Category: ediscovery law

Cybersecurity should be prioritized by litigation lawyers handling confidential computer data. There have been hundreds of documented extent to which law firms are a prime target for frequent cyber-attacks because of electronically stored information (ESI) they are housing. Criminal hackers have figured out to access data from law firm computers that they cannot get from a company’s well-defended data directly.

With the development of cybercrime activities over the years, many top law firms have taken steps in the past decade to strengthen systems focusing on the protection of client ESI.

Confidential client ESI can also sometimes be hacked by unethical competitors who are engaging in illegal eDiscovery. For example, those trying to crush a competing business or those trying to win a lawsuit.

Cybercrime activities are intensifying and increasing every year, and so is the amount of confidential information stored in computers.

All of this confidential information has a value to criminal hackers. Any law firm that does not realize that it is subject to cyber attack is naive.

Forward thinking law firms involved in ediscovery projects, are aware of security threats and proactive in protecting their computer systems, especially their clients’ confidential data. 

Every lawyer has a duty to maintain client confidentiality in today’s world of cyber attacks requires much more than legal knowledge and legal skills.

It requires sophisticated computer knowledge and skills far beyond traditional legal practices.

That is why cybersecurity experts should be used to assist in any law firm’s data protection efforts.

Are you a law firm that is doing all they can to improve cybersecurity and taking the data of clients’, cases and any sensitive information seriously. Drop us an email and let us know what your priorities are, email ediscovlaw@gmail.com.

You may also be interested in:

Predictive coding and scientific research.

Law firms can reduce the cost of review in large e-discovery projects by using advanced search technologies such as active machine learning, known as Predictive Coding, TAR (Technology Assisted Review) or CAR (Computer Assisted Review). For medium to large law firms looking to cut the costs of admin, this will become more and more important over the next 10 years.

Predictive coding helps firms save on admin and system costs by finding relevant documents in a large collection, faster than traditional methods.

It’s estimated that  70 percent of total e-discovery production costs are taken up by outside counsel according to Rand corporation.

Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that involves programming a computer to find relevant documents in a large collection and it is generally accepted by most courts and has been for a number of years. 

Machine learning is now a big part of most people’s lives without them realising, from Amazon recommendations to watching movies on Netflix of listening to music on Spotify. The computer learns what our preferences are and this is the same with legal software.

During the last 10 years, there has been an increase in great studies and explanation of predictive coding software. Including that of Jason Baron.

Scientific research and AI has made great progress over the past 10 years, so if you are working on ediscovery projects, bear it in mind.