LTInsights

Litigation disclosure in the Business and Property Courts: a defensible eDiscovery workflow for disputes

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:33:04 GMT

Litigation disclosure in the Business and Property Courts: a defensible eDiscovery workflow for disputes

Workflow for disputes

A structured eDiscovery workflow helps you meet the court’s proportionality expectations, protect defensibility (including chain of custody), and keep review and production aligned with case strategy rather than deadlines. [PD57AD; EDRM]. [1 ]

What the court expects under PD57AD

In the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Practice Direction 57AD (PD57AD) sets a disclosure framework built around what is reasonable and proportionate in the context of the issues. It does not apply in the County Court, and it contains specific carve-outs (so always confirm the applicable regime at the outset).

Two PD57AD duties matter operationally from day one. First, legal representatives must take reasonable steps to preserve relevant documents and to prevent deletion/destruction by agents or third parties; lawyers must notify the client of the preservation obligation and obtain written confirmation that the client has taken the required steps. Second, parties must disclose known adverse documents (unless privileged) regardless of whether an order for disclosure is made, and any search must be undertaken responsibly and conscientiously. These are not abstract duties: they are why early scoping and disciplined preservation are risk controls, not “nice-to-haves”.

PD57AD disclosure discussions are not meant to be tactical ambushes. The Disclosure Review Document (DRD) is expressly intended to facilitate focused discussions about the scope of Extended Disclosure, help parties agree a sensible and cost‑effective approach, and provide the court with proposals so the court can make appropriate case management decisions at the CMC. Where search-based models are in play, the DRD is the mechanism for identifying scope, limits, and cost. [DRD; PD57AD]. [ 2 ]

Why discovery becomes the bottleneck in practice

Most disclosure pain points are predictable—and avoidable—if you treat discovery as a managed workflow rather than a “document dump”.

Late scoping is the usual root cause. Teams assume the data picture (who the custodians are; where the documents sit; what platforms were used; what date ranges matter), then discover the reality only when deadlines get close. At that stage, every new repository becomes a cost shock and a timetable risk.

The second failure is review inflation. Without consistent processing, de‑duplication, and coherent grouping of related items (for example, email threads), lawyers re‑review the same content repeatedly in different guises. That is where cost and morale go to die—and where proportionality arguments become hard to sustain with a straight face.

The third failure is defensibility drift. If you cannot explain (and evidence) how you preserved data, what you searched, what you excluded, and why, you invite disputes about completeness and methodology. Under PD57AD, the point is not perfection; it is a process you can justify as responsible, conscientious, and proportionate to the issues.

A lawyer-friendly, defensible workflow mapped to EDRM

The EDRM model is useful because it describes eDiscovery as conceptual and iterative, not a rigid waterfall. You may loop back, refine, and repeat steps as your understanding evolves or as the pleadings and witness evidence sharpen the issues. That is exactly how real disputes progress. [EDRM]. [3]

A practical workflow that litigators can explain (to opponents, the court, and the client) usually looks like this:

Start with a data map, not a document dump. Identify likely repositories and custodians, capture the rationale (why these sources; why these date ranges), and set out what will be preserved. This is your foundation for proportionality because it demonstrates that you scoped by reference to issues and likelihood of probative value, rather than trawling blindly.

Preserve early, with chain of custody discipline. PD57AD requires reasonable preservation steps and written confirmation from the client. Practically, that means you want a record of what was preserved, when, how, and by whom—supported by repeatable protocols, integrity checks where appropriate, and an audit trail that reduces later argument about spoliation or incompleteness.

Process to reduce noise before you review. EDRM’s “volume triangle” concept captures a basic truth: you want the volume to come down as you move through the lifecycle. Normalisation, de‑duplication, and smart handling of communications are not “tech features”; they are how you convert a chaotic dataset into a review population that is proportionate, coherent, and auditable.

Treat search as a methodology, not a one-off keyword run. Where searches are required, document the approach: what you searched, why you searched it, what you excluded, and how you refined. That documentation becomes your defensibility narrative if there is a dispute later about scope or completeness.

Search, analytics, and TAR: speed, with defensibility safeguards

PD57AD explicitly anticipates the parties discussing and seeking to agree automated searches (including keyword and other automated searches), and the use of software or analytical tools—including technology assisted review (TAR)—with a view to reducing burden and cost. PD57AD also defines TAR broadly (including predictive coding and computer‑assisted review).

That said, the defensibility question is always the same: can you explain your protocol and validation? TAR and analytics can be powerful accelerators, but they do not remove the need for legal judgement, privilege controls, and quality assurance. A court-aligned approach generally includes (i) a clearly defined objective tied to Issues for Disclosure, (ii) transparent documentation of parameters and training/decision points, (iii) defensible sampling and validation, and (iv) escalation paths for edge cases (privilege, confidentiality, personal data).

This is also where “proportionality” becomes practical. You are not trying to review everything. You are trying to review what is reasonable in light of the issues, the likely existence of probative documents, and the cost and burden of retrieval and review. Analytics and TAR are often how you demonstrate that you took reasonable steps to reduce duplication and cost while still fulfilling disclosure obligations.

UK/EU realities: cross-border data and parallel scrutiny

For UK/EU practitioners, disclosure strategy increasingly sits alongside data protection constraints and cross-border handling decisions. Whatever your hosting or review model, you want a process that keeps control of access, audit trails, and decisions about transfer—so you can justify how you handled sensitive data while meeting litigation obligations.

Litigation also frequently runs in parallel with regulatory or internal investigations. For example, EU competition scrutiny can hinge on the same communications and transactional evidence that appears in civil proceedings: the European Commission describes Articles 101 and 102 TFEU as the central rules prohibiting anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance, and notes that cartels (including price-fixing and market sharing) are a “flagrant” example of illegal conduct. Even where your dispute is not a competition claim, parallel or related investigations can change evidence priorities overnight—another reason to keep a disciplined, searchable evidence record rather than a fragmented collection of exports.

Where Legal Tech Innovations supports litigators

Legal Tech Innovations supports disputes by combining experienced consultants with eDiscovery technology across each phase of the process—so litigators can keep disclosure proportionate, defensible, and aligned to strategy. The services are designed for legal disputes where organisations need to access, analyse, and present internal data as electronic evidence.

For disputes, two service elements tend to have the biggest immediate impact.

First, data acquisition and preservation: the team collects and safeguards evidence, using structured questioning and interviews to identify where data is stored and how it is held, supported by defined protocols that provide transparency over the process and sources collected (including email and mobile devices). That supports chain of custody and reduces later argument about “what was done”.

Second, workflow and platform support: LTI’s eDiscovery solutions can be accessed remotely via secure data centers in the UK and EU, with flexible engagement options (project-based and subscription models). That matters when you need to move quickly—without compromising access controls, audit trails, or review consistency.

Contact us to discover how LTI can help with your next mandate

info@legaltechinnovations.com | luke@legaltechinnovations.com

Reducing Risk in Request for Information (RFI) Responses: How eDiscovery and eSearch Software Support Compliance

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 09:28:27 GMT

Reducing Risk in Request for Information (RFI) Responses: How eDiscovery and eSearch Software Support Compliance

When competition authorities issue a Request for Information (RFI), the clock starts ticking. For legal teams, it’s a balancing act between precision and speed — locating relevant evidence, ensuring nothing material is missed, and protecting privileged or confidential information.

In practice, however, the challenge isn’t only legal; it’s technological. Modern RFIs often require the extraction, review, and production of thousands to millions of documents across email, chat, cloud, and mobile data sources — often under immense time pressure. The margin for error is small, and the reputational and financial risks of getting it wrong can be significant.

Understanding the RFI Challenge

Competition RFIs are not like standard disclosure exercises. They are highly structured, with specific questions and data formats, frequently spanning multiple jurisdictions. Authorities expect accurate, traceable, and defensible responses — and they expect them fast.

The reality is that internal IT systems rarely align neatly with how lawyers need to present data. Employee’s use a mix of personal devices, WhatsApp messages, and cloud collaboration tools that can hold key evidence but pose real challenges for collection and review.

This is where eDiscovery and eSearch software play a decisive role.

Building a Defensible Workflow

A defensible workflow starts with data identification. The ability to quickly map data sources — including email archives, Microsoft 365 environments, and mobile applications — reduces the risk of missing key materials. Forensic collection ensures integrity and provides an audit trail that satisfies regulators.

Once collected, the data must be processed and normalised so it can be reviewed and searched consistently. Advanced eDiscovery platforms such as # Reveal can automatically deduplicate, thread emails, and apply analytics to group similar documents — saving time and reducing review volume.

Crucially, AI-assisted review can surface documents most likely to be responsive to specific RFI questions, allowing lawyers to focus their attention where it matters most. For complex competition requests, this means faster turnaround and greater consistency across teams and jurisdictions.

Managing Privacy and Cross-Border Constraints

In EU-based investigations, compliance with privacy laws remains a critical consideration. Data minimisation, redaction, and structured metadata handling are essential to avoid inadvertent breaches of GDPR or national data-protection laws.

Modern eDiscovery and eSearch tools can automate much of this — identifying personal data, flagging sensitive fields, and applying rule-based redactions before production. Working with a technology partner familiar with these requirements ensures that the data is both compliant and regulator-ready.

Maintaining Quality Under Pressure

RFIs are often issued at short notice and require rapid coordination between legal teams, clients, and external vendors. The combination of human oversight and technology is what keeps quality high under pressure.

A well-structured workflow includes:

Early identification of data custodians and devices
Clear preservation and collection protocols
Use of analytics and search validation to confirm completeness
Controlled production with metadata verification

At Legal Tech Innovations (LTI) , we’ve supported law firms and their clients through precisely these challenges — from initial scoping to final delivery — helping ensure that every produced document stands up to regulator scrutiny.

A Smarter Way to Respond

The aim is not just to meet deadlines, but to do so with confidence. By integrating defensible processes and modern eDiscovery software, legal teams can demonstrate diligence and efficiency — turning what might otherwise be a stressful scramble into a controlled, transparent process.

Competition investigations will only grow in data complexity. Those who invest early in a robust RFI response strategy — combining skilled lawyers with the right technology partners — will find themselves better prepared when the next request lands.

Contact us to discover how LTI can help with your next RFI response — from data mapping and forensic collection to analytics-driven review.

info@legaltechinnovations.com | luke@legaltechinnovations.com

Labour Market Cartels: The New Antitrust Frontier in Europe

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 09:54:44 GMT

Labour Market Cartels: The New Antitrust Frontier in Europe

The European Commission has intensified its scrutiny of labour market practices, targeting wage-fixing and no-poach agreements with renewed vigour. These practices are now considered serious antitrust violations, treated as restrictions "by object" under Article 101 TFEU, meaning they are deemed illegal without the need for further analysis of their effects.

Key Highlights:

Policy Brief on Antitrust in Labour Markets last year ( Link ), the Commission published a policy brief emphasising that wage-fixing and no-poach agreements are inherently anticompetitive. The brief clarifies that such agreements are unlikely to qualify for exemptions, even if parties argue they are necessary for business efficiencies.
Enforcement Actions: The Commission has already conducted unannounced inspections in multiple sectors, investigating potential collusion through no-poach agreements. National authorities across member states are also actively pursuing similar cases, indicating a coordinated effort to address these issues.

Implications for Businesses:

Companies must reassess their HR and recruitment strategies to ensure compliance with antitrust laws. Practices that may have been commonplace, such as informal agreements not to hire from competitors or discussions about wage standards, can now expose firms to significant legal risks.

How We Can Help:

At Legal Tech Innovations (LTI), we specialise in assisting organisations and their legal advisors to navigate complex data challenges linked to such potential infringements. Our services include:

Digital Forensics: Identifying and preserving data from various data sources.
Compliance Audits: Reviewing existing data policies and practices to ensure they align with what has been implemented.
Cutting-edge Technology and Consultancy: providing AI-driven solutions to legal advisors so they can conduct thorough research and review of evidence.
Training Programs: Educating staff on the data and technology processes applicable to unannounced inspections and internal investigations.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

The Hidden Risk of Cloud Email Storage: When Data Disappears Forever

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 10:08:16 GMT

The Hidden Risk of Cloud Email Storage: When Data Disappears Forever

Many organisations assume that cloud email platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace keep emails indefinitely. However, without proper retention policies, critical data can vanish the moment an employee’s account is deleted. This creates serious risks for eDiscovery, compliance, and business continuity.

How Cloud Email Deletion Works

Cloud providers operate on a simple principle: once an account is deleted, its data is gone. Unless a company has specific retention settings in place, emails and files stored within that account will no longer be recoverable.

For example:

In Microsoft 365, once a user account is deleted, emails in Exchange Online typically become irretrievable after 30 days (unless litigation hold or retention policies are applied).
Google Workspace operates similarly—if an account is permanently deleted, its associated data is unrecoverable.

The Legal and Compliance Risks

Many industries have strict requirements for data retention, particularly in regulated sectors like finance, healthcare, and legal services. Losing email records can:

Jeopardise legal proceedings – Missing emails can mean lost evidence in investigations and litigation.
Result in regulatory penalties – Failing to retain business records can lead to fines and sanctions.
Impact internal investigations – If employee misconduct or fraud needs to be reviewed, deleted emails may leave gaps in the record.

Best Practices for Protecting Email Data

To avoid data loss, companies should implement proactive retention and archiving strategies:

Apply Retention Policies – Set policies in Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or other platforms to keep emails for a defined period, even after an account is deleted.
Enable Litigation Hold – For companies subject to legal scrutiny, placing mailboxes on litigation hold ensures data remains preserved.
Use Third-Party Archiving Solutions – External archiving tools can capture and store emails beyond the default retention periods of cloud platforms.
Backup Regularly – Implementing automated backups can provide an additional safety net against accidental or premature deletion.
Plan for Employee Departures – Before deactivating accounts, assess whether their email data should be preserved for compliance or operational needs.

Final Thoughts

Cloud email storage is convenient, but without clear retention policies, businesses risk losing critical data forever. Taking proactive steps to retain and archive emails ensures that important information remains accessible when needed. Investing in a solid email retention strategy is essential, whether for legal, regulatory, or business continuity reasons.

Are you confident that your organisation’s emails are properly retained? If you need help reviewing your data retention policies, reach out to discuss best practices and solutions.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Best Practices for Managing Cross-Border eDiscovery in International Litigation

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 16:45:03 GMT

Best Practices for Managing Cross-Border eDiscovery in International Litigation

As legal cases increasingly span multiple countries, legal teams are finding themselves navigating the tricky waters of cross-border eDiscovery. This process can be quite challenging due to the different legal landscapes in various jurisdictions. Lawyers need to juggle a maze of laws, data protection regulations, and technical hurdles when dealing with electronically stored information (ESI). Successfully managing this complex process is crucial to ensuring compliance, reducing risk, and making litigation more efficient. Let's dive into some best practices for handling cross-border eDiscovery.

Understand Jurisdictional Variations in Data Privacy Laws One of the biggest hurdles in cross-border eDiscovery is the different privacy laws in each country. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a well-known example of strict data protection laws. Countries like China and Brazil also have their own data localisation rules that need to be considered. Legal teams must get familiar with the regulations that govern data collection, processing, and transfer in each jurisdiction involved in a case.

These laws restrict what data can be accessed and place burdens on how that data is transferred. Understanding these jurisdictional nuances early on can prevent costly delays and ensure compliance with both local and international laws. Often, legal teams need to work with local counsel to navigate these complexities.

Leverage Technology to Streamline Data Collection and Review Managing cross-border eDiscovery manually is nearly impossible due to the sheer volume of data, especially in large international cases. Advanced eDiscovery tools can help streamline the data collection, processing, and review stages. These tools can automate much of the process, significantly reducing the risk of human error while providing a clear, structured approach to managing vast amounts of data from multiple jurisdictions.

Technological solutions, such as machine learning and AI, can assist in classifying documents, identifying key evidence, and even flagging potential compliance issues related to data privacy. This automation makes it easier to manage the data efficiently, even when it spans multiple countries, languages, and systems.

Focus on Data Privacy and Protection Data privacy is critical in cross-border eDiscovery. Countries like the EU have strict privacy regulations (GDPR) that govern the collection and processing of personal data. Other jurisdictions, such as the US, have varying privacy laws that must be considered when handling personal or sensitive information. Lawyers must work closely with their IT teams and external eDiscovery service providers to ensure that all data handling and processing comply with the relevant privacy laws.

Complying with data protection regulations can result in significant penalties and damage to a client’s reputation. Therefore, it is critical to understand the full scope of privacy rules and ensure that your eDiscovery process aligns with them.

Collaborate with Local Experts Cross-border eDiscovery often requires legal teams to work in jurisdictions they may not be familiar with. Collaborating with local legal experts or consultants is essential for understanding the specific rules that apply to eDiscovery in each jurisdiction. Local counsel can provide valuable insights into the nuances of privacy laws, the types of data that may be protected or restricted, and the processes required to collect and present evidence.

These experts can also help bridge the communication gap that can occur when dealing with teams from different countries or cultures. Coordination with local teams can reduce the risk of errors and ensure that the eDiscovery process runs smoothly.

Maintain Flexibility and Agility The nature of cross-border eDiscovery is fluid, and things can change rapidly. Legal teams must remain flexible and adaptable to deal with unforeseen challenges, such as shifting laws, newly discovered evidence, or unexpected legal hurdles. Whether it’s navigating the complexities of a new privacy law or dealing with data transfer delays, having a flexible approach ensures that legal teams can respond quickly to evolving situations.

Cross-border eDiscovery often involves managing a large volume of data, requiring teams to constantly reassess their approach to ensure the most effective strategies are in place. This flexibility is key to avoiding bottlenecks and ensuring that all deadlines are met.

How LTI Help With the Technical Aspects of Cross-Border eDiscovery At Legal Tech Innovations (LTI), we specialise in helping law firms navigate the complexities of cross-border eDiscovery. Our experienced team leverages state-of-the-art eDiscovery tools that enable us to manage large-scale international data collections efficiently, ensuring compliance with both local and international privacy laws.

We offer tailored solutions for managing cross-border litigation data, ensuring that evidence is properly preserved, processed, and reviewed while keeping data security and privacy top of mind. Whether it's helping with data collection from multiple jurisdictions, providing support with data transfer protocols, or leveraging AI to reduce the burden of manual review, LTI ensures that your eDiscovery process is streamlined and effective.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

The Future of eDiscovery: Trends to Watch in 2025

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 17:10:54 GMT

The Future of eDiscovery: Trends to Watch in 2025

As we step into 2025, eDiscovery is evolving faster than ever. Advances in technology, stricter data regulations, and the growing complexity of digital evidence are reshaping how legal teams approach their mandates. It’s crucial to understand the trends driving these changes. Here’s what to watch for in the coming year:

AI and Machine Learning: Redefining eDiscovery

AI and Machine Learning (ML) have become essential tools in eDiscovery. By rapidly analysing massive datasets, these technologies uncover relevant documents and patterns that would take weeks—or months—for humans to find. They also offer insights into cases' risks, helping legal teams refine their strategies.

For those of us dealing with large-scale investigations or litigation, the impact is clear: less time spent drowning in data and more time building compelling cases. AI isn’t just a convenience—it’s a competitive advantage.

Examples in Action: Tools like generative search capabilities and sentiment analysis are already revolutionizing workflows. For instance, generative search helps identify and retrieve relevant documents efficiently, while sentiment analysis can flag critical communications, such as emails with hostile or deceitful tones.

Future Predictions: As AI becomes more sophisticated, we may see even greater capabilities, such as AI drafting document summaries based on selected document sets, e.g. privileged documents or core bundles for witness preparation.

Data Privacy and Security: A Growing Priority

With regulations like GDPR and CCPA tightening their grip, the stakes for protecting sensitive data have never been higher. Mishandling information can lead to fines, reputational damage, and compromised cases.

In eDiscovery, this means adopting secure workflows, robust encryption, and compliant storage solutions. It’s not just about avoiding penalties; it’s about demonstrating to clients, work counsels and courts/regulators that data is handled with care.

Emerging Challenges: Cross-border data transfers remain a significant hurdle, particularly in cases involving international jurisdictions with conflicting privacy laws.

Practical Takeaways: Legal teams knowing how to audit the data-handling processes and partner with providers that prioritise compliance.

Cloud-Based eDiscovery: Flexibility Meets Efficiency

The shift to cloud-based platforms continues to transform eDiscovery. These solutions offer flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, making it easier for teams to collaborate, regardless of location.

For complex cases involving multiple jurisdictions, the cloud is a game-changer. It streamlines workflows, and ensures everyone is working from the same, secure environment—no matter the location or time zone.

Supporting Statistics: According to recent industry reports, 70% of legal teams now rely on cloud-based platforms for their eDiscovery needs, citing improved efficiency and reduced costs as key benefits.

Proactive eDiscovery: Stay Ahead, Not Behind

Proactive eDiscovery flips the script, focusing on preparation instead of reaction. By implementing strong information governance, conducting regular audits, and leveraging analytics, organisations can reduce the time, cost, and chaos of reactive discovery.

Think of it as the legal equivalent of keeping your house in order—when an investigation or litigation strikes, you’re ready to respond confidently and efficiently.

Practical Steps: Start with an information governance policy tailored to your organisation’s needs. Use analytics tools to monitor data trends and flag anomalies before they become issues.

Looking Ahead

The future of eDiscovery is bright, but it demands adaptability. By embracing AI, prioritising data security, leveraging the cloud, and adopting proactive strategies, legal teams can meet the challenges of 2025 head-on.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Securing Evidence from an Employee’s Phone while Complying with Privacy Laws

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 10:27:22 GMT

Securing Evidence from an Employee’s Phone while Complying with Privacy Laws

LTI played a pivotal role in helping a European antitrust investigation by securing critical WhatsApp evidence from an employee’s phone, while ensuring legal compliance and privacy protection.

Situation

An investigation revealed employees were breaching antitrust laws by using WhatsApp to share confidential information. The investigators required this data to be presented to Competition Authorities, but privacy concerns arose as the phone was personally owned.

Challenge

Although the employee was cooperative, they were reluctant to hand over their phone due to privacy issues. The lawyers needed to extract relevant communications without infringing on personal data, particularly messages, photos, and other sensitive information unrelated to the case.

Solution

LTI collaborated with the external law firm engaged on the mandate to design a privacy-focused approach. LTI’s expert consultant, along with the legal team, met the employee and used Oxygen Forensic® Detective software, a mobile phone forensic software, to carefully extract the necessary data from the device, ensuring no personal information was improperly accessed. The process involved saving the data to an encrypted USB drive and ensuring the employee was present for each step.

The filtered, case-relevant data included WhatsApp group chats, 1-to-1 communications, and even deleted messages detected through OCR and keyword searches. Each piece of evidence was flagged and securely exported for further analysis.

Exporting the selected Evidence

The extracted data was delivered in three formats:

PDF for a chronological report of the messages and phone details.
RSMF to integrate the messages into eDiscovery platforms.
OXY Viewer to maintain data integrity for review within Oxygen Forensic® Detective.

By balancing the legal team’s needs with employee privacy concerns, LTI successfully secured 450 key pieces of evidence for the investigation, ensuring compliance with both legal and ethical standards.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

The Role of GENAI in Transforming eDiscovery for Competition Investigations

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:17:24 GMT

The Role of GENAI in Transforming eDiscovery for Competition Investigations

Introduction

In the complex arena of competition investigations, integrating advanced technologies like GENAI into eDiscovery platforms is reshaping how legal professionals handle massive data troves. GENAI's capabilities extend beyond traditional data management, providing an intelligent assistant that aids in identifying critical evidence, examining specific facts or conducts, and refining the quality of inquiry to enhance outcome precision.

Harnessing GENAI for Evidence Identification

One of the primary uses of GENAI within an eDiscovery platform for competition law investigations is its role in identifying pertinent evidence. Given the vast amounts of data involved in such cases, GENAI can process and analyse documents at speeds and accuracy levels unattainable by human reviewers alone. Using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, GENAI can quickly sift through emails, communications, and transaction records to flag potential antitrust violations like price fixing, market allocation, and bid rigging.

GENAI's ability to learn from interactions allows it to continually improve its search and recognition patterns based on the nuances of the legal landscape and the specific context of the case at hand. This adaptability is crucial in competition law, where the difference between normal competitive behaviour and illegal activity can be subtle.

Interactive Fact-finding with GENAI

Beyond passive evidence discovery, GENAI enables a dynamic interaction where reviewers can query the system spontaneously to delve deeper into specific documents, communications, or patterns of behaviour. For instance, if a reviewer suspects collusion in a series of communications, they can direct GENAI to analyse the communication patterns between suspected parties during crucial periods.

This spontaneous interaction is highly beneficial as it allows legal teams to follow leads more flexibly and intuitively than traditional database queries. By framing specific questions, reviewers can guide GENAI to concentrate on narrower data sets or particular kinds of evidence, making the discovery process more targeted and efficient.

The Importance of Asking the Right Questions

The effectiveness of GENAI in eDiscovery significantly hinges on the quality of the questions posed by the reviewers. Accurate and carefully crafted queries leverage GENAI’s capabilities to yield the most relevant and precise results. Training legal teams to think critically about the types of questions they ask GENAI is an essential component of maximizing its utility. For example, instead of broad inquiries, asking GENAI to identify "communications between X and Y concerning product pricing from January 2019 to March 2020" can directly pinpoint potential evidence.

Complementing Traditional Legal Approaches

While GENAI introduces a revolutionary tool in the arsenal of legal technology, it does not replace the traditional methodologies employed by lawyers. In-depth interviews, interactions with client and industry experts, and the nuanced understanding of human actions and intentions are still fundamental. These traditional elements provide essential context and insight that guide the use of GENAI within the eDiscovery process. For example, insights gained from client discussions can shape the direction of GENAI queries or highlight areas where automated analysis needs to be supplemented with human judgment.

Conclusion

The integration of GENAI into eDiscovery platforms marks a significant advancement in how competition investigations are conducted. By enhancing evidence identification, enabling flexible, fact-specific inquiries, and demanding high-quality questioning, GENAI transforms data analysis and review processes. However, the synergy between cutting-edge AI tools and traditional legal practices remains crucial, ensuring that the application of technology complements rather than supplants the irreplaceable value of human expertise. In the evolving field of legal technology, balancing innovation with time-tested methods will be key to achieving the best outcomes in competition law investigations.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Unlocking Legal Intelligence: Legal Tech Innovations (LTI) Introduces Reveals 'Ask,' Revolutionizing eDiscovery for Our Clients

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 12:38:27 GMT

Unlocking Legal Intelligence: Legal Tech Innovations (LTI) Introduces Reveals 'Ask,' Revolutionizing eDiscovery for Our Clients

We are thrilled to share a groundbreaking development in eDiscovery that will transform how our clients navigate legal complexities. As proud resellers of Reveal, a global leader in AI-powered eDiscovery, we are excited to introduce 'Ask,' a purpose-built Generative AI (Gen AI) feature designed specifically for legal professionals. Set to launch in Q1 2024, 'Ask' promises to enhance the capabilities of our eDiscovery solutions and bring unparalleled benefits to our clients.

Empowering Legal Professionals with 'Ask'

At LTI, we're committed to delivering cutting-edge solutions to our clients. 'Ask' is a testament to this commitment, offering legal practitioners an advanced Generative AI capability that simplifies information discovery. With 'Ask,' our clients can delve into case documents using natural language queries, receiving insightful answers and reliable sources for swift verification.

Why 'Ask' Matters for Our Clients

Enhanced Efficiency in Data Analysis: 'Ask' seamlessly integrates with our existing eDiscovery platform, significantly improving efficiency in data analysis. Legal professionals can uncover crucial insights with unprecedented speed and precision by offering an intuitive and natural language interface.
Streamlined Decision-Making: The 'Ask' feature augments decision-making by providing rich, contextualised information. This makes complex case analysis more intuitive, allowing our clients to make informed decisions swiftly.
Elevating Customer Experience: Developed with a design-driven approach, 'Ask' focuses on the needs of lawyers, ensuring a refreshing and user-friendly experience. We are thrilled to bring this innovation to our clients, enhancing their satisfaction with our services.
Flexible and Adaptable: 'Ask' is easy to use and flexible, adapting to the latest advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs). This ensures that our clients always have access to state-of-the-art technology.

Committed to Your Success

At LTI, our mission is to empower our clients with the latest advancements in legal technology. 'Ask' is not just a tool; it's a commitment to intelligent augmentation. Our clients can trust that 'Ask' works seamlessly within each unique case, enhancing traditional search workflows to achieve new efficiency and insight.

About Legal Tech Innovations (LTI)

As a European-based leading provider of world-class document review technology, underpinned by Reveal's processing, visual analytics, and artificial intelligence, our commitment is to transform structured and unstructured data into actionable insight, helping organisations, including law firms, corporations, government agencies, and intelligence services, uncover more helpful information faster.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Identify evidence during legal proceedings.

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:56:11 GMT

There are several benefits to using an eDiscovery platform to identify evidence in legal proceedings.

Increased Efficiency: An eDiscovery platform can quickly sort through vast amounts of data, reducing the amount of time it takes to review the evidence and enabling lawyers/experts to work more efficiently.
Improved Accuracy: eDiscovery platforms use advanced analytics and search algorithms to identify relevant evidence, reducing the risk of missing important information and improving the accuracy of legal proceedings.
Reduced Costs: Traditional document review can be time-consuming and costly. eDiscovery platforms can reduce the cost of document review by automating many of the tasks associated with discovery, allowing lawyers to focus on more critical legal work.
Improved Collaboration: eDiscovery platforms enable lawyers and legal teams to collaborate and work together more effectively, sharing insights and findings across a common platform.
Regulatory Compliance: eDiscovery platforms can help legal teams comply with legal requirements related to discovery, ensuring that all relevant documents are produced on time and that privileged information is protected.

Using an eDiscovery platform to identify evidence in legal proceedings can benefit legal teams significantly, enabling them to work more efficiently, accurately, and cost-effectively while ensuring compliance with legal requirements.

Please reach out to us to find out how LTI can help on your next matter.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Testing search results is crucial when conducting an eDiscovery (electronic discovery) exercise

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 14:36:47 GMT

Testing search results is crucial when conducting an eDiscovery (electronic discovery) exercise.

eDiscovery refers to the process of identifying, collecting, preserving, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information (ESI) for legal proceedings. Here's why testing search results is essential in this context:

Ensures Accuracy and Relevance:

Testing search results helps ensure that the data identified and collected accurately aligns with the scope of the legal matter. It helps confirm that the selected search criteria are effectively capturing relevant ESI and not including irrelevant information.

Reduces Legal Risks:

Inaccurate or incomplete search results can lead to the inadvertent exclusion of critical evidence or the inclusion of privileged or confidential information. Testing helps mitigate these risks, ensuring that only pertinent information is collected and reviewed.

Enhances Efficiency:

Testing can identify overly broad or narrow search queries. Overly broad searches may result in a large volume of irrelevant data, increasing costs and time spent on review. Conversely, overly narrow searches may miss essential evidence. Testing helps strike the right balance between precision and recall.

Validates Search Strategies:

eDiscovery often involves complex search queries and filtering mechanisms. Testing these strategies allows legal teams to validate their approach and make necessary adjustments to improve the accuracy of results.

Supports Transparency and Defensibility:

In legal proceedings, it is crucial to demonstrate the defensibility of the eDiscovery process. Testing provides a documented search process record, showing that reasonable efforts were made to identify and collect relevant ESI.

Minimises Costs:

Unnecessary data collection and review can substantially increase costs in eDiscovery. Testing helps refine search strategies and reduce the volume of data, resulting in cost savings during the review and production phases.

Mitigates Spoliation Risks:

Spoliation refers to the intentional or negligent destruction of evidence. Testing helps identify gaps or inconsistencies in data collection, reducing the risk of inadvertently spoliating relevant information.

Facilitates Cooperation and Negotiation:

In some cases, parties involved in legal disputes may need to agree on search terms and parameters. Testing can help facilitate negotiations and cooperation by providing an empirical basis for discussions.

Improves Legal Outcomes:

Accurate and comprehensive search results are essential for building a strong legal case. Testing helps ensure that legal teams have access to all relevant evidence, increasing the chances of a favourable outcome.

Adheres to Legal Obligations:

In many jurisdictions, there are legal obligations to conduct eDiscovery thoroughly and diligently. Testing search results demonstrate compliance with these obligations.

In summary, testing search results is a critical quality control measure in eDiscovery. It helps validate the accuracy and completeness of data collection, enhances the defensibility of the process, reduces costs, and ultimately supports the legal team in building a solid case or complying with legal obligations. Failure to test search results can lead to legal risks, inefficiencies, and potentially unfavourable outcomes in legal proceedings.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Leveraging Mobile Phone Data in Investigating Anti-Competitive Practices

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:31:51 GMT

Leveraging Mobile Phone Data in Investigating Anti-Competitive Practices

Introduction

In the modern business landscape, maintaining fair competition is vital for economic growth, innovation, and consumer protection. However, instances of anti-competitive practices can harm market integrity, hinder fair trade, and negatively impact consumers and competitors alike. Conducting thorough investigations into these practices is essential to preserve a healthy competitive environment. One increasingly valuable source of evidence in such investigations is the data collected from mobile phones. This case study highlights why collecting data from mobile phones is essential when investigating anti-competitive practices.

Case Study

Imagine a scenario in the telecommunications industry involving two significant players, Company A and Company B. Both companies provide a wide range of services, including mobile and internet services, and have a significant market presence. The competition between the two companies is fierce, leading to suspicions of anti-competitive behaviour.

1. Communication Patterns: Mobile phone data can provide crucial insights into the communication patterns of key individuals within these companies. By analysing call records, text messages, and email interactions, investigators can uncover evidence of collusion, price-fixing discussions, or sharing of sensitive market information. These patterns can reveal connections between high-ranking executives, indicating potential anti-competitive agreements.

2. Location Data: Mobile phones constantly collect location data. This information can be used to track the movements of key personnel from both companies. Suspicious meetings or frequent interactions between executives from competing firms in non-public locations can indicate potential anti-competitive coordination. This data can help investigators establish a timeline of events and support claims of collusion.

3. Messaging Apps and Social Media: Many business discussions now occur on messaging apps and social media platforms, which are often less regulated than traditional communication channels. By examining messages exchanged through these platforms, investigators can uncover hidden conversations related to anti-competitive practices, such as market allocation, bid-rigging, or efforts to control prices. This evidence can be crucial in establishing a violation of competition laws.

4. Data Patterns and Anomalies:

Sophisticated data analysis can identify unusual patterns or anomalies within the mobile phone data. For example, a sudden increase in communication between specific individuals during a critical tender process may indicate potential collusion. These patterns can provide strong circumstantial evidence of anti-competitive behaviour, prompting further investigation and enforcement actions.

Conclusion

In the investigation of anti-competitive practices, collecting data from mobile phones is essential for uncovering critical evidence that may not be available through traditional means. Communication patterns, location data, messaging apps, and data anomalies can all contribute to building a comprehensive case against companies engaged in anti-competitive behaviour. By leveraging mobile phone data, regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies can more effectively protect fair competition, deter wrongdoers, and ensure a level playing field for businesses and consumers.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Enhancing Internal Investigations: The Case for Utilising eDiscovery Software

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 15:31:49 GMT

Internal investigations are critical to ensuring legal compliance

Introduction

Internal investigations are critical to ensuring legal compliance, mitigating risks, and maintaining organisational ethical standards. With digital data's increasing volume and complexity, traditional document review and analysis methods have become inefficient and time-consuming. This case study explores the benefits of using eDiscovery software in internal investigations, highlighting how it streamlines the process, improves accuracy, and enhances overall efficiency for lawyers and legal teams.

Case Study

Our customer is a multinational corporation operating in a highly regulated industry. The company’s legal department recently received an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleging potentially fraudulent activities within one of its subsidiaries. Recognising the gravity of the situation, the legal team initiated an internal investigation to gather evidence, assess the allegations, and take appropriate remedial actions.

Challenge

The legal team faced several challenges in conducting a comprehensive and efficient investigation:

Voluminous Data: The subsidiary under scrutiny generated and stored vast amounts of electronic data, including emails, documents, spreadsheets, and other digital files. Manually sifting through this extensive data proved time-consuming and prone to human error.
Data Variety and Complexity: The investigation involved different types of data sources from various departments and locations, including structured and unstructured data. Managing and analysing this diverse data landscape proved challenging using traditional manual review methods.
Timeliness: Given the potential legal and reputational implications, the legal team must complete the investigation promptly. Traditional methods could have been faster and improved by manual processes, resulting in delays and increased costs.

Solution

The legal team decided to leverage LTI’s eDiscovery software to address these challenges and expedite the internal investigation. They opted for a comprehensive eDiscovery solution that provided the following benefits:

Data Centralization: The eDiscovery software allowed the legal team to centralise all relevant data sources into a single platform. This consolidation simplified data management, reducing the time and effort required to access, organise, and search through the data.

Advanced Search and Filtering Capabilities: The software offered powerful search functionality, enabling lawyers to quickly identify and retrieve specific documents, keywords, or patterns of interest. Advanced filtering options helped refine search results, ensuring relevant data was readily available for review.
Automated Data Processing: The eDiscovery software automates data processing tasks such as metadata extraction, making image files searchable and deduplication. This automation significantly reduced manual effort, enabling the legal team to focus on analysis and investigation strategies.
Data Analytics and Visualization: The software incorporated advanced analytics and visualisation tools that facilitated data exploration and identification of key insights. This enhanced the legal team's ability to quickly uncover relevant information, patterns, and relationships within the data.
Collaboration and Audit Trail: The eDiscovery software provided collaboration features, enabling seamless communication and information sharing among team members. Additionally, it maintained a detailed audit trail, ensuring transparency and accountability throughout the investigation process.

Results

By leveraging eDiscovery software in their internal investigation, our customers’ legal team achieved the following outcomes:

Increased Efficiency: The software's automation and advanced search capabilities reduced the time required for data processing, document review, and analysis. The legal team could quickly identify key evidence, accelerating the investigation timeline.
Improved Accuracy: The software's advanced analytics and visualisation tools helped the legal team uncover hidden patterns and correlations within the data, improving the accuracy and reliability of their findings.
Cost Savings: The streamlined process and reduced manual effort resulted in cost savings. The legal team could allocate resources more effectively and focus on high-value investigative tasks.
Compliance and Risk Mitigation: The use of eDiscovery software ensured that the investigation adhered to legal and regulatory requirements. The detailed audit trail and documentation facilitated transparency and provided a defensible position if legal challenges arose.

Conclusion

The case study demonstrates the advantages of utilising eDiscovery software in internal investigations. By leveraging advanced technology, legal teams can overcome challenges related to voluminous data, data complexity, and time constraints. The benefits of increased efficiency, improved accuracy, and cost savings make eDiscovery software an invaluable tool for lawyers involved in internal investigations, enabling them to conduct thorough and effective reviews while maintaining legal compliance and mitigating risks.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Understanding Sentiment Analysis: Unveiling the Power of Reveal's Technological Capabilities

Tue, 23 May 2023 19:19:05 GMT

Understanding Sentiment Analysis: Unveiling the Power of Reveal's Technological Capabilities

When it comes to written communications, there is often more beneath the surface than meets the eye. Our written exchanges carry a significant emotional weight, reflected in the choice of words and expressions we employ.

Imagine the transformative potential of being able to dissect and analyze sentiment within legal documents. This capability would undoubtedly revolutionize our understanding of actions and motives, enabling us to delve into a whole new realm of comprehension.

Fortunately, the realm of sentiment analysis is not confined to the realm of science fiction. For over a decade, the softwear we deploy by Reveal-Brainspace has been at the forefront of delving into the emotional nuances contained within written text. By leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning techniques, Sentiment Analysis, also known as opinion mining, uncovers the underlying emotional essence embedded in text.

Reveal's Sentiment Analysis goes beyond simply comprehending what people say; it focuses on how they say it. Our AI platform possesses its own emotional intelligence, empowering you to enhance your ability to discover and analyze sentiment within electronically stored information (ESI). By connecting the dots and swiftly unearthing pertinent information, Sentiment Analysis surpasses the limitations of keyword search alone.

Understanding the intricacies of human expression goes beyond simply deciphering the words spoken. The technology grasps the nuances of how words are conveyed, enabling us to delve into the realm of emotions.

So, how does Artificial Intelligence (AI) achieve this remarkable feat?

The process is elegantly straightforward. Leveraging unsupervised machine learning algorithms and Natural Language Processing (NLP), we unveil seven distinct categories of sentiments or emotional indices within a given dataset:

�� Intent: Uncovering individuals' goals and objectives, as conveyed by phrases like "I'm on it!"

�� Opportunity: Identifying those opportune moments for action, such as "I got this!"

�� Pressure: Recognizing attempts to influence, persuade, or exert pressure, like "You gotta do this!"

�� Rationalization: Revealing underlying reasons and justifications behind statements, as in "No worries, because..."

�� Sentiment Shifts: Detecting subtle changes in mood or discomfort, akin to the capabilities of a sophisticated lie detector.

�� Positivity: Highlighting expressions of optimism, positivity, and virtual high fives!

�� Negativity: Illuminating conversations that touch upon challenges and reveal less sunny outlooks.

Each section of content is assigned a sentiment score for each of these indices. Consequently, this valuable data can be easily searched and accessed within the platform. You have the flexibility to search for any combination of the first four categories (Intent, Opportunity, Pressure, and Rationalization) along with either Negative or Positivity, empowering you to uncover precise insights tailored to your needs.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Why should a lawyer work with an eDiscovery provider?

Tue, 23 May 2023 18:58:44 GMT

Why should a lawyer work with an eDiscovery provider?

There are several reasons why a lawyer should work with an eDiscovery provider:

Expertise and Experience: eDiscovery providers specialise in managing and processing electronic data for legal purposes. They have a deep understanding of the eDiscovery process, including relevant laws, regulations, and technologies, and can provide valuable guidance and expertise to lawyers.
Advanced Technology: eDiscovery providers have access to advanced technology and software to help lawyers process and review electronic data more efficiently and accurately. This includes machine learning, predictive coding, and other tools that can automate many aspects of the eDiscovery process.
Cost Savings: By outsourcing eDiscovery to a provider, lawyers can reduce the costs of in-house managing and processing electronic data. Providers can often offer more competitive pricing due to economies of scale which can help reduce the time and resources required for manual document review.
Risk Mitigation: eDiscovery providers can help lawyers manage the risks associated with the eDiscovery process, including data security, data privacy, and legal compliance. Providers can ensure that all data is processed defensibly and transparently, reducing the risk of legal challenges or data breaches.
Scalability: eDiscovery providers can scale their services up or down depending on the needs of the lawyer or legal team. This can be particularly valuable for large or complex cases where significant amounts of electronic data must be managed and processed.
Working with an eDiscovery provider can provide valuable benefits to lawyers and legal teams, including expertise, technology, cost savings, risk mitigation, and scalability.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Identify evidence in legal proceedings

Tue, 23 May 2023 18:44:25 GMT

Identify evidence in legal proceedings

There are several benefits to using an e-discovery platform to identify evidence in legal proceedings, including:

Increased Efficiency: An e-discovery platform can quickly sort through vast amounts of data, reducing the amount of time it takes to review the evidence and enabling lawyers to work more efficiently.
Improved Accuracy: E-discovery platforms use advanced analytics and search algorithms to identify relevant evidence, reducing the risk of missing important information and improving the accuracy of legal proceedings.
Reduced Costs: Traditional document review can be time-consuming and costly. E-discovery platforms can reduce the cost of document review by automating many of the tasks associated with discovery, allowing lawyers to focus on more critical legal work.
Improved Collaboration: E-discovery platforms enable lawyers and legal teams to collaborate and work together more effectively, sharing insights and findings across a common platform.
Regulatory Compliance: E-discovery platforms can help legal teams comply with legal requirements related to discovery, ensuring that all relevant documents are produced on time and that privileged information is protected.

Overall, using an e-discovery platform to identify evidence in legal proceedings can benefit legal teams significantly, enabling them to work more efficiently, accurately, and cost-effectively while ensuring compliance with legal requirements.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

How is AI assisting Authorities in Cartel Investigations?

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 08:02:23 GMT

How is AI assisting Authorities in Cartel Investigations?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly impacted cartel investigations by enabling authorities to analyse large volumes of data quickly and effectively, detect patterns of behaviour, and identify potential antitrust violations.

One of the main ways AI is used in cartel investigations is through analysing electronic communications, such as emails, instant messages, and phone calls. AI-powered tools can analyse these communications for keywords and patterns that suggest collusion, allowing investigators to identify potential antitrust violations more efficiently.

AI can also be used to analyse financial data, such as transaction records, to detect suspicious patterns of behaviour that may indicate price fixing or other anticompetitive practices.

Another area where AI impacts cartel investigations is predicting which companies are most likely to engage in cartel behaviour. By analysing factors such as market share, industry concentration, and past violations, AI can help investigators focus their efforts on the companies most likely to be engaging in anticompetitive practices.

Overall, AI is proving to be a valuable tool for antitrust investigators, enabling them to analyse vast amounts of data quickly and efficiently and identify potential antitrust violations more effectively than ever before.

How can a lawyer prepare for AI?

A lawyer can prepare to use AI when faced with a cartel investigation by becoming familiar with the various AI-powered tools and techniques used in antitrust investigations.

Some of the key AI tools used in antitrust investigations include natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and data analytics. Lawyers can become familiar with these tools by taking courses on AI and data analytics, attending conferences and seminars on antitrust investigations, and working with experts in the field.

Lawyers can also familiarise themselves with the types of data that are typically analysed in antitrust investigations, such as email communications, financial records, and transaction data. By understanding how this data is analysed using AI, lawyers can better prepare themselves to defend clients against allegations of antitrust violations.

In addition, lawyers can work with AI experts and data scientists to develop strategies for using AI to analyse their clients' data and identify potential antitrust risks before they become a problem. This proactive approach can help clients avoid antitrust violations and minimise the risk of facing a cartel investigation.

Overall, by becoming familiar with AI-powered tools and techniques used in antitrust investigations, lawyers can better prepare themselves to defend clients against allegations of antitrust violations and proactively identify potential risks.

Feel free to contact us to discover how LTI can empower your AI future.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Introducing the Heatmap: An Innovative Tool for Visualizing Data

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:32:37 GMT

Introducing the Heatmap: An Innovative Tool for Visualizing Data

In January 2023, a new feature called the Heatmap was added to Reveal 11. This cutting-edge tool provides an additional way for users to quickly identify meaningful patterns in their data. The Heatmap enables you to select two sets of information and view how they align with each other. By default, the Heatmap displays the counts of document types by custodian.

With just a few clicks, you can choose different criteria and utilize the outcomes in countless ways. With the Heatmap, you could assess the probable effectiveness of proposed search terms, get an overview of privilege calls made by reviewers, or even gain a deeper understanding of the various languages used in your documents.

The Heatmap is a valuable addition to our collection of data visualization tools, which is designed to expedite your speed to insight.

A definition of a heatmap, sourced from the widely-used platform Wikipedia, describes it as a data visualization method that portrays the magnitude of a phenomenon through color in two dimensions. The differentiation in color can be achieved through variation in hue or intensity, providing clear visual indicators to the reader about the clustering or variation of the phenomenon over space.

By utilizing color intensity, you can quickly identify patterns in your data. These patterns are significant because they allow you to shape the narrative you wish to convey, pinpoint weaknesses in your own arguments or those of your opponents, and uncover gaps or novel insights.

What Are the Capabilities of the Heatmap. The Heatmap can be used to help evaluate the efficacy of search terms. You can look at the intersection of search terms and file types, search terms and custodians, and so on.

Get a Privilege Overview, set up to allow reviewers to tag documents as privileged – do not produce, privileged – produce redacted, and not privileged.

To get a quick visual overview of those privilege decisions by custodian, use Custodian in Rows and Privileged in Columns (see image above).

Assessing Language Usage. In today's globalized world, it is increasingly important to be able to handle documents written in diverse languages. With the aid of the Heatmap and a metadata search, you can obtain a comprehensive understanding of which individuals possess the most documents in languages other than English.

To discover how LTI and our Reveal platform can empower your project further, please reach out to us for a demonstration.

info@legaltechinnovations.com

Finding Evidence to Support a Leniency Application

ld_smith@outlook.com (Luke Smith) — Fri, 27 May 2022 10:29:50 GMT

Finding Evidence to Support a Leniency Application.

An EU based manufacturer engaged our law firm customer to conduct a compliance review for Anti-Competitive Practices.

A 3rd party had complained that a business unit within the company was breaching competition rules by manipulating market prices.

Twelve employees/custodians were selected from the business unit, and their email correspondence was subjected to an eSearch.

Approx. 3 Million emails/attachments were made available for searching, comprising of 1.3 Terabytes of data.

The lawyers wanted to start the review exercise by reviewing 10,000 documents, less than 0.3% of the entire document set.

By combining consulting and technology capabilities, LTI worked closely with the lawyers to create an eSearch methodology solution.

The Approach

Four sets of searches were drafted, designed to identify multiple types of issues, customers, suppliers and competitors. Combinations of searches were linked, so a refind, scoped set of documents could be created. This scoped set amounted to approx 10% (300,000 documents) of the entire document set.
Selecting a combination of the hottest search terms and a random sample, 1,000 documents were batched for review. This first tranche of 1,000 documents yielded a responsive (identified as responsive to competition issue) rate of 4% (40 documents).
Using Active Learning (AL). By reviewing and classifying the first 1,000 documents, the technology started to automatically score/identify documents relating to the issues being found. The lawyers classified the responsive documents into sub-issues and the technology prioritised further documents for review. Sub-issues:
Uncompetitive behaviour.
Receiving or knowledge of competitor pricing.
Market allocation.
Correspondence with competitors on pricing, estimates and customers.
Based on the AL scores, smaller sets of 500 documents were batched for review. 20% of the 500 (100 documents) were classified as responsive. The batching and review method was repeated a further five times and produced an average return of 8% responsive documents.

The Result

The exercise was completed under budget from a technology and review spend perspective. Still, more importantly, a significate pool of evidence had been identified which allowed the lawyers and the company to handle the infringements with the national competition authority and the employees.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

Multilingual Document Sets in your eSearch/Document Review Project

ld_smith@outlook.com (Luke Smith) — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 16:27:24 GMT

Multilingual Document Sets in your eSearch/Document Review Project

Across Europe, it is common that people will communicate and create content in more than one language. Even if a company’s main language is German, there is a likely hood that employees will talk to customers, suppliers, or industry colleagues in another language than German.

When a legal issue develops, a lawyer is faced with having to plan a strategy for tackling the eSearch/Review exercise without knowing what languages have been used in the targeted document sets.

Lawyers, be honest, can you ever know all the languages within the document set at the start of your mandate. How do you plan your search method?

At LTI, clients' document sets contain multiple languages for almost every project we support lawyers with.

At the very beginning of a mandate, once we have started to handle the data, our software (powered by Reveal Brainspace) detects and displays what language is used within each document. Even if a document contains more than one language (say Dutch and French), both the languages will be identified and reported.

The number of documents and the languages within is clearly presented (see image above). Note: this is a standard process for us and comes at no extra cost…

While this is great, you might say to yourself ‘ we have no one on the team who can speak Polish and we will have to inform the client that we need to collaborate with another office or law firm to search and review the Polish documents ’. This may possibly end up being the need. However, we can get you started right away on the Polish (or any other language) documents so you can get an idea of any relevance/questions.

Our platform will translate documents in bulk (tens of thousands at a time) or one by one. By selecting the Polish language document set (or any language), directly within the platform, the contents are translated from Polish into any other language (German, French, English etc.).

Once the translations have been performed, the original content and the newly translated content is made searchable and reviewable. You are also able to print the translated content so it can be used in your witness files or for other reasons.

How much does it cost? We do not charge any per document or gigabyte fee for translation. You can perform the task yourself or we will work with you to drive the processes.

In one recent case, we translated over 100,000 documents in one day (machine time) and it took us less than 3 hours of support time (billable time) to get everything ready. The client said they were previously charge overd €20,000 for a similar exercise… Sadly, we do not charge €6,666 per hour.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

The Simple Benefits of a Document Review (eDiscovery) Platform for your Matter

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 09:50:07 GMT

The Simple Benefits of a Document Review (eDiscovery) Platform for your Matter

Over the last 12 months around half of our customers are using eDiscovery software for the first time.

For lawyers wanting to adopt eDiscovery into their mandates, it can be confusing as to why an eDiscovery platform is needed. As a service provider we tend to focus on all the recent Artificial Intelligence developments and overlook the original fundamental features that benefit legal teams.

Here is a short list of the benefits that an eDiscovery platform brings to a mandate. It saves time, and therefore costs, by:

Simplifying the physical management of all classes of documents throughout the course of an investigation, dispute, or legal matter. Documents can be automatically re-ordered by date, author, organisation or in machine AI order based on the issues to the matter.
Allowing the faster identification and removal of duplicate or irrelevant documents, leaving the potentially relevant documents to be reviewed.
Providing a much faster, more sophisticated, and more reliable search and retrieval capability than manually searching through documents manually. Also, complex searches can be saved and re-run in the event that new issues arise, or new documents are added to the platform.
Proving the ability to organise key documents into specific electronic files by reference to the issues in the investigation or dispute, witnesses, experts, or other topics.
Enabling the manipulation of documents screen, such as enlargement, enhancement, highlighting and annotations (redactions too). All of which can be searched and retrieved.
Allowing the simultaneous use of the platform by a number of people and the sharing of highlighting and annotations between them. This improves efficiency and co-ordination across the team.
Allowing for the faster and easier preparation of documents such as, list of documents, exhibits, productions and bundles.
Giving external access (with restrictions, if necessary) to co-counsel, witnesses, experts, and clients. This saves on the copying and circulation of multiple copies of documents and ensures that everyone is instantly updated with the same information whenever a change is made
Facilitating remote working, the platform can be accessed anywhere in the world subject to internet access, avoiding the inconvenience, expense, and security risks of making multiple local copies of the documents.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

eDiscovery Leaders: Luke Smith of LTI, with George Socha

ld_smith@outlook.com (Luke Smith) — Wed, 26 May 2021 18:22:53 GMT

Recorded live on December 11, 2020

Note: This content has been edited and condensed for clarity.

George Socha:

Welcome to eDiscovery Leaders Live, hosted by ACEDS , and sponsored by Reveal . I am George Socha, Senior Vice President of Brand Awareness at Reveal. Each Friday morning at 11 am Eastern, I host an episode of eDiscovery Leaders Live where I get a chance to chat with eDiscovery luminaries.

Past episodes are available on the Reveal website, go to revealdata.com , select “Resources” and then select “ eDiscovery Leaders Live Cast ”.

This week, I am pleased to have joining us, Luke Smith. Luke is the founder, CEO and Head of Customer Delivery at LTI – Legal Tech Innovations – in Belgium. In terms of his experience, Luke’s been in the industry for a while. Prior to founding LTI, he was at Freshfields as Head of Antitrust Investigations in Belgium; before that, at Latham & Watkins; and before that, at Epiq. Prior to that, he was with Hogan Lovells in London and Linklaters before that. Luke has had a long and extensive tenure in the industry with experience both on the provider side and the law firm side. Luke, welcome.

Luke Smith:

Hi George, thank you for having me.

Civil Law and Common Law Differences

George Socha:

Pleased to have you here. So, let’s get going. One of the things I’d like to focus on, you are the first of our guests who works in a civil law system, as opposed to a common law system, which we have in the United States or they have in the UK or Ireland. There are all sorts of implications when it comes to eDiscovery. Why don’t we dive right in and start talking about some of the differences and what those mean.

Luke Smith:

Where it came from originally was Linklaters and Hogan Lovells in the United Kingdom, and I started working in the eDiscovery document management world for cases in 2000 – about 20 years ago, almost 21. I moved to Belgium around 11 years ago and one of the things that surprised me when I moved to Continent, continental Europe, is the lack of discovery and disclosure that you would typically find in the UK and US systems. It took me back a little bit because in the United Kingdom we saw large volumes when there was a litigation or a dispute that needed to collect such, review and then more importantly produce these vast volumes of documents from your system into the other party’s system and visa versa.

In continental Europe, things play out a little bit different for lawyers. Here in continental Europe, you do have some large discovery and disclosure of evidence exercises but they’re very rare, they don’t happen so often. One thing that took me back a little bit was the need still to have care and attention when presenting your evidence, because here it be more of a trial by surprise. The lawyers would be liaising with their clients to talk about what the dispute is, ask them for evidence, and then they would be able to build their file and their bundle of documents that they would use in a hearing. There wouldn’t necessarily be a need to actually hand over everything in the universe that relates to that, it would just be the core documents that you’re focusing on.

There’s a need still, there is a practice to handle this document and the evidence with care. There’s more of a forensic background experience in continental Europe versus an eDiscovery background. You would engage with a digital forensic expert and say: okay we have this person, we have this case, we now need you to help us find the evidence, collect it in a way so it can be authenticated in case the judge or the other law firm’s lawyers ask to prove its authenticity. The knowledge of eDiscovery is less profound in continental Europe. A lot of the time when I first came across to Europe, I’d be referred to as “eDiscovery” or “eDisclosure” and the lawyers would be, “I don’t do U.S cases so thank you but I don’t need your help.”

“I think the key differences in all the disclosure rules, discovery rules, is the way you exchange these vast volumes of information is a bit different in the litigation and disputes worlds.”

A lot of the time the terminology is called a forensics search or an eSearch, but in principle it is the same thing as eDiscovery, because you have to find your evidence and your facts. On cases where you have lawyers working with their clients who aren’t able to pinpoint the evidence to you, you have to go through an exercise of collecting a wider set of documents and trying to build your case: go through the documents, find the facts and build your core bundle. Again, I think the key differences in all the disclosure rules, discovery rules, is the way you exchange these vast volumes of information is a bit different in the litigation and disputes worlds.

Similar Needs, Different Latitudes, and an Efficiency Imperative

George Socha:

Whether you’re in a civil law system or are a common law system, ultimately you do need to present a story, you need to support that story with evidence, which means you need to figure out what story you’re going to tell and what evidence you can use to support it. We have a very wide reaching process here in the US, where attorneys can range far and wide, looking for data, pulling a lot of the data – they have a lot of latitude in terms of what they go after – and also spent a lot of money on all of this. It sounds as if in Belgium, for example, the need is the same – you still need to tell a story, it needs to be a persuasive story, it needs to be supported by evidence – but the latitude is very different. You have to be much more disciplined and focused in how you find, get and go through data and then you only hand over a very small portion to the other side. Am I understanding correctly?

Luke Smith:

That’s exactly right. Every now and again, you do get such a large dispute or litigation where you do have the need to cast a net very wide to find your evidence, the same as you would in the US or the UK, but these cases are much less frequent. The size of the industry and then the actual knowledge of conducting these exercises in the legal world is much, much smaller. But the need is the same.

George Socha:

With the need being the same but the latitude being much different, how do folks efficiently and effectively accomplish all of this? We know how we do it in the United States; clearly you have to do it a different way. How are you approaching it?

Luke Smith:

I’ve had over the years the opportunity to work with many, many, great lawyers and one of them was a DC competition lawyer who came across to Europe and he coined the phrase, “the Wild West”. He said, “You just have no rules, you just do what you believe is right”. And he said it’s like the Wild West.

It takes a lot of care and attention because as you appreciate the knowledge of conducting these exercises is much smaller, and this also hurts, perhaps, the financial aspects of what a client may pay. If you are forced into conducting such a large eDiscovery exercise and you have dozens or tens, hundreds of custodians to investigate and collect data from and process hundreds of terabytes of data, you could be looking at a tens or hundreds of thousands of euros or dollars eDiscovery bill before the first search term or before the first page is even turned in the review. This can sometimes make it hard from an efficiency standpoint, because before a budget can even be set you may have backed into a lot of cost here. You have proportionality cards, I think that also exists in the US and in the UK too.

I would always recommend to make things efficient. Start with your key actors, the key custodians. You pivot. You process some of the data. You start your investigation, your research into the internal documents, the evidence, at a very small scale. You don’t throw hundreds of paralegals, hundreds of thousands of documents. You start into bite sized chunks and then pivot based on what you’ve learned. If you’ve got lots of irrelevant documents, why are these coming back? You change your approach, pivot again, and run a new set of searches or try at some analytics and see what that yields. If the responsive numbers are greater, then that’s a good process; we keep doing that until perhaps the responsiveness trails off a little bit. From an efficiency standpoint, it’s definitely start small and then from your learnings, bring more custodians in, more actors into the investigation or the review as you progress.

The Driver in Europe: Investigations, Not Litigation

George Socha:

eDiscovery is a portion of the activity that goes on for litigation, what we would call civil litigation, a portion of the activity that goes on in Europe, but it’s by no means all of it, right? There are investigations of all matter?

“The regulatory investigation work and corporate investigation work has really driven the adoption of eDiscovery in Europe.”

Luke Smith:

Yeah.

George Socha:

Talk about that a little.

Luke Smith:

Since I’ve moved to Europe, my number of litigations I can count on both hands, but the number of investigations now is, over the last 10 years, probably over a 100 investigations. The regulatory investigation work and corporate investigation work has really driven the adoption of eDiscovery in Europe.

Again, these are not as frequent as a dispute may be, but they are definitely rolling along now. All of the Bundeskartellamt in Germany, the ACM, the Dutch, French, the Belgium competition authorities and the European Commission have become a lot more wiser and knowledgeable on these larger exercises of uncovering evidence. These regulatory investigations are definitely driving the eDiscovery industry in continental Europe.

Merger Clearance

One area that stands out to me is the merger clearance. When you have two dominant companies merging in Europe, a bit like the DOJ process, the Phase 2s, of course the European Commission will act on this merger and they need to approve it, they need to do a market assessment: How is this going to affect the power of this company after the merger, our suppliers, consumers, people like us? Will prices go up? They have now used their powers to request large numbers of internal documents from the merging parties and the law firms are responsible for taking care of this – collecting all of the evidence, the internal documents and providing it to the regulator.

In Europe, they issue something called a “Request for Information” or an “RFI” for shorts. These RFIs are 12 or so paged documents. They ask for the documents to be handed over that relate to the planned investments that the companies have had: actual planned investments, the innovation, products that they’re looking at implementing, how this is going to affect pricing from suppliers, customers, how it will affect certain areas within the European Union. Very often these transactions are very big, so they can also be very political. If you’ve got a large US company buying out a European company, maybe the President of France is not so happy about this and wants the Commission to be very thorough.

They issue these RFIs with say 20, 10, 30, 20 different topics of interest that they want the law firms to look for, to search for, and then hand over anything that’s responsive. These RFIs normally contain a list of the employees or custodians they may want you to search. This will be the VIPs, the CEO, the head of sales, head of marketing, lots of different products and business areas. They also target now people lower down the chain to see how they may be discussing it differently to the people at the very top. Part of these RFIs now, they’ve changed a lot in the last few years, this is where it gets our attention, so the eDiscovery professionals’ attention is: they ask for the collection logs. When you’ve imaged the phones, the laptops, collected data from the e-mail systems, servers, you have to provide the logs of the collection over.

When you are crafting your search terms to answer the 20 questions, the topics that they’re after, you have to present your search terms that you are using to find these documents. Then you have to provide the load file – which for a lawyer who has not done any eDiscovery work, it takes you back a little bit – with the classic metadata I think most people would be used to providing on this call; they ask for the path of where the document originated from in the environment. Gone are the days where the lawyers could just say to the custodians, email me everything and I’ll copy it onto a USB stick and hand it over. We actually have to do this exercise in an eDiscovery-style fashion.

The regulators are definitely responsible for enhancing the knowledge and the need and the adoption process of eDiscovery workflows, best practices and using the technology efficiently.

Predictive Coding and Advanced Analytics: Slow But Growing Acceptance and Use

George Socha:

Are the regulators looking for certain types of approaches when it comes to not just gathering the data but evaluating it in order to determine what to hand over? Are they looking for certain types of technology to be used, or do they want certain types of technology not to be used?

Luke Smith:

Many of the regulators now have lawyers who have worked at law firms, who have moved into the regulatory body. They are perhaps familiar with the technology that can be used to search and present the results of search terms so they can analyze them and see if the terms are producing too many hits or not.

Very recently, over the last year or two, there has been some debate about whether you could use predictive coding or analytics to help uncover the documents and this will be used in tandem with search terms. It’s something I’m in favor of as a technology lover, but it’s somewhat quite challenging in Europe to implement because normally these exercises need to be completed in three to four weeks, you can get a little bit of an extension. They’re quite hard because you’ve got 20 very different topics and then you may have Spanish, Italian, French, German and English languages in the data. It’s quite hard to recommend to lawyers, “We can run this predictive coding model for topic number 2”, because we would have to think, “Okay now, we’ve got to run in different languages, do we have enough time, do we have enough resource while we’re looking at these other 19 topics in tandem?” and you’ve got your privilege reviews going on. It makes it a little bit hard to implement the more sophisticated approaches to find any evidence, just purely from the timeline base.

George Socha:

Is it lack of familiarity on the part of the lawyers that’s the key barrier here?

Luke Smith:

I would say it’s more in the regulators hands, the lawyers on the regulator side. They hold the cards to some extent because now they dictate a little bit about what search terms you will apply to which topic and then you can have a discussion about amending them if they’ve happened to use the company name as a search term, which sometimes happens – returns every document.

I guess it is an appreciation of the technology, what it can do and how it can be achieved within the time that you have. Also, the regulator has the clock running; they only have a certain number of days to actually approve the transaction. If you get bogged down in a four-week discussion about the scores – the results of the predictive coding model – and then spending time to actually qualify the results, they lose too much time themselves. Because you’ve got to then hand over these 500,000 documents and then they’re going to have to run their searches and conduct their reviews as well within that 30-odd day time period. It’s not a lack of appreciation, it’s that the time is of the essence, so it’s quite hard to agree on that when it’s already difficult to agree on search terms, which you would think is a little bit more easy.

Gazing Into a Crystal Ball: Advanced Technologies and AI Moving Forward

George Socha:

Sometimes, sometimes not so much. I have got one more question in this area and then I want to move on to a different topic. The question is, go ahead and take a look at your crystal ball. If today there is reticence on the part of regulators to use those more advanced sorts of technologies, protective coding and other forms of artificial intelligence, what do you think it will look like one, two, three, five years in the future?

Luke Smith:

I would hope, I would imagine, that the regulators will be conducting their internal reviews of the data that they’ve been receiving from the parties who are merging or they’re investigating, even if it’s a cartel. I would predict they should now be banking the knowledge and creating these models, their own internal models, about, “This is what innovation looks like, the topics of how we’re going to enhance products or services into the market”, or “This is what a price war or cartel or customer-sharing, bid-rigging information looks like, these are examples that we have”. Crystal ball, maybe in five years, we may actually see the law firm say, “Okay we have a database with 3,000,000 documents”. And perhaps the regulator would say, “Okay we want you to run this model, which is bundled up of text of previous examples of words”. And then ask them to assign it into their dataset. Then they would need to provide the top 1000 documents.

I think the market is somewhat there now. We have certain tools. They may not be compatible with the different products on the market, but if we could have a standard way of implementing these models, then that could be done. I think the regulator will start having this historical bank of information that will be turned into AI models that they will then implement on the datasets.

The Dream Platform: Augmented Reality Analysis

George Socha:

So now, a different crystal ball. I’ve asked this of a couple of other guests before. If you could have your dream package or dream platform, your dream technology capabilities for use with eDiscovery, for litigation and investigations, what would that look like?

“I would love to have the datasets presented in an augmented reality way. You could have these shapes and circles representing the data. It would be voice enabled, augmented reality.”

Luke Smith:

A great question. If it’s a dream and anything’s possible,I would love to have the datasets presented in an augmented reality way. You could have these shapes and circles representing the data. It would be voice enabled, augmented reality.

You could say, “Show me in a dataset where the competition is mentioned, the names of competitors in the market”. They would come up and you would be able to drag them over into a bucket, and then you would say, “In that bucket, show me who the key actors are”. It would come up with pictures, faces. Then you could pick which ones you want, you could drag them into another bucket and then within that bucket, you would then say, “Show me the people who have been active in an aggressive nature”. You’ve got these filters going on with the buckets, and then the documents will come up and then you would say, “Right, we’re going to put them into a review batch”. Then it goes into a typical style document review exercise. That would be the dream, to have a platform you could talk to, you could interact with, and really cut up and carve the data.

George Socha:

I’ve got this picture of you standing there in front of a screen that doesn’t even exist, because you’ve got the Google glasses or what glass or whatever it is. You are moving your hands around. To an outside observer, they can’t figure out what you’re doing but for you, you’ve got this three-dimensional universe of data in a structured fashion in front of you, where you are able to grab pieces, expand them out, compress them down, move them around, combine and recombine. That sounds like what you’re talking about.

Luke Smith:

Yeah, like the movie with Tom Cruise, which was probably almost 20 years ago, I guess now. Something crazy like that would be….

George Socha:

Well, it might be crazy, but it would be really cool, wouldn’t it?

Luke Smith:

Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Some of the technology is there, we do have some now that’s able to detect stress and passive and aggressive tones in text. So it’s just trying to package that up in a sort of augmented reality way. That would be my dream if… Hopefully we may even see that one day.

George Socha:

Well, I will conclude that part with the same thing I’ve said to others, “Let’s see if we can make that happen”, because that would be a lot of fun. Thanks Luke. Luke Smith is with – do you go by LTI or Legal Tech Innovations? Which do you prefer?

Luke Smith:

Yeah, Legal Tech Innovations is a bit long, so I just cut it down to LTI.

George Socha:

Okay. Luke is Founder, CEO and Head of Customer Delivery at LTI. Luke, thank you very much for joining us this week.

Next week we will have with us Joy Murao, who is Founder and CEO of Practice Aligned Resources.

Luke, once again, thank you very much.

Luke Smith:

Thank you George. Thank you very much.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

Mobile Phone Data as Evidence in European Cartel, Compliance and Merger Cases

PAR002_123@heg.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 09:00:11 GMT

Handling Mobile Phone Data During an Investigation

Introduction

As a lawyer, if you are handling a merger, cartel, compliance review, dispute or an investigation mandate, mobile phone data will certainly be a potential data source of evidence.

The data from a mobile phone will need to be treated with the same respect as an email or word document originating from a company system (e.g. collected, reviewed, classified and produced).

However, when handling mobile phone data, things can get a little tricky because you will more than likely need to satisfy custodians privacy demands...

Mobile phones in the current era

Firstly, let's briefly discuss “what is a mobile phone?". You might be reading this blogpost on one, if not. It is probably in your hands.

The mobile phone has become an amazing tool... We have many ways to stay in contact with family and friends, we can purchase products, we do our banking with it, take pictures, order food and taxis, even find love with a mobile phone… Plus, you can also make a phone call!

A mobile phone is an incredibly personal object that knows everything about us.

From a work point of view, we have also switched to apps on our phones for some of our daily tasks.

We live on the go and use our phones to take pictures of documents, talk to colleagues, customers or competitors via a vast array of applications, create work appointments on non-company-provided calendars and join meetings using 3rd party conferencing applications.

Therefore, more and more company related data activities are happening outside of the control of company provided IT systems.

This is the exact reason why mobile phones and the data stored on them are interesting in legal proceedings.

On the phone or not on the phone, that is the question?

Before you collect the data from a mobile phone, it is important to understand which applications store data locally on the phone and which applications store data in the cloud.

Not all the information (documents/messages) you see within the phone is stored locally. For example, when in OneDrive and you open a document, the application is fetching it from OneDrive's cloud storage. The document is not stored on the phone.

Be aware that the information required for your review may not be copied/extracted if you only collect the phone as evidence. It is also necessary to collect the data from the cloud.

Consent from the custodian

The collection of data can only proceed with the custodians providing their consent. The custodian needs to assist the examiner by providing the necessary passcodes/passwords and usernames. Without compliance, it is almost impossible to conduct the collection.

Remember to be upfront with the custodian and discuss the processes before the collection day.

A consent form must be signed before you collect/extract any data.

The drafting of the consent form is very important and needs to be clear and concise regarding the data that will be collected. If you also require the data from the cloud (e.g. OneDrive, LinkedIn, iCloud Drive, email, Google Docs), this will be stipulated in the consent form.

Once the consent form has been signed, the collection can start. During the coping/extraction process, the custodian will temporarily be without access to their phone. The collection process will likely take between 2-5 hours.

Over the years, I have witnessed tense situations unfold where custodians have started arguments about their data being collected. Sometimes, they have even walked away (with their phones) from the collection. Lawyers and examiners’ soft skills can be needed to calm things down.

Workflows

The workflow will be designed depending on the data required and the privacy that needs to be respected. It may differ from custodian to custodian and will need to be documented and annexed in the electronic search methodology paper.

When a custodian has privacy concerns and does not want the full content of their phone to be searched and reviewed, I recommend a workflow as follows:

The content of the phone is copied in full into the forensic application.
The custodian, lawyer and forensic consultant sit together and apply several filters to isolate an agreed subset of data that can be taken away and reviewed.
The subset is extracted from the full copy and will be used for the legal research.
The full copy is saved onto an encrypted drive, which is placed into a sealed/tamperproof bag/envelope and stored by the lawyers. It will only be accessed again if the custodian agrees.

I advise this approach because as time goes by and new knowledge/information is obtained about the case, it may be necessary to go back to the phone and look for new evidence. Therefore, it will always be better to preserve a full copy and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Closing

At LTI, we have great results collecting mobile phone and cloud data, assisting our clients and custodians with these matters while respecting data privacy requirements.

We use Oxygen Forensics Detective software which allows us to work with our clients in a purpose-built mobile review application. Alternatively, the data can be transferred and reviewed in our eDiscovery platform.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

Handling the Data Subject Access Request

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 15:53:56 GMT

Handling the Data Subject Access Request

Under the GDPR rules, an individual can make a formal request, asking a company to search their IT systems and produce the information and documentation the company has stored on the individual.

This type of request is commonly known as a Subject Access Request (SAR).

There are many reasons why a company will receive a SAR. Common SAR’s we help our clients handle:

From former disgruntle employees.
Individuals who work for competitor organisations.
Individual who was unsuccessful when applying for a promotion or external applicants applying for senior positions.
Individuals who work at a supply or a customer who has had their contracts/agreements changed.

What rules does GDPR provide individuals when making a SAR:

The right of access. Individuals can submit SAR, which requires the company to provide a copy of any personal data they hold about the individual.
The right to erasure. Individuals can request that the company erase their data in certain circumstances, if the data is no longer essential if the data was unlawfully processed. If the individual withdraws consent.
The right to erasure is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’.

Typically, throughout Europe, a company has around 30 days to acknowledge a SAR and produce the information/documents.

Failing to respond to a SAR can be very costly, in the UK the Information Commissioner’s Office (see here ) can impose a higher maximum or a standard maximum fine. Under UK law a fine could be up to 20 million Euro or 4% of the total annual worldwide turnover.

Each European country sets its penalties for non-compliance and companies are not only becoming financially penalised, but a company’s public reputation can also be damaged.

Therefore, a company needs to have a robust process in place to handle a SAR.

LTI’s team of consultants and technology offering provides a fast, auditable and inexpensive way to handle 1 or 100 SARs.

Our services include:

Identify where and how documents are stored.
We gathered and collect the documents in a defensible way.
Using our secure and specialised document search and document review platform.
Apply filters to suit the SAR requirements.
Allow you to review and make blackouts/redactions on SAR responsive documents.
Provide the Individual/SAR to the documents in a controlled and secure online platform.
Provide a report on the documents the Individual/SAR would like erasure.
Delete the documents from your IT environment.
Provide an audit report of the full process.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com

Evaluation of your Document Set

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 10:29:37 GMT

Evaluation of your Document Set

Introduction

What is an eDiscovery/eSearch document set and why do you need to evaluate it?

A document set is typically a volume of emails and/or documents that have been collected from a given number of employees (custodians).

The documents from these custodians are to be used by lawyers so that they can uncover information relating to how a Person, Department or Company operates.

Depending on your situation, for instance in a Merger Review or an Investigation, Authorities (such as the European Commission (EC), the Bundeskartellamt, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) and many other authorities) will either seek copies of the documents you are analysing or request that you research topics of interest and provide accurate feedback on your findings.

In most cases, the Authorities will seek a copy of documents or information about a company by issuing an Request for Information (RFI).

Failing to provide correct and accurate information will land you in hot water. Why?

Firstly, there are financial penalties the Authorities can impose if you fail to provide complete and true information.

Secondly, you will likely lose the trust of the Authorities, making it much harder to defend/support your client’s position.

Lastly, if the improper handling of information or documents becomes public, as well as the knowledge of a fine, this can harm not only the law firm’s reputation but the client too as consumer confidence and share prices can be affected.

Given this background, you can see why you have to evaluate the completeness of your document set when conducting a review and analysis.

Gathering a Document Set

When a lawyer is faced with a situation to review and analyse a document set, the typical starting place may be:

Asking the IT team to collect the emails/documents from the custodians.
Engaging an eDiscovery provider to collect/mirror image the laptops.
Having the custodians to search and provide all the necessary documents.

All the above approaches sound easy… However, I can tell you that even when hiring large reputable companies, things can still not go to plan and attention must be given to ensure the completeness of the document set.

First of all, access must be given to the information needed. It is imperative to understand where and how emails/documents are stored (This subject, the Data Collection, will be covered in another article).

When dealing with the EC (for example), a methodology paper has to be prepared, explaining what IT systems are in place, what retention settings are used and a description on how each of the custodians uses the systems.

A methodology paper may also need to detail the search and review approach taken, while being written in an unambiguous format.

Once the documents are ready for your review: How often do you check or ask someone to evaluate that the emails and documents are complete?

If the document set is not complete, who is responsible? The clients IT? The eDiscovery provider? The in-house lawyer? The external lawyer?…

In most cases, it is a team effort because each group of people need to come to the table and take responsibility.

Important Note: if there is any chance of a contentious situation surrounding how a document set has been compiled, it is highly recommended to hire a competent person, with the right tools, to gather and collect the necessary information, documents, applications or devices.

Evaluating Your Document Set

There are various forms of evaluation for different types of data sets. WhatsApp, SharePoint, LinkedIn, Skype, etc. all require unique approaches of evaluation which can differ from emails.

The theme of this article is based on emails/documents, so this is where we will focus.

The purpose of performing the evaluation is to identify any gaps. To see where your research may be lacking or missing information. Protect yourself from the limitations of data gaps and learn to understand why they exist.

Legitimate reasons can explain why gaps appear in a document set. Deletion & Retention policies settings play a big role here.

Bear in mind that no two firms are the same, in fact even within the same firm different policies and settings can be applied to individuals.

The evaluation process is very easy if you are using a document review platform. In today’s world, we are spoiled with the current tech on offer and it is quick and easy to produce a report which highlights the gaps. Talk to your eDiscovery provider about it.

Let's take an example. In the image at the top of this article, a report has been created showing the volume of emails for 5 custodians. Highlighting the number of emails for each month, within the year 2018.

If you just focus on the overall total of emails for each custodian (which I believe many people do), you cannot really see anything wrong. However, if you look closely at the report, you can see gaps for July, August and September. This is unacceptable and needs clarification.

This is the type of situation you can be faced with and where companies like LTI can help you and add value in the process.

If you have a project or a scenario you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@legaltechinnovations.com