e-Discovery Made Simple for Competitive Advantage
Freelance journalist Grania Langdon-Down has sent me an article entitled “Call for backup” published in the July edition of Solutions.
The article looks at how the process of forensic investigation works and how litigators go about finding the right firm for the job. Grania writes fluently on the subject and is kind enough to quote me in a couple of areas, so I will leave you to read the article at your leisure -
Call for backup, Solutions, July 2010 [PDF 586KB]
Kim Jong IL
I make no apology for returning once again to the subject of Legal Process Outsourcing or LPO as it is colloquially known. The phenomenon is also known as Legal Services Outsourcing or LSO, making both sound like performances from the Royal Albert Hall rather than the relatively new process of instructing foreign lawyers to carry out legal tasks in a different country for a fraction of the price you would pay in this country.
LPO/LSO appears to be pretty high on the agenda of managing partners of law firms and others at present, presumably because the notion that you can use lawyers offshore to carry out tasks for a fraction of the cost of your own lawyers within the jurisdiction is irresistible in these straitened times. I am not sure what the army of paralegals and others who would have been engaged on the various tasks in this country think about it; they are surely going to be out of work if outsourcing increases, but for present purposes, I propose to leave consideration of that aspect of LPOs to one side.
It was just a wooden chair! There was nothing remarkable about it until one realised that the padding at the sides consisted of cushions piled on top of one another and strapped together and that underneath was a shallow metal tray.
Even that did not really capture the menace behind the image until one realised that the blemishes grouped together in the left hand corner of the back of the chair were in fact the marks made by the bullets fired by his executioners into the chest and heart of convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner.
Whatever your views about capital punishment I was left with the overwhelming sense that this was not what I wanted to see published in my newspaper. After all, in the days when we had capital punishment here we were not treated to interviews with the hangman or grisly pictures of the swinging noose ( or at least not since the days of public executions).
The report by Lord Saville into what happened in (London)Derry on 30th January 1972, which has become known as Bloody Sunday, was published on 15th June 2010.
Much has already been written about it. The statistics are there for all to see. It took 12 years, it cost £190 million, there were approximately 2,500 written statements and the opening statement was the longest in English legal history. The tribunal heard from almost 1,000 witnesses, sat in Derry and in London and spawned judicial review litigation which reached the then House of Lords (now the Supreme Court).
As I have mentioned earlier [Bloody Sunday, 22nd June, 2010] I was involved for the best part of six years in gathering the evidence for the Tribunal but little of my time was spent in the actual hearings apart from listening to one or two witnesses of particular interest.
History is a wonderful thing and I am constantly amazed at how much of it appears to be a matter of chance.
There are numerous examples. For instance, I have come across the attached piece published by the Education Forum. I reproduce it in full, typos and all!
A significant event marking the international relations of the 18th century was the 7-year war (1756-1763). The war established England’s position as the greatest colonial and naval power of the times and allowed Prussia, led by king Frederic the Great, to confirm its status as a great European military power. It is nonetheless common knowledge that despite the king’s energy and military prowess, there was a time when Prussia was on the point of giving in due to its enemies’ (Russia’s, more specifically) overwhelming superiority. In 1761, the new British cabinet, led by Bute, stopped the transfer of funds to the Prussians. Given the circumstances, Frederic the 2nd found himself no longer able of carrying on the war. He even gave serious thought to abdication. But then there came about what the king himself named “the miracle of the House of Branderburg”.
In a shock announcement today, leading litigation support provider Millnet has announced that it is NOT going to make another offer of £10k worth of free e-discovery services but instead has introduced what it describes as “a lasting cure for e-discovery paralysis”.
Earlier this year, Millnet surprised the market by offering up to £10k worth of free e-discovery services. The offer, which was open to the first 10 law firms who applied, was oversubscribed and was withdrawn well before the deadline for applications expired.
Security concerns are in the headlines again. Fortunately not the 9/11 type but serious nonetheless.
Take for example the attempts by Google to photograph every street in the country and to post the results online. House owners fear the information will turn into a burglars’ charter.
Or the report that government backed hackers from Russia and China are targeting companies with a view to obtaining government defence and technology information. Not particularly reassuring, if true.
Sadly, we are all to conscious of reports that supposedly secure and confidential information has been lost, has been hacked into or has been found blowing in the wind down a street or waiting to become seagull fodder on a waste tip.
The model and author Sophie Dahl, probably most famous not for being Roald Dahl’s grand-daughter but for her traffic stopping billboard appearances in an Opium ad for Yves St Laurent, is about to star in her own television series starting on BBC 2 on March 23rd at 8.30pm.
“The Delicious Miss Dahl” (and that is the title of the series and not just my opinion!) is to become the latest television cook as a result of the success of “Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights” (that’s the title of the book and not only my view. Do keep awake at the back!!).
Those of us who enjoy our food, both the eating and the cooking, are used to watching the sensual Nigella Lawson in her kitchen, and Sophie Dahl’s new show promises to be another visual and culinary delight.
This week I trained my 100th lawyer on using the CaseLogistix review platform. During the dozen or so training sessions I have conducted over the past couple of months both face to face and via the web a number of people have commented that it is unusual to see the Managing Director running training sessions. This got me thinking about the nature of the industry and the approach we adopt at Millnet.
Over the past six years I have witnessed countless sales pitches and demonstrations of litigation support software. Reflecting on these, they have been more often poor than good and have at times been truly dire. Dissecting the reasons for this it seems there are a number of common deficiencies on the part of the demonstrator – Continue reading ‘Musings from the coalface’
Chris Dale begins his report Millnet offer £10,000 of e-Discovery services for free with Virgil’s phrase, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” which is commonly, if loosely, translated as “beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
If you have been abreast of recent economic developments, you will know that the Greeks are unlikely to be bearing any gifts for anyone just now. The poor things have been led by the nose ever since entry into the euro into believing that their Government can go on spending money without any idea how they are going to pay it back. We in this country should on no account be smug as our Government has been the most profligate ever and has racked up debts which will keep us all in hock for years to come.