The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/67910
Keep Up With the Joneses There has been much discourse in the e-discovery industry around the pros and cons of various TAR technologies. Analyst firms seem to be in agreement that TAR is an up-and-coming practice that will soon become mainstream, and it might already be well on its way. A recent survey, "Technology-Assisted Review," conducted by the eDJ Group asked 117 legal IT professionals for their thoughts on TAR implementation, their current knowledge and awareness of TAR tools, their plans for adoption (if any) and any benefits these practitioners expected to achieve from TAR. The survey responses suggest the practice of TAR will become conventional before the end of 2012. Most notably, a large majority of respondents (59 percent) said they have not yet used predictive coding as a TAR technique but that nearly 40 percent of this non- using group expect to begin using TAR before the end the year. Also based on the survey's results, TAR market growth will occur quickly with more than 60 percent of respondents having adopted predictive coding by the end of 2012. Keep an Eye on Rapidly Evolving Case Law Prior to February 2011, there was no prescriptive law or case precedent that approved or mandated the use of TAR or that described the steps and methods one should use. But, on February 24, 2012, The Honorable Judge Andrew J. Peck issued an opinion in the Da Silva Moore case, saying, "this judicial opinion now recognizes that computer-assisted review is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases." Although this opinion shouldn't be viewed as carte-blanche approval of TAR, it is an official recognition by Judge Peck that, when utilized correctly, TAR can be an effective option for finding relevant information (of note, the opinion is under appeal). The Judge had already written publicly a similar viewpoint in Law Technology News, saying, ""[I]f the use of predictive coding is challenged in a case before me, I will want to know what was done and why that produced defensible results. I may be less interested in the science behind the 'black box' of the vendor's software than in whether it produced responsive documents with reasonably high recall and high precision… Proof of a valid 'process,' including quality control testing, also will be important." This emphasizes the point that effective TAR requires more than just a black-box software tool. A transparent process is necessary in order to document how decisions are made. And, the right people are critical: an expert review team to make early relevance decisions, technical experts to set up software tools, and statisticians to ensure that the output of the system matches the rules of input with the right confidence levels. Get the Benefits of TAR by Planning Correctly The high cost of legal review has been a known pain point for law firms and corporations for many years, so attempts to reduce and manage these costs are understandably on everyone's radar. While TAR can help in this regard, the supporting systemic, environmental and organizational mechanisms must be in place for TAR to achieve its intended benefits. MS Access … The Perfect Fallback Solution by John Frederick of Lewis and Roca LLP Why is it that MS Access continually flies under the radar? So many BI products, report writers and database tools bombard the airspace with reputed heavy guns. Is there another tool with the full functionality that is inherent in MS Access? In a time with so many technological advancements to consider, MS Access might be the perfect fallback solution. MS Access performs the following functions: • Application development • Data queries (query by form) In order to realize this full functionality, you must keep two things in mind: • Ad hoc reporting • Custom reporting • Pivot tables • Pivot charts • Reports and subreports • Forms and subforms • Data cleansing 82 Peer to Peer