As you begin to build a strong foundation for technological competence through educational efforts, it is essential to gain further understanding and skills through experience. I break experience into two categories: engagement and application.
Competence is the ethical foundation upon which everything we do as lawyers is based. To be competent is to have the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully. Traditionally, lawyers do this by refining their specific areas of expertise and pursuing continuing legal education.
In March 2017, Microsoft launched its online chat and collaboration tool Microsoft Teams. By the end of 2018, ~3 million users utilized Teams on a daily basis, growing to ~44 million users by February 2020. Microsoft Teams wasn’t alone on its upward trajectory; competing applications such as Facebook Workplaces and Slack have seen similar growth.
In the U.S., the ABA has estimated that document review alone accounts for more than 80 percent of total litigation spend, totaling tens of billions of dollars per year. As data becomes more varied and complex and volumes increase, that number is only going to rise. The dominance of social media, the increased use of short form multichannel messaging platforms, and even the growing popularity of podcasts have only widened the scope of what is considered fair game for discovery.
The coronavirus is here and is impacting our daily routines. Organizations have responded by mandating that everyone works from home to be safe from exposure. Social distancing is the new norm. Virtually all businesses now must cope with managing a virtual workforce to some degree. That comes with new security risks for the data that businesses spend millions of dollars to protect.
As companies and law firms struggle with managing increasing amounts of data, cloud-based solutions are becoming an important option to consider. This year’s CDS Putting Insights Into Practice event had several panels focused on eDiscovery, including one focusing on the benefits of eDiscovery in the cloud. While many companies have moved at least some of their data to the cloud, when it comes to eDiscovery and its workflows there are additional advantages.
