eDiscovery Daily Blog

Brett Burney of Burney Consultants LLC: eDiscovery Trends 2018

This is the third of the 2018 Legaltech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year (and some afterward) to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.

Today’s thought leader is Brett Burney.  Brett is Principal of Burney Consultants LLC, and focuses the bulk of his time on bridging the chasm between the legal and technology frontiers of electronic discovery. Brett is also very active in the Mac-using lawyer community, working with lawyers who want to integrate Macs, iPhones & iPads into their practice.  Prior to establishing Burney Consultants LLC, Brett spent over 5 years at the law firm of Thompson Hine LLP where he worked with litigation teams in building document databases, counseling on electronic discovery issues, and supporting their technology at trial & hearings.  Brett graduated from the University of Dayton School of Law in 2000 and quickly became active in the world of legal technology. Brett speaks around the country on litigation support, eDiscovery, Mac, and iOS-related topics and today authors a variety of blogs and online courses for legal professionals.  Brett also served as the Chair of the ABA TECHSHOW 2015 Conference Planning Board and recently published the book “Macs in Law” for the American Bar Association. Brett is also the co-author the 2018 eDiscovery Buyers Guide.

What were your general observations about LTNY this year?

It seemed that the 2018 Legaltech/Legalweek Conference had a distinct flavor of maturity this year. The Exhibit Hall was a bit thinner and less wacky than previous years, and the pulse was more focused and business-like.

On the “future is coming soon so you better be ready” side, there were multiple warnings about GDPR and AI, with some Blockchain sprinkled throughout.  On the more practical side were continuing discussions on how to collect and monitor social media and IoT sources.

Overall, this year’s conference appeared to deliver what attendees were seeking in education and information.

If you were “king of LTNY” for a year, what kind of changes would you make?

While I fully understand the push last year to make this a “Legalweek” instead of just “Legaltech,” it’s still very confusing with all kinds of sessions and mini-shows happening at the same time. So I would simplify things as much as possible.

Second, I would try to reach out to small and mid-size firms outside of the New York area.

You and Chelsey with Lex Tech Review recently published a buyer’s guide to eDiscovery solutions. Why did you decide to publish the guide, who do you anticipate using the guide and how do you anticipate them using it?

That’s easy! We simply had a passion to provide a comprehensive set of eDiscovery resources for a section of the market that is routinely overlooked – small and mid-size law firms.

For some reason, most lawyers think that “eDiscovery” is only something that huge law firms have to deal with, and that if you’re a small firm you don’t have to worry about it … so they don’t. But just because you’re in a small firm, doesn’t mean you don’t handle large, important litigation matters. And if you’re involved in litigation today, then you are absolutely involved in eDiscovery.

We have two goals for the eDiscovery Buyers Guide: First to serve as a literal buyers guide to help practitioners find the products they need to use, and second to serve as a resource to help lawyers be more competent about products available for their clients and to understand the products being used by opposing parties.

As an eDiscovery consultant, you work with a lot of clients.  What are the “hot” topics and issues that you find your clients are most consistently encountering?

Honestly, while I love talking out AI and predictive coding and statistical algorithms as much as next eDiscovery tech nerd, the vast majority of my clients are just trying to get their heads wrapped around the day-to-day practical aspects of eDiscovery.  The “hottest” topic I get asked about today is how to confidently and defensibly collect social media content from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Email is still the primary source of potentially relevant electronic evidence today, but it’s unbelievable what folks will post in social media.

In a similar vein, not a week goes by that I don’t have a client asking how they can collect text messages from phones and mobile devices.  Beyond that, many of my clients are just seeking to learn about the best tools and products that they can use to get through an overwhelming number of emails, documents, and electronic files … which is one of the reasons we developed the eDiscovery Buyers Guide.

If you could provide legal practitioners out there with one or two key pieces of advice about better eDiscovery practices, what would you tell them?

Keep it simple and practical, but that doesn’t mean you can be ignorant about the tools you need to use as a litigator in today’s world. For example, I still find so many lawyers using their own Microsoft Outlook to review email collected from a client. And that just completely baffles me that they are co-mingling live electronic evidence with their own work product in the same software! That’s negligent and ripe with risk. If you’re a litigator today, you need to use legitimate document review tools that preserve the evidence, allow you to code, tag, & redact documents, and then produce them in the form or forms in which the opposing party requests.

Second I continue to encourage practitioners to just talk with the other side about eDiscovery processes and procedures. Sure I understand the “strategy” behind the reasoning to keep the opposing party in the dark for as long as possible, but this legacy approach to discovery doesn’t help you or your client when it involves electronic evidence. Cooperation is a dirty word for most lawyers, but it’s absolutely critical for swift and successful eDiscovery resolutions.

What would you like our readers to know about things you’re working on?

Thanks for asking! On the non-e-Discovery side, I offer a fantastic online course for lawyers that want to incorporate iPads into their practice at www.ipracticeonanipad.com. I also host a blog reviewing apps at www.appsinlaw.com.

My latest course is called TextExpander for Lawyers where you’ll learn about the most brilliant software utility that can type FOR you and save you time in your day.

Lastly, I encourage every reader to download the FREE eDiscovery Buyers Guide that features CloudNine amongst many other platforms and products. The website also has helpful blog posts and videos.

Thanks, Brett, for participating in the interview!

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I (Doug) am on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

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