls inherent in different email platforms, file types, storage architecture and data bases.

Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander, Northern District of Mississippi, recently “imposed” an electronic discovery expert on defendants in, In Maggette, et. al. v. BL Development Corp., et. al., 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 116789 (N.D. Miss. Nov. 24, 2009). Not only making the case for appropriate preparation but participation by someone with the appropriate skills.

Why not have the e-discovery professional attend the 26(f) conference in order to prevent the parties from agreeing to a flawed search method or even a list of overly-broad search terms? The FRCP committee commented:

“Whether a responding party is required to preserve unsearched sources of potentially responsive information that it believes are not reasonably accessible depends on the circumstances of each case. It is often useful for the parties to discuss this issue early in discovery.”

“In appropriate cases identification of, and early discovery from, individuals with special knowledge of a party’s computer systems may be helpful.”

These statements from the FRCP clearly make the case for early participation by an
e-discovery professional. A 26(f) team without an ESI resource may lack key skills, including:

• An understanding of forms of production including paper, TIFF and various native and metadata formats
• Familiarity with document retention policies and litigation hold compliance, methods and applications
• A technical understanding of collection issues including when and how to perform forensic work
• Custodian interview management skills
• Early Case Assessment acumen
• Ability to draft data maps
• Search, data analytics and ESI culling methods
• A focused understanding of IT infrastructure from the production perspective
• Personal knowledge of reliable ESI vendors/service providers
• Project management and deadline management experience
• Budget, budget, budget

If a litigator doesn’t feel comfortable bringing his firm’s e-discovery support expert to the meet and confer, certainly preparation for the 26(f) should be enhanced with the e-discovery professional’s participation. The unfortunate experience of many e-discovery professionals is that the litigator calls up saying, “We’re having the meet and confer tomorrow…”, effectively short circuiting any contribution the e-discovery professional could make.

I feel certain that although not specifically mentioned, the Sedona Conference Cooperation Proclamation encourages attorneys to cooperate within the case team consisting of both inside and outside counsel, paralegals, IT and e-discovery professionals.

The proclamation mentions, in passing, the participation by non-attorneys, in discovery techniques. (“Part III: Tools – Developing and distributing practical ‘toolkits’ to train and support lawyers, judges, other professionals, and students in techniques of discovery cooperation, collaboration, and transparency.”)

In answer to the pop quiz for which this blog post is titled, ‘no’ – you cannot have an effective meet and confer without the benefit of the presence, or at least input, of an e-discovery specialist.

Many industry experts also believe that legal budgets in 2010 are likely to stay flat or continue to shrink. Therefore, in-house counsel remain under tremendous cost-control pressure. A good way to minimize the risk of going over budget is to plan carefully and gain control over the data and search strategy as early as possible. The best way to do that is by bringing in the appropriate experts to the all-critical meet and confer sessions.

[For a lighter look at the future of EDD, see my guest blog post, Delatio Electrics (by Babs Deacon), at the EDD Update blog.]

EDRM, the e-discovery industry’s “think tank”, started its 2009-2010 working year in St. Paul, Minn. with a much anticipated kick-off meeting held May 13-14th. Participants reconvened from the 2008-2009 season to report their progress and to plan the direction for the next twelve months. EDRM organizes its work into distinct project groups and the attendees spend most of the two days meeting with their project teams, organizing and drafting content. Before reporting on my own involvement in the Evergreen project, a few observations from the meeting overall…

EDRM added two new projects this year, Information Management and Jobs. Information Management as its own project was an obvious evolution. It had been part of the Evergreen group but the topic has grown enough to warrant its own focus. The Jobs project is a timely response to the current economic situation plus the addition of recruiters to the attendee mix certainly made for a more entertaining conference. I’m not saying that e-discovery “geeks” don’t like to party, but if I’m going to be in a bar in the Midwest, it’s more fun if Michael Potters and David Cowen are there. Michael for example is a real people magnet and I think he managed to get jobs for some folks staying at the St. Paul Hotel who weren’t even in e-discovery.

Eric Mandel, Director of E-Discovery and Litigation Support with Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel & Mason LLP and the Chairman of the Model Code of Conduct Project, is back on the law firm side having completed a long stint in vendor-land. The MCOC project is immensely stimulating, having many “nooks and crannies”. The one-year-old group is finishing up their first round of content and has made a plea for comments and suggestions from the rest of EDRM and from the general public. The group’s goal is to develop aspirational voluntary ethical guidelines for electronic discovery providers and consumers that will be similar to those under which attorneys, court personnel and others in the legal space operate.

Eric offered this interesting take on being back on the procurement side, “No matter how much vendors may think they understand their law firm clients, there is no way they can fully empathize with the cost pressures law firms are facing now from their clients. I used to think when I was on the vendor side that if I could sell value, then I could get the law firm to leave price as an afterthought.”

Courtney Gray, VP/Technology/Partner with Nextpoint, “spent a fair amount of ‘cocktail party’ time with the Data Group at ERDM’s semi-annual conference, learning more about their unique challenges. I gained a much clearer understanding regarding securing a pristine data set — one which has not been processed, deduped and culled to the point of uselessness in testing.”

My role in the EDRM is co-Chair on The Evergreen Project, one of the longest standing projects, which has now refocused its efforts on making the current EDRM content more useable. Evergreen is primarily concerned with ensuring that the Electronic Discovery Reference Model remains current, practical and relevant; enhancing the content at each node of the Model; and educating about how to make effective use of the Model. Our efforts may include guides on how to apply the model in practice such as with examples of usage scenarios.

There will be a flurry of activity this spring to make sure all content makes its way to www.edrm.net. This will be followed by an all out assault on the “use-ability” of the site. The EDRM membership as a whole has acknowledged that it is very hard to find information on the website in its current incarnation and so the Evergreen project has taken on the job of redesigning, auditing, linking, standardizing, and testing each component from the non-EDRM member point of view. I’m sure our group is up to the challenge. Quoting Evergreen member Josh Byrne, “I have been impressed with the level of passion for the topic, and the number of members who participate from one year to the next.”

One of the highest notes during the conference was the acknowledgement of Jason Velasco’s continuing service to EDRM and particularly for his three years as the Chair of the Evergreen Project. Florinda Baldridge, Project Management leader, outdid herself by creating a mock Law Technology News Cover to honor Jason. It was presented during the Wednesday night dinner and everyone enjoyed it. Thank you again, Jason!

Babs Deacon is the Director of Consulting and Data Analytics with Integreon and a co-Chair of The EDRM Evergreen Project.