Title Slide

1
E-Discovery Revisited A Broader Perspective for
IR Researchers
Jack G. Conrad, Thomson RD ICAIL07 / DESI
Workshop June 4, 2007
2
EDD Outline

• EDD ? The Big Picture
• Motivations
• Background
• EDD interactions the dance of the litigants
• The complete EDD pipeline
• Alternative view of the enabling technologies

3
EDD ? The Big Picture

• Electronic Data Discovery ?
• Context Practical Research TREC
• Motivations
• (1) Recent characterization of State of the Art
  in EDD
• (2) Informational materials available for
  participants in forums like TREC

4
EDD ? The Big Picture

• Electronic Data Discovery ?
• Presently exist 300-500 companies offering some
  form of EDD software or services.
• Several offer complete services across the
  E-Discovery spectrum
• Kroll On-Track
• Recently acquired Engenium (Symetric), the
  concept search engine co.
• LN
• Acquired Applied Discovery in recent past, and
  also offers a full spectrum of EDD services
• EDD performance bar constantly being raised
• Essential need to share diverse perspectives in
  field with next generation researchers
• What is the dance of the litigants? the
  complete EDD pipeline? possible interactions of
  the enabling technologies?

5
EDD ? Related Areas

• Litigation Support / Management
• Focal point for TLR and L/N
• Wests Strategic Acquisition Team
• Compliance Regulation
• Federal, State and other Regulatory Agencies
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Inquiries
• Federal Government, the National Archives
• Nat. Archives had role in initiating TREC Legal
  Track
• Homeland Security / Anti-Terrorism
• Federal Government, National Security Agencies

6
E-Discovery Growth Prospects
Dollars (in Millions)
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Source of EDD Survey Responses

• The Socha-Gelbmann Report, 2005
• In total, 240 consumers/providers of EDD software
  / services were contacted
• 139 expressed interest in participating
• 72 of those were surveyed via spreadsheet or
  phone interview
• 3 of the final spreadsheets did not contain
  enough info to be used
• Conducted among 69 E-Discovery consumers
  providers
• 24 consumers 45 providers
• Consumers
• A cross-section of Am Law 200 law firms large
  U.S. companies
• Providers
• A broad-based collection of software service
  providers who market their offerings as
  E-Discovery tools or services

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Fastest Growing E-Discovery Services / Software
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E-Discovery ? Areas of Industry Strength
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E-Discovery ? Areas of Industry Weakness
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EDD Scenarios the dance of the litigants
Employment Discrimination
Party A vs. Company B (David vs. Goliath)
Securities Fraud
Govt vs. Company C
Intellectual Property
EDD resources
Company D vs. Company E
EDD resources
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The EDD Work Flow Model
Breadth and depth of discoverable materials
established
Data transferred from original or intermediate
media to uniform media for analysis
Vetting performed to reduce volume of data (incl.
filtering, deduping, clustering, etc.)
Primary review stage. Data transferred to
dedicated repository
Hard copy media converted (e.g., OCR) or audio
records transcribed
Electronically stored info. is preserved from
multiple sources
E-Discovery Pipeline
Searching based upon sources, dates, orig. file
types, key words, etc.
Advice to clients on strategies procedures for
conducting E-Discovery processing

• Data Gathering Preservation Collection

• Media Restoration (data trans. to a std. media)

• Data Processing (filtering, format conversion)

• Online Review Hosting Searching

• Production Delivery

• Data Entry Scanning

• E-Discovery Consulting (throughout process)

13
The EDD Work Flow Model
Proposed extended scope of text retrieval
task (i.e., including filtering, organizing
report generation)
Identification (scope, depth of information)
E-Discovery Pipeline

• Data Gathering Preservation Collection

• Media Restoration (data trans. to a std. media)

• Data Processing (filtering, format conversion)

• Online Review Hosting Searching

• Production Delivery

• Data Entry Scanning

• E-Discovery Consulting (throughout process)

14
E-Discovery Technology Pyramid
Reporting
Fourth Tier ? analyzing consoli- dating
summarizing production
Third Tier ? organizing classifying or
clustering tagging linking
Indexing
Second Tier ? vetting filtering, de- duping,
handling similar doc-objects
Hosting
Foundation ? collecting identification,
conversion, migration
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Additional E-Discovery Challenges

• Workflow Support
• Process Efficiencies
• Per Step
• Overall
• Tool Integration
• Ease of Use
• For Customers
• For Support
• High Value to Cost Ratio
• Added value through advanced technologies
• A TREC-like forum has much potential to
  contribute here
• Both within and beyond the context of IR

16
E-Discovery Revisited A Broader Perspective for
IR Researchers
Jack G. Conrad, Thomson RD ICAIL07 / DESI
Workshop June 4, 2007