Featured, Industry News

Using Video Deposition Testimony for Opening Statements & Closing Arguments (Ipro Guest Blogger, Attorney Joshua Gilliland)

Trial Video Depositions
21
Oct

*Editor’s Note: Today’s Ipro blog was written by Joshua Gilliland, a California attorney who focuses his practice on eDiscovery. Josh is the co-creator of The Legal Geeks, which has made the ABA Journal Top Blawg 100 Blawg from 2013 to 2016, the Web 100 from 2017 to 2018, and was nominated for Best Podcast for the 2015 Geekie Awards. Josh has presented at legal conferences and comic book conventions across the United States. He also ties a mean bow tie.

Trial advocacy is a mix of law and theater, requiring a lawyer to know both the law and their audience. Attorneys must effectively argue their client’s case using the evidence and the jury instructions to show their client is right (or has been wronged), and it is up to the jury to put things right.

The opening statement is an opportunity to set the stage for what the trial is about, and the closing argument is the chance to tie all the issues together with a bow. One highly effective strategy for both is using video depositions, but they must meet the requirements in Federal or state court.

Strategic Reasons to Use Video Deposition Clips

Back in 2002, David Narkiewicz described the value of using video depositions in trial as follows:

Video DepositionWithout a doubt, trial presentation software is most powerful when used to show a clip of a video deposition while simultaneously showing the transcript for the jury to watch and read. Instead of just showing a video clip, highlighting a particular comment by the witness with a color, such as yellow, can make the use of that clip extremely powerful. You can retrieve this clip by just typing in the page and lines of the transcript, and the video and transcript are played instantly on the screen.

Jurors today have lived with smartphones that allow them to watch videos in the palm of their hand, and many of these jurors are in Generation X or Millennials and want to hear the bottom line and not a presentation that manipulates their emotions.

This requires thinking about how to use short video deposition that conveys the key message, such as “day-in-the-life” videos, or using a specific passage of testimony that sums up a case are effective ways to maximize trial presentation technology to simply state complex information for the jury to understand.

Deposition testimony allows jurors to get an immediate look at a party (or party representative) in a lawsuit. However, just because you can show a line of deposition questions and answers, does not mean you should. The facts of the case can dictate the trial strategy.

As trial presentation expert Ted Brooks of Litigation-Tech has explained, video depositions of deceased parties were used in an asbestos reinsurance case from early in his career. Without the video depositions, the only way the jury would have “heard” the deceased’s testimony was to hear someone read it into the record.

The fundamental strategic reason for using a video deposition clip in an opening statement or closing argument boils down to effectively communicating the key facts of a lawsuit.

How to Prepare Video Deposition Clips

The first step in preparing video deposition clips in TrialDirector 360 is to have a synchronized video deposition. A video deposition can be synched in TimeCoder Pro, but it is highly likely a court reporter firm will provide a synced Digital Video Transcript (DVT file) that can be loaded into TrialDirector 6 or Trialdirector 360.TrialDirector 360

Video deposition clips can be created by selecting the relevant page and line designations within the transcript. Attorney colloquy and objections in the deposition should be edited out so the clip is only of the question and answer. It is often required that the questions before and after the relevant examination designation need to be included to give context to the answer. As every trial is unique, what needs to be presented can vary.

The main point of having a video excerpt in a closing argument or opening statement is for impact. This could be because a person is deceased, there is an admission of extreme importance, or the deponent gave inconsistent testimony at trial. There are numerous reasons to want to use a video deposition clip, but the key issue is presenting some testimony the jury will not forget when they begin deliberations.

Notes on Depositions from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 32 allows a party to use a deposition against an adverse party if the party had was present or represented at the deposition; had notice of the deposition; would be admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence; and meets one of the Rule 32(a) requirements. Fed Rules Civ Proc R 32(a)(1)(A), (B), and (C).

Federal Courts have allowed video deposition excerpts in opening statements. In one case where a party brought a motion in limine to exclude the use of a video deposition, the Court allowed the video deposition because Rule 32(a)(2) states a deposition can be used for “any purpose” and the opposing party’s conduct was factually relevant and could be alluded to in opening statement. Northfield Ins. Co. v. Royal Surplus Lines Ins. Co. (C.D. Cal. July 7, 2003).

In another case, the proffering party was limited to use video deposition testimony under Federal Rules of Evidence 403 that prohibit cumulative evidence, because the deponent was going to testify at trial. Beem v. Providence Health & Servs. (E.D. Wash. Apr. 19, 2012).

In a complex technology case, the Court granted a motion in limine excluding a video deposition clip from an opening statement, explaining, “…if unrestricted, a video deposition can be shown once in opening, again during trial (at least once), and in closing in the exact same form. Repeatedly showing the same few deposition segments seems to exalt the relevance of those videotaped shreds of evidence over live testimony.” Hynix Semiconductor Inc. v. Rambus Inc. (N.D. Cal. Jan. 21, 2008), citing Federal Judicial Center, Effective Use of Courtroom Technology: A Judge’s Guide to Pretrial and Trial, 156 (2001).

(Interested in learning more about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure? Check out Ipro’s FRCP Cheat Sheet!)

Notice Requirements Regarding Video Depositions

The use of a video deposition in trial is subject to notice requirements under Federal and state Rules of Civil Procedure. In Federal Court, a party must provide a transcript of any deposition testimony the party offers. Fed Rules Civ Proc R 32(c). In California, there must be a notice in writing of the intent to offer video depositions into evidence, which allow for objections and video editing. Cal Code Civ Proc § 2025.340(m). It is pivotal to know the local rules for submitting evidence lists and any standing orders for using video depositions in trial.

Sources:

[1] FEATURE: GENERATION X AND Y’S INFLUENCE IN THE JURY BOX, 50 Orange County Lawyer 42, 44.

[2] THE RANDOLPH W. THROWER SYMPOSIUM: CHANGING LITIGATION WITH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: VIDEO DEPOSITIONS, TRANSCRIPTS AND TRIALS, 43 Emory L.J. 1071, 1075-1076

[3] FEATURE: UNDERSTANDING AND USING COURTROOM TECHNOLOGY IN THE NEW HARRIS COUNTY CIVIL COURTHOUSE, 44 Houston Lawyer 30, 31

[4] DEPARTMENT: LEGAL TECH: TECHNOLOGY IN THE COURTROOM: TRIAL PRESENTATION SOFTWARE, 24 Pennsylvania Lawyer 49, 49

 

Featured, Industry News, News, White Paper

Download Ipro’s FRCP Cheat Sheet to brush up on your eDiscovery Rules!

FRCP eDiscovery Rules
17
Oct

Download Ipro’s FRCP Cheat Sheet to brush up on your eDiscovery Rules!

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) are just that: rules established by the Supreme Court and approved by Congress, specifying procedures for civil legal suits within US federal courts. There are several of these that apply specifically to eDiscovery and understanding their role in the process is vital for any practitioner, whether you’re on a corporate legal team, part of a law-firm, or a specialist at a service provider.

Don’t want to read pages and pages of legalese just to learn the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that apply to eDiscovery? We’ve got you covered!

Ipro FRCP Cheat SheetNeed to brush up on your Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as they apply to eDiscovery?

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Desktop, Featured, Government, Industry News, News

5 Reasons Your Legal Team is Being Held Back by Legacy eDiscovery Software

legacy eDiscovery software
10
Oct

We’ve all been there: we know we need to change our way of doing things but are stuck in the status quo. We tell ourselves, if it isn’t broken, why fix it, because the thought of going through the difficulty of evolving often overshadows any benefits that might come with updating.

Those of us working in eDiscovery are no different. Even as digital information is constantly growing, file types changing, and processing and review costs continue rising, we hang onto outdated software that becomes more and more unstable with age—from limited processing capabilities, issues with filetype compatibility, or a lack of continued development and support.

Here are 5 reasons why continued use of unsupported legacy software is a ticking time bomb in your eDiscovery process.

  1. Tech Support

This is an obvious one. Using legacy eDiscovery software that is no longer supported by the company that created it is like driving a car with high-mileage and no warranty: it may still run fine and get you from point A to point B, but when it breaks down, you’re on your own.

  1. Operating System Support

As far as digital lifespans go, 5 years is a long time. If your legal team is using legacy eDiscovery software which was created for older versions of an OS, it could lead to issues if it’s no longer being supported to meet with scheduled OS updates. (For example, Microsoft released Windows 10 in 2015, which has had 7 additional versions updates since then, with various “end of service” dates scheduled in 2020).

  1. File-type support

It’s no secret that data is growing exponentially each year, particularly in the corporate sector. From an eDiscovery standpoint, the challenge lies with the near infinite number of file types (and variations within each type) in which data can live. Every program and application you use creates different file types: email, chat, social media, planning and content-creation tools, etc. Different versions of the same program or application create variations of those file types, and different formatting within each of those can create still more variations. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why a legal team needs software that is continually being updated in order to keep up with this growth.

  1. Lack of advanced tools and analytics for today’s workflows

More and more, legal teams are looking to add the latest tools which increase the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of document search and review. If your team is using software that is no longer being developed or supported, you may be missing out on the latest innovations in Early Case Assessment (ECA), Technology Assisted Review (TAR), and other advanced technology which allows your team to deal with larger datasets and take on more complex cases.

  1. Difficulty meeting unique production requirements

FRCP Rule 34(b) states that a requesting party may specify the form or forms of ESI production, which are determined by the parties at the Rule 26(f) “meet and confer” conference. The inability to meet unique production requirements due to outdated or unsupported software will result in having to turn to outside service providers to do the job for you, resulting in extra costs and added stakeholders, in order to meet the production deadline.

Functional Software isn’t a Long-Term Solution

It’s time to stop struggling with legacy eDiscovery tools. Ipro easily migrates data from the most popular legacy flat-file review databases and has been purpose-built with the most cutting-edge features in eDiscovery. No matter what your eDiscovery needs are, Ipro has the flexibility, scalability, and value to meet them.

 

Register for Ipro’s upcoming webinar:

eDiscovery from the Trenches: 3 Veteran Practitioners Discuss How to Create a Successful eDiscovery Workflow

Industry News, Webinar

Ipro podcast on Lawyerist, part 3 Redactions

10
Oct

Ipro’s VP of desktop solutions Derek Miller talks about the recent issues that have occurred with redactions. Recently, in the news there is the story of redacted information erroneously/accidentally being exposed because of the tools that were used to do the redaction.  It’s probably not the first or the last time this will happen.  In that instance, it was more of an issue of understanding how the technology works vs. the tool that was used and that could be the bigger problem when it comes to selecting tools for the toolbox.

Also in this episode with Geoff Woods, we talk about what the ONE thing means, why we shouldn’t focus on more than one thing, how to pick a “thing”, and how to overcome the challenges along the way.

Featured, Industry News, Law Firms

Should Mobile Devices be Imaged for eDiscovery? Recent Case Law Provides Insight

Mobile Devices Imaged for eDiscovery
08
Oct

Should Mobile Devices be Imaged for eDiscovery? Recent Case Law Provides Insight

Deciding whether mobile devices should be imaged can be difficult when it comes to eDiscovery. They contain a large variety of file-types and data intermingled with a lot of private information, which may be privileged. Extracting specific information can be difficult and imaging an entire device can be costly. So the question remains: To image or not to image? But not really. That’s why we have case law.

On the surface, it seems that imaging an entire device would fall beyond the usual scope of a matter as it’s defined under FRCP Rule 26. Specific relevant data would be the obvious choice over everything on a single device. Which is exactly how a magistrate judge saw it last year in Henson v. Turn (N.D. Cal. Oct. 22, 2018), when the court denied requests by the defendants to inspect personal devices of the plaintiffs, collecting web browsing history and cookies in the process, on the basis that the data sought was neither relevant nor proportional to the needs of the case.

But in a recent ruling by Special Discovery Master Hon. Rebecca Westerfield (Ret.) in the class action suit In re: Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2019), the court determined that imaging a sample set of the plaintiffs’ mobile devices was proportional to the needs of the case under Rule 26. So what sets this case apart from Henson v. Turn?

The Case:

In re: Apple concerns the plaintiffs’ claim that Apple used operating system updates to “throttle” and hamper device performance regarding certain of its iPhone 6 devices, allegedly impairing “the integrity, condition, quality, and usefulness of the Devices without Plaintiffs’ knowledge or consent.”

Each side brought forward forensic experts. The plaintiffs’ expert, Mary Frantz, Managing Partner of Enterprise Knowledge Partners, LLC, asserts that “Apple’s internal databases such as collected historical diagnostics, support, and potentially archived cloud of backup files would be a preferred and sufficient method to determine historical performance,” and that, “there is no difference between what would be found on any specific Devices and what could be found via iTunes and iCloud analysis (which Apple could test without a forensic inspection).”

Apple’s expert, Paul D. Martin, PhD, Computer Science—who has over a decade of experience in technology and forensics, including with performance testing and benchmarking of computer and other technological programs—explained the word “performance” can have a broad variety of meanings for a device. “To assess performance conditions,” Dr. Martin asserts that “it is important to perform tests on a device that is configured in a way that matches, as closely as possible, the configuration of the user’s device. Configuration depends both on the hardware and on what is installed on the hardware, including operating system, applications, and data.” He also adds that, “each user controls the state of his or her Device to the extent that it deviates from the basic iOS configuration,” which, along with, variations of installed software, specific device usage patterns, and network or Wi-Fi variations, will impact performance. Which is why he concluded, “the best record of what is installed on a particular Device is the Device itself.”

The Ruling:

Special Discovery Master Westerfield ruled against the plaintiff on the issue of imaging, stating that “other types of discovery would not provide sufficient information on the issue at hand,” and that “the defendant’s privacy concerns could be addressed through a robust protective order containing the following:

  • “The plaintiffs would select a neutral forensic expert to produce a mirror image of the computer’s hard drive in a timely fashion
  • “That expert would execute a confidentiality agreement and also abide by the protective order in place in the action
  • “Only that expert would be authorized to inspect or handle the computer or the mirror image (the plaintiffs and their counsel would not inspect or handle the mirror image
  • “The expert would not examine any non-relevant files or data on the computer, or anything designated as privileged or work-product protected information
  • “That expert would produce a report based upon his or her inspection that describes the files found and any relevant file-sharing information
  • “And that expert would disclose his or her report only to the defendant’s counsel, who could then lodge objections to the report based on privilege.”

SDM Westerfield also cited Herskowitz/Juel v. Apple, Inc. (N.D. Cal. Feb. 12, 2014) in which the court ordered the plaintiffs to deposit computers and devices at issue with a third-party vendor for forensic inspection, because the “data contained on Plaintiffs’ computers and devices is likely to be highly relevant, and admissible evidence under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1).”

The SDM noted the potential privacy intrusions in Herskowitz/Juel were not as widespread, because only a small number of devices were imaged. In response, the number of devices available for forensic inspection was limited to much less than the 115 devices Apple had requested.

Meet and Confer:

Cooperation is the name of the game when it comes to determining whether mobile devices should be imaged and other complex eDiscovery cases like this one. And the SDM drove that home by stating the importance of both parties continuing to meet and confer, ensuring the order is carried out as determined by the court.

In her ruling, SDM Westerfield writes, “Given the above direction and following Apple’s designation of specific Devices to be examined, the meet and confer process is likely to be more productive than the parties’ past efforts. In this regard, the parties and their experts are in the best position to meet and confer on a proposal that minimizes exposure of content and private information to Apple, the parties’ experts, and Apple’s outside and inside attorneys and provides an appropriate tailored approach to discovery from these Devices.”

Written by Jim Gill
Content Writer, Ipro

 

Ipro FRCP Cheat SheetNeed to brush up on your Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as they apply to eDiscovery?

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Featured, Industry News

AI in eDiscovery: Expectations vs. Reality

AI in eDiscovery
03
Oct

AI in eDiscovery: Expectations vs. Reality

For the last decade, the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used quite a lot in the eDiscovery industry, with many at this point feeling like it’s more hype than technological innovation. This sense of hollow promises was added to recently when a former employee of Hanzo filed a lawsuit claiming that “the company would manually input the investigation results into its customer portal to create the false appearance that they were generated by artificial intelligence,” because the company’s AI platform was not functioning, [while] “senior Hanzo officials repeatedly warned the plaintiff not to tell clients about the manual investigations.”

So if they were faking AI results, does that mean everyone claiming they’re using it in eDiscovery is lying? Not in the least! But it does raise the need to define what is (and isn’t) Artificial Intelligence within eDiscovery as a way to cut through the noise.

Expectations vs. Reality – AI in eDiscovery

There are a lot of claims of “Artificial Intelligence” in the market, but when people hear the term AI, they often think of science-fiction, with robots doing the work that humans had done before. For further insights on the reality of legal AI, Robert Cruz, eDiscovery Hosting Support Consultant at RVM Enterprises, offers some considerations:

“The chatter of the eDiscovery industry lies within the offerings and solutions of ‘AI.’ For most, AI is envisioned from movies like The Terminator, iRobot, Transcendence, Stepford Wives, Blade Runner, and The Matrix. These are illustrations of what true AI would be. But defining AI has been more complex due to companies lowering the bar of what is considered AI.

“In eDiscovery, the industry has been focused on machine learning (predictive coding/technology assisted review), which is a subset of AI. To add to the soup of applications, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) are also in vogue in the industry. However, companies have been selling magic shows with these three applications without illustrating the limitations of the math.

“Nothing will replace the human understanding of language. These 3 applications of AI do not have the capabilities to understand the nuances of human speech dynamics (Morphology, Phonology, Accents, Colloquial terms and Vernacular, Heteronyms). For Technology Assisted Review (TAR), NLP, and ASR, these applications rely on rules to function, and these applications fall short of ‘true AI’ since the rules have to be bent or broken to capture the same meaning between two different languages (which is the role of human translators).

“Heteronyms provide a unique problem when translating. For example: ‘The farm was cultivated to produce produce.’ In my current state of typing, MS Word flagged that sentence as a grammatical error and cannot suggest any corrections!

“So, these current uses of AI in legal (TAR, NLP, ASR) will have greater usage in other areas where automation is governed by rules and speeds up the process for more administrative tasks. For language and speech, we are nowhere near True AI.”

— Robert Cruz, eDiscovery Hosting Support Consultant at RVM Enterprises

What is the Future of Legal AI?

The world of technology is constantly changing (for example, it wasn’t so long ago that Netflix was sending DVDs to people through the postal service) so it can be hard to predict what the future may hold for AI. In the legal industry, it can be even more difficult, because, on the one hand you have technological innovation, and on the other, you have whether users will adapt to that innovation.

One of the biggest reasons legal teams may be slow to adapt to the latest breakthroughs, is that, first and foremost, the outcomes have to be defensible. Add this to the fact that AI has primarily been focused on the Review stage of eDiscovery, and it’s easy to see why robot lawyers haven’t swept in and taken over document review.

There’s no doubt that advances will continue in that area (Continuous Active Learning or CAL is already taking its place on the scene), but the future of AI in eDiscovery will likely fall outside of the review stage. Aaron Swenson, Director of Product at Ipro, says it well: “In Legal, you don’t want the AI doing the work for you. You want it to help you ask the right questions, show you insightful trends in the data.”

A good analogy of this is spellcheck and grammar software. It’s been around for quite a while now, but (thankfully) we still need human writers. However, those tools are a great help to a writer. On the other hand, autocorrect (where the computer takes an active role in writing) can be disastrous without human review.

A recent article highlights how AI using word relationships in published scientific papers was able to make discoveries more quickly than humans. A similar use of entity relationships could prove very useful in helping attorneys make connections in large datasets that would be extremely difficult with purely manual review. AI could also help with Assisted Redaction, which could then be QC’d by both software and humans.

The main thing to consider when it comes to Artificial Intelligence within eDiscovery is that it isn’t here to replace lawyers, paralegals, and litigation support personnel. But it can and does and will continue to streamline and assist them in their work of getting to the facts of a case in a just, speedy, and inexpensive manner.

 

AI in eDiscovery, by Ipro

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Featured, Government, Industry News

Fitbit Data Provides Clues in Murder Case: eDiscovery & Criminal Investigation

ediscovery criminal investigation
01
Oct

Once again, eDiscovery and emerging data sources are at the center of a criminal murder investigation. A recent article in Wired highlights how investigators used data from the victim’s Fitbit and a neighbor’s Ring digital doorbell camera to establish a timeline, identify a suspect (the victim’s 92 year-old step father), and gain a warrant to search the suspect’s home, all of which led to his arrest.

Similar to other cases involving the use of data from mobile phones, social media, and the Internet of Things, it wasn’t the electronically stored information (ESI) alone leading to the arrest, but instead it gave investigators leads that otherwise wouldn’t have existed in a pre-digital world. These leads then gave them enough evidence to request warrants for further searches and investigations of specific suspects, which then brought about arrests. In other words, solving crimes still boils down to good old-fashioned detective work, only now, investigators have new ways to uncover what might have happened and who may have been involved.

Fitbit first introduced its personal fitness tracking device ten years ago, and today around 27 million people use them. Add that to other competitor’s devices (such as the Apple Watch) and it’s not hard to imagine how investigators often have ready access to biometric data of suspects and/or victims. Last year alone, 170 million wearables were shipped worldwide.

But while much of electronic data is self-authenticating under Federal Rules of Evidence rule 902(14), biometric data gathered from wearable devices is much harder to authenticate as accurate. An analysis of 67 studies on Fitbit’s movement tracking concluded that, “the device worked best on able-bodied adults walking at typical speeds. Even then, the devices weren’t perfect—they got within 10 percent of the actual number of steps a person took half of the time—and became even less accurate in counting steps when someone was resting their wrist on a walker or stroller, for example. ‘It’s not measuring actual behavior,’ says Lynne Feehan, a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia and the lead researcher on the paper. ‘It’s interpreting motion.’”

Evidence from fitness trackers has been admitted in homicide cases in Europe and the US, but expert witnesses and analysts are often used in conjunction with the data to authenticate it. Only a few judges have ruled on how to handle evidence from fitness trackers. For example, “In a 2016 Wisconsin case, Fitbit data was used to eliminate the possibility that a woman was murdered by her live-in boyfriend. The judge ruled that an affidavit from Fitbit established the device’s authenticity and allowed lawyers to introduce its step-counting data; at trial, a sheriff’s department analyst vouched for the reliability of the man’s particular device. However, the judge barred the Fitbit’s sleep data, citing a class-action suit that claims the sleep tracking could be off by as much as 45 minutes.”

Similar to older technologies (such as the polygraph), electronically created data isn’t necessarily irrefutable. Antigone Peyton, an intellectual property and technology law attorney who has used data from wearables in civil cases, states that people tend to see “data is equivalent to truth,” but there are “many ways the information on these devices can be interpreted.”

Another aspect that investigators have to consider with this type of data is users’ privacy. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that police must have a warrant to search phone location data under the 4th Amendment. At times, the companies that have the data, refuse to hand it over to law enforcement if they feel privacy is being infringed upon, but largely, the tech industry seems to cooperate, especially as procedures for handling this type of data are becoming more defined.

What is important for the legal industry to consider is how different types of data and data sources work, and what that means when it comes to authenticating it. It’s similar to when wiretaps, phone data, and other electronic surveillance was introduced into the detective’s toolkit in the 20th century. The difference is the amount of information created today is much greater, and it’s created by every person on a near continuous basis from a large number of sources. And none of this data can be looked at in the same way.

But what this new data does provide is more ways to reconstruct scenes, rule out potential suspects, corroborate or contradict testimony, and gather information which allows investigators to pursue new tactics and lines of questioning which lead to further warrants and arrests. For attorneys, it’s important to stay up on the most recent investigative uses and court-rulings on these data sources, which will continue to define and clarify how ESI is being used in both criminal and civil cases.

 

Written by Jim Gill
Content Writer, Ipro

 

Need to brush up on your Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as they apply to eDiscovery?
Download Ipro’s FRCP Cheat Sheet!

Case Studies, Desktop, Featured, Industry News

Salt Lake Legal Takes on Bigger Cases, Expands Market Share with Ipro Technology Partnership

Salt Lake Legal and Ipro
24
Sep

Salt Lake Legal Takes on Bigger Cases, Expands Market Share with Ipro Technology Partnership

A Proven Partnership

Since 2001, Salt Lake Legal has provided legal support services to law firms and businesses in Utah and throughout the West. From document production, scanning, or electronic discovery, Salt Lake Legal has supported corporate legal teams, large law firms, and solo-practitioners with exceptional legal services.
Salt Lake Legal has used Ipro products for more than a decade, most recently moving to Ipro’s advanced cloud review technology for enterprise clients, giving them the power to take on larger, more complex cases.

Flexibility and Consistency

Even with these changes, Salt Lake Legal’s workflow didn’t change at all. The flexibility of Ipro allowed them to keep their current processes while giving them the confidence that they could easily handle the largest datasets. This eDiscovery power coupled with Ipro’s stellar back office support proved invaluable.

Advanced Analytics and AI

In one instance, Ipro’s advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities helped Salt Lake Legal land a particular case with millions of documents, because Ipro’s TAR functionality helped them quickly cull the data.

“Now more than ever, clients are asking about the TAR feature. Its ability to cull huge data sets really makes a difference in our ability to land bigger cases. Clients also really like the Ipro interface. It’s intuitive and user-friendly, and users can be up and running with it after one run-through on a one-hour web training.”

Shane Bawden, Salt Lake Legal                 Salt Lake Legal and Ipro

A Technology Partner to Grow With

Ipro’s ability to handle growth in the industry, both with technological advances and their ability to support clients, is the reason Salt Lake Legal continues their technology partnership with Ipro year after year.

 

Find out more about how Ipro can partner with your organization to simplify the process from Discovery to Trial.

Featured, Industry News, Law Firms, News

Redaction Errors in Federal Opioid Case Reveal Importance of Legal Technology

legal redaction technology
18
Sep

Redaction Errors in Federal Opioid Case Reveal Importance of Legal Technology

For as long as humans have been writing things down, redactions have been a part of the process. In the beginning, they were used to integrate disparate stories and folktales, but these days, when we hear about redactions, it’s usually in regard to investigations and legal actions.

For the public—especially those who are hungry for conspiracy theories and secrets—redactions are a tantalizing hint at what’s not being said; however, for those in the legal industry, redactions are a part of everyday life. But this doesn’t mean they’re mundane! On the contrary, failure to redact documents or to make sure that redacted content is produced in its redacted format can be case ending (and job ending for the person responsible for the error).

The most common reason this happens, is because law firms are taking the “redact by hand” route instead of using tools that properly manage productions to ensure documents meet the expected production requirements (i.e. making sure the information meant to be kept private is hidden). By not using redaction technology, law firms are flirting with disaster.

Which is exactly where a law firm found itself, after exposing secret grand jury information in a court filing as a result of using Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat, instead of specialized redaction technology, which the partner said, “is specifically designed to avoid such issues. The failure to use this software was inadvertent oversight.”

At first glance, the filing appeared redacted, but a member of the press was able to defeat the redaction by simply copying the black-out boxes and pasting the text into a new document.

Ryan Joyce, VP of Strategy at Ipro, commented, “Time and time again we have seen the same headline—a law firm or government agency getting in trouble for not handling their redactions correctly. Why is this still an issue after all these years? Any software can draw a colored box over text, but only the right software will produce it correctly.”

But even when redactions are properly handled, a newly published study by the University of Zurich may make them a moot point. By using a combination of AI and over 120,000 legal records, researchers “were able to identify the participants in confidential legal cases, even though such participants had been anonymized.” And if that doesn’t give pause, they did so with an 84% accuracy rate after mining data for only one hour.

Still, even if anonymized information in legal documents can be defeated—by robots or gross oversight—the requirement to redact documents correctly isn’t going away anytime soon. Which means law firms should ensure they have the technology in place to properly handle redactions, along with the processes in place to ensure that technology is used. If they don’t, it could mean sanctions for the firm and unemployment for the individual who made the error.

How Ipro Can Help with Redactions

Tools like Ipro’s Production Shield (which is included in the enterprise and desktop eDiscovery solutions by Ipro) allow administrators to add another layer of protection for documents that should not be produced. When using Production Shield, such documents are identified during the validation phase of the export process, giving administrators the opportunity to correct conflicts and ensure only appropriate documents are produced.

In addition to Production Shield, Ipro ensures accurate redactions by:

  • Automatically re-OCRing the document to remove any text under the redaction
  • Running validations to ensure redactions are burned in and the text is correct
  • Creating layered redactions, so multiple production sets can be sent to multiple parties
  • Having 30 years’ experience in the legaltech industry – we know our redactions!

 Find Out More About How Ipro Can Ensure Accurate Productions for your Firm!

 

Written by Jim Gill
Content Writer, Ipro

Enterprise, Featured, Industry News, News, Service Providers

Ipro Announces Major Performance and Productivity Gains to its Best-In-Class Processing Engine, eCapture

eCapture by Ipro
16
Sep

Over the last four years, Ipro has been updating its industry-leading processing capabilities based on the foundation of eCapture. It is the backbone processing engine of the Ipro for enterprise solution. Ipro’s new streaming technology has automated the entire eDiscovery process from the upload of data through Production into ECA or Review. Integrating with Ipro for enterprise’s self-service module allows custodians to upload documents without needing direct access to the controller or job queue. The automation allows customers to kick off a job and leave the office knowing that the case is rapidly moving forward.

The quality and the amount of processing options to handle complex data types truly sets eCapture apart from all other competition. This includes the QC Module, which is a feature-rich quality control module allowing customers to filter and find flagged documents, validate processed data, and easily correct issues.

While already hailed as best-in-class by industry analysts and users for its ability to take control over large, complex data sets with outstanding speed and unparalleled quality, Ipro continues to innovate and dramatically improve eCapture, creating major performance and productivity gains in the software, including:

  • Unlimited extraction of meta-data fields
  • Increases in overall processing speed, up to 40%
  • Report generation speed performance gains of up to 95% on SSDs
  • Up to 70% efficiencies in CPU usage
  • Improved processing of new and complex file types
  • Superior image and production quality, including the latest MS Office file types

In addition, several improvements were made in the latest version of eCapture (2019.6.2) including 1) the ability to auto-publish all documents to review, even those held back due to errors, 2) extracting additional metadata from photographs and PDF files, 3) the ability to convert standard discovery to streaming discovery jobs to take advantage of the speed and more efficient workflow, 4) improved handling of documents with passwords, while driving down installation and upgrade times, making it possible to move to the latest version with minimal interruptions to business and down-time.

Finally, eCapture, the engine of Ipro for enterprise, has a robust roadmap, including work with our partners to continue developing secure public API’s—allowing partners full access to customize their workflows and take advantage of the power of eCapture.

Visit us here to learn more about eCapture by Ipro or Ipro for enterprise

About Ipro Tech, LLC

Ipro is a global leader in eDiscovery technology used by legal professionals to streamline discovery of electronic data through presentation at trial. Ipro draws upon decades of innovation to deliver high-performance software, services, and support, bundled as a solution and deployed the way you want it—Desktop, On-prem or Cloud—significantly reducing the cost and complexity of eDiscovery.