Litigation Support

That's the title of our recent Legal Talk Network podcast which features Craig Ball. As promised earlier, readers now have the link.

Craig is nothing if not direct. While discussing the absurdity of processing ESI into TIFF images, Craig likened it to an act of malpractice as TIFF is the dumbest and most cumbersome format there is. He also noted that using TIFF is just as silly as saying that you have to convert all white paper into canary yellow before we'll review it. Since I can think of nothing pithy to add, I'll leave it there and just note my agreement. Why lawyers continue to use TIFF baffles me - unless they've simply been bamboozled by self-interested vendors.

While I don't want to give away the whole podcast, I'll also note Craig's statement that a recent prestigious panel agreed that 70% of the monies spent on EDD was wasted and that most of that waste was due to lawyer incompetence.

Some folks might raise an eyebrow at that statement, but in all honesty, John and I concur. And, like Craig, we've become more than a little cynical, because lawyers and vendors both profit by waste. There seems to be little incentive to change unless vendors and lawyers are driven - and driven hard - by clients or judges - most of whom don't know enough to challenge the lawyers and vendors. And where greed falls off, incompetence steps in to complete the train wreck that is a typical e-discovery project.

So what's a hapless e-discovery naif to do?  Scout for brains and experience of course. Most of all, search for integrity amongst the vendors. Let's hope that your search is more fruitful than that of Diogenes.

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

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