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By Matthew Cohen, Michael Prounis and David White / AlixPartners LLP

There was a lot of talk this year at LegalTech about corporate legal departments bringing e-discovery in-house. The purported justifications for doing so are many, ranging from reduced costs and risks to increased control, efficiency and compliance. However, since the e-discovery lifecycle is very broad in scope, the real world benefits realized by bringing any particular components of that lifecycle can vary greatly from company to company. While most software vendors and resellers will have you believe that all your problems can be solved and your costs vastly reduced if you just implement their single magic solution, this is rarely the case. In order to realize actual returns, the decision to bring e-discovery in-house must be much more thoughtful and calculated, with a focus on actual needs, capacity and strategies. Deciding which aspects are suitable for internal management by any particular company requires a full understanding of the many different cost levers, the resources and expertise that each component requires and the pros and cons of doing it yourself versus outsourcing.Continue Reading Bringing E-Discovery In-House: It can make sense, but a legal department should carefully assess how much to do

By Greg Cancilla / RVM Enterprises, Inc.

All the attention cybersecurity has garnered recently makes it easy to forget that computer forensics goes back long before the days of Dropbox, thumb drives, BYOD and the cloud. The contrast is not lost on RVM’s Greg Cancilla, who got his start during a time that now feels like a bygone era. He sat down with MCC to deliver what turned out to be (among other things) a history lesson. The interview has been edited for length and style.Continue Reading After the Breach: When cybersecurity fails, forensics specialists come in to investigate the theft

By Deborah B. Dunie / National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)

A former CTO of a Fortune 1000 company with significant government experience, Deborah B. Dunie has an enviable resume for board service. She discussed her work with the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) advisory services, which recently unveiled a suite of tools and educational offerings to help close the “cyberliteracy” gap on corporate boards. Her remarks have been edited for length and style. Continue Reading Plugging the Cyberliteracy Gap: In confronting enterprise risk, directors should focus on risk tolerance and liability, not threats

By Matt Coatney / AccessData

The legal services industry is hurtling headlong into a revolution in the way that we carry out virtually every aspect of our jobs. The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) – intelligence exhibited by machines that are trained to learn and solve problems – is not just an extension of prior technologies. AI holds the potential to dramatically change the field in a variety of ways, from reducing bias in investigations to challenging what evidence is considered admissible.Continue Reading Stop Worrying about the AI Revolution – It’s Here! Law Departments should focus on how it can help

By Rachel Hadrick / McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC

Distracted driving has become one of the leading causes of motor vehicle accidents and fatalities in the United States. In 2014 alone, Pennsylvania saw nearly 14,000 crashes involving a distracted driver, including 49 deaths. At least 46 states have made an effort to combat this growing problem in recent years by prohibiting texting by drivers. Many people are aware of these laws, and even the penalties they carry. Perhaps not so obvious, however, are the growing areas of liability flowing from the practice of texting while driving. Is liability limited to drivers? Can police search a driver’s phone after an accident? Can companies be liable if they facilitate, or even encourage, drivers to use their phones while driving? State courts and legislatures have addressed all of these issues and more.Continue Reading Texting and Driving – Evolving Theories of Liability: It isn’t just drivers who may be liable. Phone makers may be on the hook.

By Lee Matthews and Matt Kivlin / Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions

When you order a meal at a restaurant, there’s a menu and a waiter to provide information, service and, if something goes wrong, accountability. It’s a pretty simple system, but it works. What happens when someone on the business side wants to order up something from the company’s legal team? It’s not always so easy. And that’s the issue that Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions wants to address. Lee Matthews, the new ventures strategy director, and Matt Kivlin, a senior director of product management growth markets, sat down to talk about their approach. The interview has been edited for style and length.Continue Reading I’ll Have a Contract with Those Fries: How one firm is trying to advance the delivery of in-house legal services

By Charlie Platt, iDiscovery Solutions

Like many, I attended LegalTech Jan. 31 – Feb. 2 and enjoyed catching up with old friends while seeing new, emerging technologies. Did you see the car forensics kit being offered by Berla? That was pretty cool and something I am definitely going to keep an eye on. One of the things I always enjoy is the post-LegalTech articles. Everyone talking about what they saw, what caught their eye, and where they think the legal technology world is heading. I was really looking this year for anything related to the internet of things (IoT), especially with Alexa making the news recently as an eyewitness to murder. Of course, there’s also the pacemaker that recently provided critical evidence in an arson investigation, and Fitbits are becoming notorious for impugning eyewitness accounts. Our devices aren’t only spying on us; they’re turning state’s evidence!Continue Reading The Ethical Hacker: Field Notes: Leveraging IoT Data Isn’t a Budget Killer

By Reese Arrowsmith, Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)

Intro: Reese Arrowsmith, who heads legal operations at Campbell Soup Company, is the inaugural chair of the legal operations membership section of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). He spoke with us about his new role at ACC, the growth he’s seen in the field of legal operations and where he thinks it’s going next. His comments have been edited for style and length.Continue Reading ACC Is All In on Legal Operations: The association’s first chair of its ops section explains why

By Rees Morrison, Altman Weil, Inc.

The Roman god Janus looked both ways at once. That’s an apt metaphor for the divergence in how lawyers look at the use of data in management decisions. Some lawyers look askance at data being used to augment decisions; others look with favor on it. The more clearly that lawyers understand the conflicting bases for their own views and those of their colleagues, the more adroitly they will deal with data in decisions.Continue Reading A Metrics Conundrum: What Would Janus Do?: Lawyers are sometimes torn when considering how much to rely on data

By Candice Lang, AlixPartners LLP

Properly managing the personally identifiable information (PII) of employees and customers has become a primary concern for corporate counsel and risk managers. It’s no wonder given the massive fines regulators are dishing out. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million for misrepresenting the information it collects on its users. More recently, the Federal Communications Commission slapped a $25 million fine on AT&T stemming from the company’s lax internal data security practices that allowed the Social Security numbers of more than 200,000 customers to be accessed and sold to criminal organizations.Continue Reading Managing Privacy Risks in E-Discovery Data Collection and Processing: Understanding data privacy regulations for personally identifiable information