Proof of Finding Philanthropy in E-Discovery

April 5th, 2013 → 1:57 pm @ Ari Kaplan

In the fall of 1990, I interviewed for a job that ended up changing the course of my life. The ad to which I responded was for a tutor in the then 1-year old Intergenerational Literacy Project, a collaboration between Boston University’s School of Education and the Chelsea Public Schools in Chelsea, Massachusetts. I had no experience, but wanted a work-study job that was meaningful and rewarding. It turned out to be both. 23 years later, this program continues its mission to improve the reading skills of adults and the literacy knowledge among pre-school and school-aged children.

When I learned about the release of Proof Finder, a unique venture by Nuix to offer its e-discovery and investigation software to users at $100 per year (limited to a maximum case size of 15 gigabytes), I interviewed its CEO, Eddie Sheehy (below), to discuss the endeavor as 100% of the proceeds from all sales are given to Room to Read, a global non-profit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education.

In addition to serving as the foundation of a successful philanthropic endeavor, Proof Finder offers:

• Mobile device forensics with support for Cellebrite and Micro Systemation XRY mobile images.
• File system forensics including carving out full and partial deleted files and slack space.
• A hex viewer to examine the binary structure of files.
• Expanded clustering and near-deduplication capabilities.

To date, the results are remarkable as the company has donated:

• $44,000 toward the construction of a school in Nepal and the publication of local-language school books.
• $35,000 to help Room to Read build a school in Sri Lanka.
• $7500 to sponsor 30 girls to complete their secondary school education.

Watch the video below in which David Sitsky, Head of Development for Nuix, and John Wood, the founder of Room to Read, discuss their partnership and the release of Proof Finder 4.2:

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The Canadian Perspective on What to Expect in 2013

March 1st, 2013 → 7:14 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Cynthia Nerland, the Business Development & Communications Manager at Dye & Durham Corporation, a British Columbia-based legal support services firm, about her expectations for the Canadian legal market in 2013.

Among other developments, Nerland predicts a rise in the number of international mergers.  She cited the 2012 combinations of Canada’s Fasken Martineau and Johannesburg-based Bell Dewar, as well as SNR Denton, Salans LLP and Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP effort to form Dentons, as evidence of this trend.

She advised that to prepare for these changes, legal support services providers need to be mobile and leverage multiple platforms. Nerland also expects more lawyers to blog and engage in social media to raise their profiles in the recovery.

Listen to our interview below:

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The Rise of Intelligent Case Assessment

January 18th, 2013 → 6:02 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Kurt Michel, the president and CEO of Content Analyst Company, a developer of advanced analytics technology. We discussed his expectations for 2013, how technology has evolved in the legal industry, and where he sees the industry headed, among other issues. Michel noted that the judiciary is now an open proponent of technology as a means of reducing the cost of litigation and highlighted that legal teams will begin using analytics earlier in the process to achieve intelligent case assessment.

Listen to our interview below:

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Why Contract Lifecycle Management Matters

February 17th, 2012 → 6:50 am @ Ari Kaplan

During Legal Tech New York 2012, I had the chance to speak with Tim Sparks, the CEO of CLM Matrix about contract lifecycle management.  He noted that the company’s Matrix software solutions are uniquely designed for Microsoft SharePoint, automatically draft contracts in Word, and dynamically create essential workflow.  Watch our interview below:

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The Rise of Meaning-Based Coding and the Changing Landscape for Information Governanace

January 30th, 2012 → 7:17 am @ Ari Kaplan

In anticipation of Legal Tech, I spoke with George Tziahanas, the senior vice president for legal and compliance solutions at Autonomy.  We discussed the rise of meaning-based coding, the convergence of Stratify and Introspect, and the changing landscape for information governance. Listen to our interview below:

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How Metrics are Reinventing Operations in Legal Departments

December 16th, 2011 → 9:15 am @ Ari Kaplan

I am in the process of finalizing a research report that will be released at LegalTech NY (click here for last year’s study) for which I spent most of the fall interviewing corporate counsel from across the country.  With those conversations in mind, I recently had the chance to speak with David Samia, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Bridgeway Software, a provider of legal management tools for the Fortune 1000.  We discussed how metrics are reinventing the way legal departments delivering their services.  He shared his insights on changes that metrics are helping chief legal officers make and key best practices. Specifically, he noted that metrics provide a way for law departments to demonstrate the value that they provide to the broader business and recommended that in-house counsel identify their key performance indicators so that the law department can agree with the business unit on how it will be measured. Watch our interview below:

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