A FAMILIAR STORYHERE IS A MOUNTAIN OF PAPER DOCUMENTS...

By: Brad Stauber, MSU College of Law

WHAT DO WE SEE?

• Long and Expensive Process

• Humans get tired, upset, hungover, etc.

• Mistakes can happen

MAJOR SHIFTS IN

•The Economy•The Customer•The Technology•The Data

THE ECONOMY• THE GREAT RECESSION• Individuals, Corporations,

and Law Firms• Hurt financially • Forced to institute belt-

tightening measures• Tighter financing requirements

THE CUSTOMER

• No longer willing to hand out exorbitant amounts of money for e-discovery

• Greater emphasis on:• Better, Faster, Cheaper

• “Going Green”

• More tech savvy

THE TECHNOLOGY• Emergence of the

“Cloud”• Increased

Computing Power• Decrease in Data

Storage Costs• Moore’s Law

THE DATA

THE EFFECT OF THESE MAJOR SHIFTS

• In The Past, • All You Needed was Keyword

Searches and Manual Review

• Now and In Future,• You Would Be Wise to Have

Predictive Coding and Clustering In Your E-Discovery Arsenal

PREDICTIVE CODING• Combines the Efficiencies of:• A Computerized Sampling System, and• A Human Expert• Components:• Data• Complex Algorithms• Software/Programs• Human Input• Samples and Tests

HOW DOES THE PROCESS WORK?

• THIS TRAINING PROCESS CAN BE REPEATED AND THE PROGRAM CAN CONTINUE TO LEARN.

• THUS, IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF ITS OUTPUT

WHERE HAVE WE SEEN PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS BEFORE?• Google• Translate, Spell

Check, Searches• Netflix• Movie Suggestions

• Pandora• Predicts songs that

the user should like

…and the list goes on and on.

PROS OF PREDICTIVE CODING• Faster than Linear Review• Recalls a Higher Percentage of the Relevant Documents• Higher Precision than a Human Document Reviewer• Cost Savings• Allows Law Firms to Do More with Less

CONS OF PREDICTIVE CODING• The “smoking gun” may be

missed

• Privileged documents may be produced

• Savings may not be as good as advertised• Training Costs• Document Review Costs

CLUSTERING• The program analyzes the

text of ESI and groups related documents together into clusters.

• Clusters can be: • Concept-Based• Restricted to certain

keywords• Duplicates or Near-

Duplicates• E.g., A Cluster of Bob’s

Emails to Sally

ADVANTAGES OF CLUSTERING•Quickly identify major topics and sub-topics.•Apply tags to a single document, a cluster of documents, or a group of clusters •Clustering helps to reveal document relationships and context.•Identify near-duplicates and process them as a unit or individually.•Automatic categorization.

CONSIDERATIONS• Implementation Considerations:• Software Costs • Training Costs• Mistakes Will Be Made

• Risk that a computer can’t find something that a human could• How long will this technology last?

WHY ARE SOME LAWYERS STILL IN THE STONE AGE?• Business Model?• More Time Used = More Billable

Hours = Greater Equity Share

• Belief That Legal Services Should Require Human Input?

• Fear of Change?

CONCLUSION• Lawyers Need to Adapt• Lawyers Need to Conquer

Their Fear• Predictive Coding and

Clustering allow you to deliver legal services• Better, Faster, and Cheaper

Because Sooner or Later, Relying on Linear Review and Keyword Searches WILL BE CONSIDERED……………..