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eDiscoveryDaily

Investing in the Future: Release Highlights for CloudNine LAW & Explore 7.6

As a dedicated eDiscovery provider, CloudNine is committed to providing our network partners and legal clients with efficient software solutions. Advancements to our innovative technologies are largely due to client feedback and support.

After hearing your feedback on the need to expedite document conversion while also reducing cost and dependency on 3rd party applications, we are eager to announce the latest updates to CloudNine LAW and Explore 7.6.  With more than 200 feature updates and enhancements, the leading applications for early case assessment and processing are equipped to process today’s prodigious volumes of data and accelerate your review and production speeds.

By utilizing a robust ingestion engine, LAW and Explore maximize the processing power of a single computer.

As the primary highlight of LAW 7.6, the new Turbo Imager produces static images of native files up to eight times faster than the traditional imaging module.  By reducing client dependency on native applications, Turbo Imager provides on-demand scalability and workflow efficiency. If available, the tool will utilize multiple processing cores to expedite document conversion time. Turbo Imager will be offered together with Turbo Import licenses. For each license of Turbo Import, CloudNine clients will also receive a license of Turbo Imager or vice versa.

Improved reporting capabilities in  Explore 7.6 provide greater visibility into case metrics, such as original source file counts and sizes, as well as filtered file counts and sizes.. Rather than creating additional copies of data during ingestion, Explore reads and extracts metadata and text from the source, leaving it in place.  After searching and culling, clients may create copies when they are ready to export the information for review. This improvement reduces security risks by minimizing the number of identical files that need to be managed. The reduction in data volumes also decreases review time and expenses by as much as 70%. Additionally, Explore’s Import Library has improved its analysis abilities by recognizing more file types and email components.

To learn more and see a live demonstration, register to view the webinar:  Investing in the Future:  LAW and Explore ver. 7.6 Release or click to request a demonstration.

 

eDiscovery in a Pandemic: How to Adapt to Turbulent Times

There’s no question COVID-19 continues to have a huge impact on the way we live and work. With the new Delta variant surging among the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, the number of infections is rising once again. Unprecedented challenges are impacting law firms and legal document reviewers as well. 

From March 2020 to January 2021, New York City held only nine criminal jury trials.

For the first time in history, court trials dropped 99%  from the previous year in the country’s largest criminal jurisdictions. This is not an isolated occurrence as courts closed or severely reduced their caseloads to help stop the spread of the virus. This meant cases that should have closed were left open indefinitely, forcing law firms to keep their eDiscovery accounts open for longer than expected. 

Making matters worse, law firm clients found themselves unable to pay their invoices as the unemployment rate topped 14.8% in April 2020. While the economy has begun to recover, the unemployment rate still remained high at 5.8% in May 2021. This loss in client income had a predictable downstream effect on legal cases. 

Another consequence brought about by the lockdowns was the disruption of electronic discovery data collection. Law firms and their clients began shipping hard drives all over the country. New strategies had to be developed around data collection as document review service providers had to order hard drives, copy relevant ESI onto the hard drives, and then deliver them to the client. 

All of these challenges had a direct impact on revenue and forced expense cuts by collections, attending conferences, and certainly inviting clients to onsite meetings.

Ultimately, law firms will have to adopt new solutions or rethink old ones in order to thrive in this new, post-COVID world. The best way to do this? Adopt an agile, remote review process as part of your eDiscovery solution; learn how CloudNine Explore can help you adapt to the everchanging times here.

Be Prepared to Move Your eDiscovery Operations Remote

When federal, state, and local governments began shutting down courthouses, law firms followed suit and sent their people home to work remotely. While every firm was different, size played a big part in how easy or difficult the transition was. 

For smaller firms, it didn’t take much – just a few tweaks to their infrastructure to allow remote access. Larger firms faced a bigger challenge as they had a lot more pieces to move to give everyone remote access to the shared drives and files they needed to do their jobs. 

In order to prepare for another shutdown or even a natural disaster preventing you from opening your office, CloudNine can help you convert from your standard in-office eDiscovery environment to a remote eDiscovery environment working easily and quickly. 

For firms already accustomed to interacting with the on-prem eDiscovery environment, they’ll automatically have full remote access to CloudNine Explore. They just need to have their network turned on and accessible. 

Some legal teams may not have the on-prem infrastructure in place to support that many users in one project at once, especially those teams that are large and spread. 

For these situations, we offer CloudNine Explore via our cloud so you can allow more users to access your data using our infrastructure at no additional infrastructure cost to them. With internet connectivity, you can access your CloudNine projects from any device, anywhere in the world. 

Add More Value to Your eDiscovery Retainer

Retainers are a good way to ensure clients are capable of meeting their financial obligations to your law firm. While most retainers are based on a specific dollar amount, some are established to run month-to-month or even year-to-year. These multi-year agreements help you establish a consistent revenue stream. To capture the best retainers, you need to have a reputation for being hard-working, committed, fair, and, most important, effective. 

Effective eDiscovery solutions bring value to your services beyond what other law firms have to offer. Highly efficient and secure, CloudNine Explore can eliminate duplicate or irrelevant files so you can focus on the documents that matter. With filtering tools that allow you to reduce the cost of processing by reducing the file size, you offer better value by providing more services for the price of your client’s retainer.

Improve Your ROI Through Your eDiscovery Solution

To help improve your services and increase value to your clients, you’ll want to understand how to maximize efficiency in your eDiscovery. CloudNine models out the cost of the solution versus the return you’ll get on your investment in the form of:

  • Data security
  • Cost reductions
  • Control over your data
  • Processing speed 

Plus, CloudNine partners with you to better understand your goals in order to offer a realistic solution so you know if you commit to X, Y, and Z today, you’re more likely to experience a higher return on your investment tomorrow. 

CloudNine also helps you level the playing field between larger law firms with astronomical budgets and smaller, more cost-conscience firms. By leveraging the solutions offered, you can access the same level of technology and services as larger law firms without investing in the infrastructure to host it. 

Learn how CloudNine Explore can help your firm be prepared for turbulent times, giving you added value to offer your clients, the ability to work remotely more effectively, and the confidence you need to invest in new solutions to get better ROI. Schedule a free demo with CloudNine today.

Investing in the Future: Release Highlights for CloudNine LAW & Explore 7.6
 Investing in the Future: Release Highlights for CloudNine LAW & Explore 7.6 150 150 CloudNine

How COVID-19 Has Reinforced the Need for Comprehensive BYOD Policies

Even before the pandemic started, working from home was on the rise. The trend allowed employees to be both productive and comfortable. Like any change, the transition to remote work was met with some skepticism. Many worried that limited in-person interaction would negatively impact work relations and company culture. Another concern was that employees wouldn’t get their work done at home. Though the research is mixed, several studies suggest that working from home greatly improves productivity. Amid the controversy, remote work skyrocketed as quarantine guidelines were set in the United States. This shift boosted the popularity of BYOD policies in the workplace. BYOD is shorthand for “bring your own device,” a practice in which businesses allow employees to conduct work activities on personal devices.

From both the employer and employee perspectives, BYOD policies come with a list of pros and cons. Employees typically enjoy the change, grateful that they don’t have to carry two phones everywhere. BYOD allows them to conveniently handle business and personal affairs from the same device. Through this system, an employee can work from anywhere at any time. From the employer’s standpoint, BYOD practices can be a money saver. Companies that supply and maintain work phones are expected to foot the bill. BYOD, however, eliminates those business expenditures.[1] In terms of ediscovery, BYOD poses significant privacy and security concerns. Now more than ever, companies should reevaluate their BYOD policies, ensuring that sensitive data is well-protected.

Questions to Consider

Before drafting or revising BYOD policies, there are several questions that a company should ask itself. Below is a list of sample questions to get the ball rolling:

BYOD Recommendations

  • Ask new employees about the BYOD policies at their former jobs. If the employee previously used their personal device for business matters, their device could still contain competitor data. Detecting and eliminating competitor data early on reduces the risk of lawsuits. [2]
  • Pay particular attention to securing data from your legal department. Legal departments, specifically, are a popular target for hackers because they manage large amounts of sensitive information.
  • Consider setting time limits on employee access to highly sensitive material.
  • Consider an employee’s position in the company before allowing them to operate through a personal device. If their position requires consistent interaction with confidential information, it’s safer to supply them with a work phone. [3]
  • Outline any software and applications that employees should not use.
  • Establish protocols for litigation holds and employee departure. [1]

References

[1] Russell Beets, “BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Policies and Best Practices,” LitSmart E-Discovery, November 17, 2017.
[2] Will Kelly, “BYOD and the danger of litigation” TechRepublic, November 3, 2015.
[3] Frank Ready, “When Should Companies Refresh BYOD Policies? With COVID-19, It’s Now” Legaltech News, July 16, 2020.

The Hybrid eDiscovery Solution: The Best Of Both Worlds

When deciding on the most efficient processes to run eDiscovery in your organization, the options are nearly limitless with hundreds of products and service providers vying for your attention.

Not all document review solutions are the same. Before you commit to your eDiscovery solution, you need to determine whether you would like to perform eDiscovery in-house, outsource it or do a bit of both.

Regardless of which path you take, CloudNine can provide you with a solution that is perfectly right-sized for you, learn more about CloudNine’s review solutions here.

What is eDiscovery Insourcing?

Insourcing is the delegation of a task or operation to a specialized unit within your organization rather than a third party. For legal service providers and large law firms, this includes both the technology used to perform legal data collection and people assigned to collect and review electronic discovery documents.

Insourcing is the traditional method for eDiscovery. Ten years ago, cloud solutions weren’t widely used for eDiscovery due to cost and the fact that most professionals were not aware or comfortable with it yet. Larger law firms invested heavily in developing an in-house infrastructure and software to process and review electronic documents.

Today, the organizations with the infrastructure already in place continue to insource their eDiscovery because it allows them to control both the cost and the data. Typically, these organizations are large law firms.

Benefits of insourcing your eDiscovery:

  • No data hosting or processing fees
  • Complete control over data collection
  • Protection from cybersecurity attacks on external parties

100% control means 100% responsibility. With this responsibility comes the cost of maintaining your eDiscovery environment which includes hiring IT professionals and updating the infrastructure regularly.

If your organization chooses to insource your eDiscovery process, you will need to hire a software company to develop your new software or hosting platform. Of course, you can avoid this if you already have a software engineer on the payroll.

In addition, your new eDiscovery software will need a robust infrastructure to support it. This requires a large investment of capital. If you already have the infrastructure in place, you may have to expand it before you are ready if your organization scales quicker than you’re prepared for.

Lastly, an insourced eDiscovery solution requires trained professionals to make it operational. Not only will you need a team of dedicated attorneys to review the documents, but you’ll need IT staff to maintain the network, software, and hosting platform.

Interested in learning more about the pros and cons of corporate legal insourcing? Check out our blog, Insourcing vs. Outsourcing Your eDiscovery Review Process.

What is eDiscovery Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the transfer of day-to-day operations of a business function or task to an external service provider. For eDiscovery, this means an outside organization is responsible for providing the technology and personnel to collect and review electronic discovery documents.

Because of the high expense associated with maintaining an in-house infrastructure, many legal organizations contract legal service providers or legal technology companies to host and process their eDiscovery documents.

This also means you do not need to keep IT staff or review attorneys on payroll full-time. Instead, your expenses are tied to a few laptops and a reliable connection to the internet.

With less investment in infrastructure, accounting becomes much easier because you’re not looking to make money back on an expensive investment. Your books and budget are simplified, only paying predictable monthly hosting and processing fees.

Other benefits to outsourcing include:

  • Up-to-date software patches to protect you from cybersecurity threats
  • Hosting and processing fees are based strictly on volume
  • Data can be culled to reduce the number of documents processed

Outsourcing means you have to frequently communicate with your legal service provider. The more you outsource, the more management you need to ensure communication is being relayed correctly and different pathways mean the odds of miscommunication increases.

Data transfer time could pose a problem if one party is suffering from a connection issue or if a hard drive has to be physically shipped to the service provider for processing.

Also, you’re dependent on the service provider’s availability. If they have a system outage or are the victim of a natural disaster, you’ll potentially lose access to your data.

A Hybrid eDiscovery Solution

For some organizations, one solution- insourcing or outsourcing- may not be suitable. Different challenges require different solutions and those that find themselves in this position can always consider adopting a hybrid eDiscovery solution.

A hybrid eDiscovery solution finds the best balance between your internal and external resources to perform specific business functions or tasks like eDiscovery collection, processing, and review.

For example, you could use insourcing to cull the data before advancing it to your outsourced processing. Or you could reserve your insourced platform to handle smaller data collections while sending larger data loads to your external service provider.

Tasks to consider for your hybrid approach include:

To determine which solution is best suited to perform each task, you need to consider these challenges for each:

  • ROI – How much will the solution cost and is it cost-effective?
  • Time – How quickly will the solution allow you to perform your eDiscovery tasks?
  • Complexity – How complex is your eDiscovery process and what risks are involved with the solution?

By recognizing your specific needs and comparing them to the benefits and drawbacks of each solution, you can determine which solution – insource, outsource, hybrid – works best for your organization.

Regardless of your decision, CloudNine can help guide you to discovering the right eDiscovery solution for you. We offer an all-in-one processing and hosting solution that you can use on-prem or through our cloud-based eDiscovery platform, giving you the option for insourcing, outsource, or hybrid.

To learn more, request a free demo and see how CloudNine can make your eDiscovery solutions more efficient and affordable.

Don’t Get Spooked by Communication Applications!

Since Halloween is approaching, it’s time to reflect on a scary part of the discovery process: handling communication applications. As a newer form of digital evidence, communication apps can be a legal team’s worst nightmare. Ephemeral messaging apps like Wickr and Signal make conversations disappear like ghosts in the night. Slack and Microsoft Teams have sunk their teeth into the communications of most corporations. Social media apps have entranced us with a spell, prompting our fingers to type a new DM or tweet every other hour. It’s easy to view these applications as monsters in the discovery process. They have revolutionized the world of e-discovery, expanding it to more than just emails and electronic files.  Whether you love them or hate them, communication apps aren’t going anywhere. In fact, their popularity is only rising. Approximately 2.5 billion people use at least one messaging app on their mobile devices. This number is expected to reach 3 billion by the end of next year. [1] Here’s another chilling statistic: in 2020, 41 million application messages were sent every minute. The volume of communication app data is frighteningly large, but its relevance is undeniable. Regardless of case type, (criminal, personal injury, defamation, etc.) litigants should consider its production. Within each channel and group chat lies a plethora of information that could make or break a case. Still afraid? Here’s a list of challenges and solutions for managing communication applications.

Understanding the missing context:

Messages sent on communication applications are often short and sent with little context. Bits and pieces of conversations might be spread out across multiple platforms and group chats. When handling a case, legal teams should identify all relevant communication platforms to connect the missing dots. Litigants should also consider deriving context from atypical sources such as emojis, liked messages, images, and GIFS. [2] These humorous icons and features can reflect the sender’s tone, a difficult thing to gather over text. Remember, images and emojis aren’t supported in all native file types, so it’s important to find an eDiscovery provider that will reconstruct the conversations. [3]

Managing large volumes of data:

Producing and reviewing voluminous data is stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. By creating comprehensive retention policies, businesses can proactively determine which data types and channels should be preserved. Within the policies, companies should outline the procedures for labeling, storing, and deleting records. [4] The deletion of unneeded data lowers the risk of massive data accumulation.

Remembering each application’s retention policies:

Applications like Slack and Microsoft Teams will retain all messages unless configured otherwise. Similarly, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger store data until the account has been deleted. [5] If the account owner deletes or unsends a message, the data will still show on the recipient’s phone. Some of these platforms contain “Recently Deleted” features that make recovery much easier. The policies for collaboration and social media applications are rather straightforward. Ephemeral messaging apps are a bit different; however, the auto-deletion features can be adjusted to the user’s discretion. Auto-deletion settings should be turned off during or in anticipation of litigation.

[1] Damjan Jugovic Spajic, “Text, Don’t Call: Messaging Apps Statistics for 2020,” Komando Tech, December 11, 2019.

[2] Erin Tomine, “Chat Messages and eDiscovery: How to Ease the Burden and Get the Full Picture,” Conduent, July 7, 2021.

[3] Matthew Verga, “Discovery from Slack: It’s Complicated,” Xact Data Discovery, June 19, 2020.

[4] Law Offices of Salar Atrizadeh, “Electronic Discovery and Data Retention Policies,” Internet Lawyer Blog, May 18, 2020.

[5] “Data Policy,” Instagram Help Center, 2021.

eDiscovery Cost Recovery: A Case-By-Case Assessment

Cost recovery is a critical consideration to the eDiscovery services you provide. Without it, you won’t have an accurate view of your financial status. While today’s turbulent times may put your LSP under more pressure to budget your money more wisely, the truth is you’re always under pressure to make your bottom line and recover eDiscovery costs as quickly as possible. 

As an LSP, you report to clients who need to know they will receive a good ROI when they hire you. On the flip side, when you hire vendors, buy equipment, or lease software, you need to see that quick ROI as well. 

One way to accomplish this is to adopt eDiscovery software solutions that add real value to your business. To do so, you need an eDiscovery solution providing high quality service so you can collect fees from your clients before the solution costs you more than you can charge.

Consider the cost difference a few decades make:  In 1981, the price of a 1GB hard drive was $500K. Today, it’s less than $0.03. 

For eDiscovery data processing, the cost to process 1GB was $2000 just 15 years ago. We process the same data for less than $100. 

By adopting a solution like CloudNine Explore, you can keep your expenses down to offer more value through a cost-effective solution to your clients. This means they’re able to pay you quicker and more dependably so your cost recovery is easy to manage.

The On-Prem vs. Cloud Storage Dilemma

 While there are many benefits to cloud storage, the cost isn’t as black and white as it once was. Traditionally, if you rented a server versus purchasing one, your initial investment was cheaper. 

Renting a server may be a smart investment if you have no plans to utilize the server long-term. However, as you continue to rent that server, the costs are going to add up, costing you more than if you just purchased the server.  

Renting data storage space from a provider today can be just as expensive as purchasing a new server because providers typically do everything to ensure the server is up-to-date and backed up. While this does make cloud servers a little more robust, you’ll be paying for that service which makes it more expensive from day one. 

CloudNine Explore allows you to securely upload and store relevant data in a single on-prem server. This allows you to have more access and control over your data while lowering your data storage costs. 

Providing Value with eDiscovery System Speed and Accessibility

Speed means everything in eDiscovery. The faster you import the data, the quicker you can move from processing to storage and review. One of the keys to shorter processing time is the use of automation – the greater the automation, the higher the output. 

CloudNine Explore allows you to use automation and leverage multithreading technology so you can use all available processors within the machine to get the most efficiency out of it. 

That’s incredibly useful as oftentimes LSPs utilize unused surplus equipment they have in their inventory to run eDiscovery processing. CloudNine Explore is a great solution in this scenario because it’s flexible and compatible enough to be used on older technology. This reduces the need to buy new equipment. 

Infrastructure Costs and Document Review Services

Infrastructure requirements vary from software to software. Many of the available eDiscovery solutions on the market are complicated and rigid.  And, providers didn’t build their platform with eDiscovery in mind. They built it for other purposes but eventually, they reassigned it to handle eDiscovery. This leaves them with too many restrictive and complicated requirements on their infrastructure. 

The infrastructure supporting CloudNine Explore wasn’t forced to be something it wasn’t. It allows CloudNine Explore to run on anything from simple laptops to state-of-the-art servers. It runs best on a server with some serious horsepower, but it’s still friendly enough to give you the ability to process and cull with less infrastructure investment – whether that’s in the cloud or on your server.  

An eDiscovery software that provides you with the infrastructure flexibility, gets your LSP one step closer to recovering costs quickly.  Learn how to boost margins even more in our eBook here

Reducing eDiscovery File Size

Many of our competitors offer filtering technology allowing you to reduce your data file size. The only problem is how they’re able to filter your data. Most often, you have to send them the data first, only to cull it down later. Regardless of the smaller file size, you still have to pay to process the entire data file upfront. 

CloudNine Explore allows you to filter and organize the data upfront, culling unnecessary files so you can process only the data you want. This gives you the flexibility and power to control the processing and upfront storage costs. 

Some common filter types include:

  • File type – This lets you focus on specific file types like .doc, .csv, .pdf, .mov or .m4a.
  • Domain – This allows you to search emails to find the ones sent by a specific domain source.
  • Language – This filters documents containing specific languages. Explore currently supports 144 languages including Unicode characters like Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Cyrillic. 

Breaking Down eDiscovery Software Costs

CloudNine Explore has lower software costs for the simple reason that we developed them with a lower price point in mind. Also, we offer loyalty discounts to our clients when they renew their license agreements. We also discount prices when you bundle Explore with other CloudNine solutions like Review.  

While CloudNine is less expensive than a lot of our competition, in the end, it’s all about how you use the solutions. The more efficiently you use the tool, the more value you get out of it and that’s what matters most. 

To see how Explore can help your LSP recover costs quicker and more effectively, schedule a free demo with CloudNine today.

Insourcing Vs. Outsourcing Your eDiscovery Review Process

While eDiscovery may seem a tedious process, it’s critically important to your courtroom success!  A ruling may be made solely on the content found in one corporate executive’s email.   The requisite rests in the confidence of a trusted system to collect and review relevant documents so both sides can build their case. 

However, when it comes to processing the data collection, many organizations differ on the best method for eDiscovery. 

Whether you decide to insource or outsource your eDiscovery, CloudNine Review is made can assist you in closing cases quickly. 

Discovering The Differences Between Insourcing and Outsourcing eDiscovery

Insourcing is defined as the delegation of operations or tasks within an organization to an internal unit. This refers to both the technology and the people performing the tasks. 

Outsourcing is when you transfer the day-to-day responsibility of those tasks outside your organization to an external service provider. This external service provider provides both the technology and the personnel required to perform the tasks. 

Depending on your organization’s core competencies and business model, insourcing may not be the best choice to handle your eDiscovery tasks. For example, law firms do not focus on providing technology solutions to their clients, so it may be difficult to justify the financial commitment of building an entire infrastructure and hiring a technology team.

However, many organizations may still prefer to insource their eDiscovery. Ten years ago, cloud services were still in their infancy so insourcing was the only real option. While small and mid-sized organizations struggled, larger firms invested in the infrastructure needed to win their cases.

Today, those with the infrastructure still in place choose to contain insourcing because it’s already paid off, which means no additional hosting or processing fees. But for new organizations just getting on their feet, investing in eDiscovery infrastructure may be a costly risk.  Maintaining infrastructure is costly for organizations with internal eDiscovery resources as well.  A cloud-based solution reduces the cost burden for new and established organizations seeking eDiscovery solutions.

How Insourcing and Outsourcing eDiscovery Affects Your ROI

For firms that insource their eDiscovery review, there’s a huge investment of money and time into making an eDiscovery environment a viable solution, such as:

  • Infrastructure Development
  • System Maintenance
  • IT Support Staff
  • Review Attorneys

When you outsource your eDiscovery process, you only pay on a per-project basis.

When you insource your eDiscovery process, you are paying to keep your infrastructure running and up-to-date on the latest technologies, which will require maintenance and labor. With ransomware hackers running rampant, labor shortages from COVID-19, and necessary system upgrades to keep your network from crashing, costs can become erratic and drastically change from month to month. 

Outsourcing makes it easier for your law firm to control costs since you are only concerned with paying for what you need when the cases come along.

The success of your eDiscovery review process lies in your ability to recover costs quickly, learn how to optimize your cost recovery in our eBook, which you can download here.

Are the Benefits of Insourcing Worth the Cost?

When it comes down to it, there’s really only one primary benefit to insourcing your eDiscovery review. It gives you complete and total control over your data processing. You do not have to worry about where your data is being stored or if you can access it on your schedule. It’s on-prem and ready whenever you need it. 

Let’s consider insourcing from a financial standpoint. If you want to develop your own insourced eDiscovery solution, this is what you’re looking at: 

  • The profit margins for hosting and processing fees have eroded significantly in the past 10 years. It used to cost $500 to process a single gigabyte of data. Today, it’s only around $30.
  • You will probably have to develop a custom piece of software or build a new hosting platform, which means you will need to hire at least one developer if you don’t have one on the payroll already. And according to Glassdoor, the average salary for a software developer is around $108,000 a year. This doesn’t include the additional burdens on IT to keep the system up-to-date and secure.
  • Of course, you could hire a software development company to develop new software or hosting platform but that won’t be cheap, either. It’ll be somewhere in the range of $50K and $250K. 
  • And don’t forget about the legal team you’ll need to assemble to do the actual eDiscovery review. 

Overall, you’re looking at a hefty investment. There may not  be enough financial incentive to justify spending the money to develop your own internal infrastructure. 

An Outsourced eDiscovery Solution That Makes Financial Sense

CloudNine Review offers outsourcing eDiscovery solutions that are fast, easy to use, and, most important, cost-efficient. Simply upload your documents and begin the review process in minutes, earning yourself an impressive ROI with these benefits:

  • Unlimited Users: Unlike other eDiscovery providers, we don’t charge you for every single user you add to the database. It’s a flat fee, allowing you the freedom to add as many users as you need.
  • Flexible Infrastructure: Our network is designed to handle hard-working organizations like yours. Our infrastructure can support a thousand attorneys reviewing the same data collection simultaneously. If you wanted to do that in-house, you’d be investing a lot of time and money to spin up the additional infrastructure to handle it. 
  • No Long-Term Contracts: Just pay for your eDiscovery services at a month-to-month rate. No hidden agendas or commitments. 

There’s also no difference in the quality or legality of documents collected and reviewed, as the processes are the same. The only difference is who did the work – an in-house group or a trusted provider like CloudNine. 

If you’re ready to hand over your internal eDiscovery tasks to a dedicated company that specializes in streamlining your discovery, investigation, and audit processes, reach out to CloudNine and request a free demo today.

The Discoverability of IoT Devices

What are IoT Devices

The Internet has transformed the way we conduct daily chores. Simple objects such as fridges, watches, doorbells, and washing machines can now be connected to secure networks. This technology is quick, efficient, and the perfect replacement for manual tasks. Whenever the user is within range and connected to WiFi, IoT devices can be used to turn on the lights, preheat the oven, and more. But what exactly is the definition of an IoT device? IoT is shorthand for the Internet of Things, a term used to describe physical objects that transmit data through wireless networks. [1] Fortunately for legal teams, IoT devices are effective in the courtroom as well as the home.

IoT Devices in Court

  • Four years ago in Arkansas, data from an Amazon Echo was used to investigate the death of Victor Collins. When Collins was found dead in his hot tub, his friend James Bates was charged with first-degree murder and evidence tampering. The charges were later dismissed due to reasonable doubt amongst the court. Unfortunately, news sources haven’t disclosed what the voice recordings revealed. [2]
  • After Timothy Burke was accused of shooting his brother, the prosecutor requested the admittance of audios from a Ring doorbell. The defendant objected to its admittance, claiming that it violated New York’s wiretapping and eavesdropping law. The objection was overruled. [3]
  • In an aggravated arson and insurance fraud case, Ross Compton’s guilt was proven by his pacemaker. The man claimed that he packed up his belongings and threw them out the window after discovering the fire. Medical examiners concluded that the pacemaker’s heart rate and cardiac rhythm data disproved Compton’s claims. [4]
  • In State of Wisconsin v. Burch, the defendant was accused of killing her boyfriend. However, the charges were dropped after Fitbit data revealed that Burch had only taken 12 steps in the hours before the death. [5]

Key Considerations

  • Legal teams should explain the significance of IoT data to their clients and evaluate any IoT devices that might be useful.
  • During (or in the prospect of) litigation, disable auto-deletion features on IoT devices.
  • Investigate the reliability of the device’s data.
  • Assess the accessibility of IoT data and the cost of its production. [6]

Conclusion

IoT devices are too valuable to be overlooked in litigation. As demonstrated by the aforementioned court cases, IoT data is quite useful in criminal cases. However, its utility doesn’t stop there. IoT data can also play a significant part in personal injury claims, family law, IP litigation, and more. It would be remiss of litigants to ignore IoT devices during the discovery process. Instead, litigants should consider the relevance and proportionality of IoT devices when drafting their ESI protocol.

[1] Brian Morrison and Joann Militano, “E-Discovery for IoT Devices: Primer for Representing Individual Clients,” New York Law Journal, February 1, 2021, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=legalnews&id=urn:contentItem:61X0-8FG1-JBM3-R471-00000-00&context=1516831.

[2] Erik De La Garza, “Charges Dropped in Amazon Echo Murder Case,” Courthouse News Service, November 29, 2017, https://www.courthousenews.com/charges-dropped-in-amazon-echo-murder-case/

[3] Kimberley Haas, “Judge: Audio from Ring doorbell can be used as evidence in Rochester shooting case,” New Hampshire Union Leader, March 5, 2020, https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/judge-audio-from-ring-doorbell-can-be-used-as-evidence-in-rochester-shooting-case/article_ee1ddcd1-b193-5ec9-ad9b-08c22fbcdc2f.html

[4] Debra Cassens Weiss, “Data on Man’s Pacemaker Led to His Arrest on Arson Charges,” ABA Journal, February 16, 2017, https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/data_on_mans_pacemaker_led_to_his_arrest_on_arson_charges

[5] Greg Goth. “Can Wearables Testify Against Their Owners?” IEEE Spectrum, Sept. 27, 2021, https://spectrum.ieee.org/wearable-data-court

[6] Briar Morrison and Joann Militano, “E-Discovery for IoT Devices: Primer for Representing Individual Clients.”

Improve Data Processing Efficiency, One File At A Time

One of the keys to success for any great legal service provider (LSP) is to reduce as many inefficiencies from your operations as possible. 

While there are several areas where you can make marked improvements, data processing can provide you with a great ROI so you can be more efficient and offer improved service levels to your clients. 

Common Inefficiency Challenges for Your LSP’s Data Processing

When it comes down to it, any eDiscovery process that takes unnecessary time or adds costs hurts your LSP. A few of the more common inefficiencies that affect your business include:

  • Overly-expensive data storage costs
  • Slow handoff time between steps in the eDiscovery process
  • Workflows that include too many unnecessary steps

However, one major inefficiency that doesn’t get mentioned enough is the thoroughness or depth of your data processing solution. 

Some data processing software has been found to miss as much as 3% of the files provided. We are not talking about junk embedded files but Word, PowerPoint, PDFs, Excel, etc. When you think of it as only 3 out of 100, it doesn’t seem that detrimental. However, when you consider that your LSP may have to process more than a million files, you’re now missing tens of thousands of documents.

The reason this happens is data processing software doesn’t go deep enough when extracting and indexing files. 

For example, you may have an email with a PowerPoint presentation attached. Your software will most likely pull both of these with no issues. The problem comes when you have a document embedded in that PowerPoint presentation. That last document isn’t extracted which means it’s not indexed or searchable. 

With a data processing software that does not provide your LSP with the value you need, your clients take note. Learn how you can grow your organization sustainably without sacrificing quality in our eBook: 4 Ways Legal Service Providers Can Built Value & Boost Margins.

How Data Processing Inefficiencies Impact Your LSP

Data processing inefficiencies can lead to some major challenges to your LSP operations. They slow down your workflows, tie up key personnel that could be focusing their energies elsewhere and cost you money. 

Additionally, if your data processing solution doesn’t go deep enough and extract 100% of the files you’ve received through your eDiscovery services, you’re opening your LSP up to three primary risks:

  • Missing critical data that could either help or hinder your clients’ litigation
  • Neglecting to share requested data resulting in sanctions 
  • Inadvertently sharing privileged information with unauthorized parties

Any of these scenarios can negatively affect how you run your business while potentially damaging your reputation and your relationship with your clients. 

How to Make Your LSP Data Processing More Efficient

One of the easier ways to make your data processing more efficient is to simply streamline your workflow processes by following best practices:

  • Establish your settings/tagging procedures upfront
  • Make sure you have enough data storage and human resources for your machine/workflow
  • Allow for compound document extraction
  • Allow for language analysis
  • Get automated OCRs
  • Establish family relationships between the data 

In CloudNine Explore, you can create workflow processes that perform all of these tasks during the initial upload so the data is extracted, indexed, and prepared for the next step faster and with more automation. 

You just set up the tasks you want to perform and create the case. Automation handles the rest. This cuts out an unnecessary and irrelevant manual intervention that slows down the process and ties you to slow and cumbersome tasks. 

Plus, you can rest assured that CloudNine Explore will be thorough, so you don’t miss out on any important or critical documents. Then you can convert everything to text or OCR, index it all for search and cull the data so you have a more streamlined data collection. 

You shouldn’t be constrained by your data processing software. With CloudNine Explore, you can build unique workflows that leverage the automation so you can have full control over your workflow, using the software in new, inventive ways. This allows you to save time and money to explore new, revenue-generating ventures like offering improved levels of services. 

Discover what CloudNine Explore can do for your LSP, learn more about our eDiscovery engine here.

Using Data Processing to Offer Better LSP Service Levels

While your LSP may have launched offering a simple eDiscovery solution like data processing, there’s an opportunity to grow your business by offering additional services to your clients. 

Some LSPs perform data processing but outsource their document review services to 3rd parties. By doing so, you quickly lose control of the data and give away revenue that you can easily keep in-house. By controlling the data processing and review, you control the project, the timeline, and the costs. 

Ready or not, it’s time to up your offering and make your data processing more efficient. Discover how CloudNine offers the best eDiscovery software to help you save time and increase your revenue; schedule a free demo today.