“Data Waterfall” Forcing Innovation in Litigation Tech, Say Experts at ILTACON

A wide range of new sources of data that must be mined for potentially relevant information during eDiscovery will drive us to new levels of innovation in litigation support technology, predicted the expert panelists during a fascinating session last week at ILTACON 2016.

In the session, “How Future Technology Will Affect Litigation Support,” a panel of eDiscovery experts discussed what future technologies will have an effect on litigation support and eDiscovery. The panelists agreed that the proliferation of data sources – what they described as “The Data Waterfall” – will touch off a massive increase in electronic information that must be collected in eDiscovery, sparking further innovations in the technology needed to deal with the data waterfall.

“The fact of the matter is that we’re going to be looking back in five years and saying, ‘Wow, we had it so easy with what we had to deal with,’” said Craig Ball, a board-certified trial lawyer and certified computer forensics examiner. “One of the things the future is going to bring us is a gargantuan explosion in the volume of data we have to deal with as potential evidence.”

In addition to Ball, the ILTACON session featured Dave Copps, CEO of Brainspace Corp., and Jay Leib, founder of NexLP, two innovative companies applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to litigation support solutions. The panelists noted myriad new sources of data, such as the following:

• Internet of Things
• Personal devices (e.g., Siri)
• Geo-Location data
• Virtual reality applications
• Fitness tracking

An informal poll of the ILTACON audience confirmed that litigation professionals are now routinely collecting electronic information from sources beyond email and traditional correspondence, such as data collected from social media communications.

“As the number and nature of data sources proliferates, so do the technology challenges for in-house counsel and their outside law firms,” said Steve Ashbacher, vice president of litigation solutions with the LexisNexis software and technology business. “They need to be concerned about data collection, synthesizing that data regardless of the source, authenticating the data, and then managing the workflow required to process the content of what they’ve collected.”

Ashbacher noted that the rising pressure on eDiscovery teams to cope with new data sources creates an opportunity for the development of innovative eDiscovery software tools that leverage the power of machine learning and other emerging technologies. For example, Lexis DiscoveryIQ, a fully integrated enterprise eDiscovery software platform developed by LexisNexis and enhanced by Brainspace Corp., disrupts the traditional linear review model with a new approach powered by advanced visual analytics throughout the eDiscovery process.

“New tools such as ours illustrate that our industry is in the midst of some exciting innovation in the way that we use technology to collect, process and analyze information from a wide range of data sources,” said Ashbacher.

ILTACON is a four-day educational conference that draws on the experience and success of professionals employing ever-changing technology within law firms and legal departments. For more information about ILTACON 2016, click here.

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This post is by Daryn Teague, who provides support to the litigation software product line based in the LexisNexis Raleigh Technology Center.