The same holds true for document review.  What I’ve described above is predictive coding.  Document review becomes tedious and the accuracy of the review begins to decline after a while.  These features that you’re already familiar with are now at your fingertips to accompany document review.  On the eve of the next release of Summation, I think it’s important for our users to understand that they can feel just as comfortable with predictive coding as they did when they embraced the features online for searching or shopping.  In order to understand the process, there are three steps to predictive coding:  teaching the system, applying the system’s learning, and performing quality control.

First, in order to teach the system, identify a data subset that represents the file types existing in the entire collection of documents you wish to predictively code.  This subset will be referred to as “the seed set”.  Have a group of your reviewers code these documents using a specific coding layout.  The reviewers will identify whether or not each document is responsive or privileged and capture keywords along the way.  Meanwhile, the application will monitor the reviewers’ coding and will generate an algorithm to use in performing its own analysis.

Second, once your team has completed its review of the subset, you engage the predictive coding tool.  It will utilize its learned algorithm and conduct its own review of the seed set.  Then,  the system will generate a confidence level score letting you know how accurate it was and how confident  it feels about going forward on its own.   If the score is not high enough, you should continue coding additional documents and reapply the tool until you reach the desired level of confidence.  Once you reach the level you desire, allow the system to analyze the remaining document collection.

Finally, in order to perform quality control, filter on the documents that were just coded and confirm the accuracy.  Now, you can organize by predicted degree of relevance or responsiveness and distribute  them for further review with human eyes to bring the review process full circle.

There is a lot of hype in the industry on predictive coding that is wrapped around judicial opinions.  Many of you may be waiting for that nod of approval encouraging the use of predictive coding.

Here’s an exercise for you: Take a moment away from this blog and Google “Judge Peck”.  Did you notice that the computer automatically wanted to take you to “Judge Peck predictive coding”?

Predictive coding is simply using the already-tested technology to cull your data so that what is most likely relevant or privileged is filtered for you to save time and improve accuracy.  It is still necessary for you and your team to view these documents and make a final decision.

The beauty is that you taught the system to begin with.

So, I’m beginning this post on the runway.  I will likely finish it back home tonight after my daughter goes to sleep. As I look out the window and see the Luxor, Paris, New York, New York and the rest of the Vegas skyline; I suddenly realize that I really didn’t leave the Aria for six days.  So engaged with manning the registration desk, scanning badges, moderating a lunch-and-learn and directing wayward attendees back towards the conference action; I really had no reason to leave.   Great food, great people-watching and great networking were all around me all of the time.  And I even managed to lose $3 in the penny slots without ever breaking route from my room to the meeting floor.   The unmentionable stories I alluded to yesterday weren’t really mine, I just overheard them.  Generally, I spent the past six days  getting to know our clients, my co-workers and myself in a very strange setting.  And, surprisingly,  I’m a little sad about leaving, though very happy about heading home.   Anyway, this will be a brief but I hope somewhat informative post.

Day Three was a no-frills send-off.  With no keynote speaker, no evening activities planned and an early shut-down for the exhibit hall; Thursday was dedicated to ADUC “meat-and-potatoes”:  labs, lectures and certification exams.  There were technical and targeted sessions until 3:00 in all programs.  In the final timeslot, legal track attendees could either attempt the Summation Certified End-user (SCE) exam or attend a preview of AD’s highly-anticipated Summation version update (expected to roll-out very soon).  I find it noteworthy that, even with the last day being cut short in many ways, the same number of courses were delivered as on the other days.  While one goal of ADUC is obviously to promote our products and connect with our users, I am proud to be part of a group that is also committed to educating its customers in how best to make use of our solution.

I will leave you now with another set of observations and testimony as to why ADUC is not your average trade-show, conference or think tank.  As our legal product marketing manager, I was tasked with what seemed to me the unenviable duty of arranging a “comments booth” where our videographer and I would seek and record video testimony of attendees.  While I am somewhat of a ham and, from time-to-time, a “Chatty Cathy”; I can also be subject to stage fright, stranger danger, and general social anxiety.  I did not relish the idea of video-capturing that awkwardness for our web audience.  But, here’s the thing:  I really love this company.  I truly respect what our engineers and thought leaders are trying to accomplish.  So, actually, it was not difficult at all by Day Three to sit down with an attendee and ask some basic questions about their AD experience in general and about their ADUC experience in particular.  I was comfortable that the responses would be positive and enthusiatic about hearing them.  (Though it was difficult to have been rejected by twice as many individuals as ultimately accepted.  I underestimated the discomfort of the public at large in regards to video testimony!)

Anyway, I’m tired and digressing.  Here are my top five take-aways from the interviews:

1)  Clients experiencing their first ADUC were impressed and, frankly, shocked to have such ground-level access to our C-level execs and most senior developers, directors and engineers — AD has an unusually “flat” organizational structure and our clients really appreciate this

2)  Clients were impressed by the level of training they were given, by the practical value of that training and by the sense that our instructors truly wanted to help them better use our tools

3)  Clients (and partners) were glad to have the opportunity to network among themselves and to have impromptu meetings where they could discuss and evolve workflows, without feeling pressured to by a time-share and without feeling oversold on products they already use

4)  Clients were impressed by the currency of material, the “leading edge” factor, the sense that, AD had evolved with them over the past year

5)  Many were already signed up for the “Early Bird” registration for ADUC 2014 and they looked forward to finding out whatever we’d have for them then!

All-in-all, this was by many accounts, our best ADUC yet.  We thank EVERYONE who attended for making it possible to meet all of you in one location for a few days out of our busy work-lives.  While the ADUC team will no doubt lay low this weekend and recover our strength, you can trust that gears are already spinning in our collective mind as we set our sights on next year — even as we prepare to dive into our over-stuffed and under-attended in-boxes on Monday.

Thank you all again, we had a blast and we hope you did too!

Welcome back!  After last night’s fun and games at the Haze and beyond, it’s completely understandable that it’s taken a few of you a while to come back for my round-up of ADUC, Day Two.

What’s that?  You were here earlier but I wasn’t?  You’ve been waiting all afternoon and all evening for an update?  What if I told you that I tried to write this post eight hours ago but that, as soon as I got the necessary quiet and space to do so, I instantly fell asleep in my room?

Would you forgive me?  Would you understand?

Great, thank you, and enough about me … let’s talk about digital investigations, forensic analysis of electronic data, malware prevention, the secure handling of ESI, and the proper care and handling of evidence acquired from mobile devices.  C’mon, it’s Vegas, Baby!

The morning began, as all great mornings do, with unlimited coffee and a buffet breakfast in the Exhibit Hall.  A surprising number of attendees arrived with both eyes mostly open (if slightly crossed) and made their way about the hall and into the giant ballroom where our day’s featured speaker, Dan Abrams (ABC News), would deliver the Keynote address.

Affably energetic and engaging, Mr. Abrams proved to be the perfect personality for a crowd of legal-techies who had survived a massive information download the day prior and the already-mentioned and mostly unmentionable activities of last night.  A veteran of many of our most famous courtroom-based media spectacles (see, e.g., OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony, Robert Blake, Amanda Knox, Jodi Arias), Abrams delivered a charged address which reached topics beyond technology and reminded us that our software and workflows are not ends unto themselves, but tools employed to reach societal goals like justice and security.

While the over-arching subject was, indeed, the interaction of the media and the law, larger topics such as our cultural appetite for the salacious, the shocking and the stupid also came into clear focus.  Mr. Abrams did discuss the role of digital forensics and e-discovery in many of these cases.   As an example, he reminded us of the under-reported failure of the prosecutor’s office to review Casey Anthony’s Firefox history instead of just Internet Explorer, a failure which resulted in hundreds of missed inquiries relating to the disposal of a body or fool proof methods of suffocation.  (Also, apparently, there was an unconscionable failure to search for near-misspellings of words like ‘suffication’.)  But, rather than rest on a easy judgment of those erroneous procedures, Abrams went further to raise two much larger questions:  first, does the media’s abundance of attention to Ms. Anthony or others in her position prejudice her or does it, rather, intensify scrutiny of the process and actually provide her greater protections than a closed trial?  (The fact that Ms. Anthony is free today, when we consider the mountain of evidence produced against her, suggests the latter.)  A second, much larger question, followed:  if Ms. Anthony had been Mr. Anthony, would the media have followed the trial at all?

Let’s remember, this is a user conference for legal and forensic technology users.  In Las Vegas.  And this talk was delivered shortly after 9am, the morning after an open bar sponsored by the conference’s hosts.

I suspect that few in attendance, if any, expected to think about gender inequities in the media or the media’s insatiable appetite for stories about relatively well-positioned women committing murder.  But, there we were.  And it was fascinating.  Then, as if this wasn’t shocking enough, Abrams asked if our appetite for the salacious didn’t in fact pose an even greater threat:  are we not devoting hours and hours of coverage on a case like Casey Anthony (or wildly speculating about non-cases) while neglecting to discuss important government policy?  Rather than discussing and intelligently debating issues such as unconstitutional Presidential recess appointments, isn’t it dangerous that we (and the media) have focused instead on which former Congressman or which Martian Rover shared which inappropriate photo or made which unfortunately stupid gaffe today?

Abrams was a fantastic presenter with just the right amount of righteous indignation to open up the second day of this technology conference with a bang.  And, he even graciously stuck around afterwards to speak with attendees and  pose for a few photos!

After Abrams’ address, the conference-goers and presenters got back to the business of the week:  learning about new digital threats, new precautions, new solutions to persistent problems and sharpening the cutting edge of their investigative toolkit.  Hands-on labs were given on Windows 8 file history artifacts, a live fire drill responding to IPv6 hacks, more on mobile e-discovery, and additional focus on cyber-security blind spots.  Meanwhile, users seeking certification as Summation Certifed End-Users (SCE) were given a two-session review course to prepared them for the SCE Exam which will be administered tomorrow.

Today’s four  lunch-and-learn sessions were as well-attended and engaged by the audience as yesterday’s and covered an equally wide range of subjects:  mobile device e-discovery, recovery of overwritten data, e-discovery in criminal law and endpoint security.  With panels consisting of attorneys, forensic examiners, and service providers; those who attended had the opportunity to learn, to discuss and to eat.  And then, well-fed and ready for more action, attendees returned to a second afternoon’s worth of labs, lectures and simulated malware attacks.

Finally, when all was said and done, we rewarded those still standing with a happy hour in the exhibit hall and with an ADUC favorite:  the FTK Beer Lab.  I would like to share details of that event with you, but as I mentioned above, I was asleep in my room, trying to write this blog post.

But, as I’m sure you can imagine on your own, if there’s anything that can improve a technology user’s experience with our flagship forensic technology, it’s beer.  Beer in Vegas.  And, I hear that the accompanying sliders were delicious.

OK, that’s all I have for now, folks.  Please join us again tomorrow when we round up the conference, say farewell for now to our friends, and prepare ourselves for our return trips to “the real world”.

Viva Las ADUC!

After weeks of preparation and yesterday’s pre-conference ACE and AME certification boot camps, today is officially the opening day of our fifth annual AccessData Users’ Conference.  Amidst the glittering lights and clamorous sounds of Las Vegas, in the gorgeous and expansive Aria, a group of intrepid AccessData employees, our industry partners, and roughly 600 of our most engaged clientele – governmental, corporate, legal – have come together to discuss the current and ever-evolving landscape of digital investigations – security, forensics, and discovery.

AccessData’s CEO Tim Leehealey kicked the proceedings off by tearing down any remaining “false sense of security” attendees may have brought with them concerning their network security infrastructures.  Most security packages on the market have numerous blind spots, Leehealey warned.  And when these systems do “catch” a data breach, they only do so after the fact and fail to offer any remedial capabilities.  Demonstrating the passion with which he founded AD, Leehealey updated attendees on AccessData’s determinedly evolving solution to the problem and pledged to continue driving innovation and proactively seeking our present and future threats.

Next, AD trainers presented multiple hands-on labs and lectures for users of various experience levels:  from nuts-and-bolts overview sessions on e-discovery workflow best practices to targeted sessions covering topics ranging from malware detection to early case assessment to mobile device forensics.  With such an incredible amount of knowledge shared by instructors (and engaged by attendees),  it seems, from speaking with attendees and trainers afterwards, that the only issue faced was a reluctance by instructors and attendees to end their sessions on time.  Fortunately, all instructors joined the attendees in the exhibit hall for lunch,  and the conversations continued.

Today’s three “Lunch and Learn Sessions” covered a fascinating range of topics as well.  A distinguished panel of attorneys and service providers followed Leehealey’s opening address with strategies to prevent security breaches in law firms.  Meanwhile, Major Keith Miller of the UK, (Officer Commanding, Service Police Crime Bureau, Royal Military Police) presented a lively case study of his real-world application of AccessData’s AD Lab to his agency’s immense workload.  And, finally, a panel of attorneys discussed recent updates to the ABA Model Rules and FRCP and the real consequences faced by attorneys who fail to use all of the tools and expertise available to them to address the ESI concerns of their clients.  Unfortunately, attendees could only attend one of these concurrent sessions at a time.  Hopefully, conversations that began in these panels will continue long after.

The “business” day will conclude with more hands-on labs and meetings around the exhibit hall this afternoon but, perhaps most important, the day will conclude with a welcome reception at the Aria’s exclusive and exciting Haze nightclub.  This blogger’s imagination may have some ideas about what will transpire there, as AD and its community engage the “spirits” of Vegas, but I’m not going to share them here . . .  what will happen in Vegas, will stay in Vegas.

Stay tuned tomorrow for my round-up of Day Two!

Data culling is the process of searching and isolating your original data based on specific criteria, such as date ranges and keywords.  This process simply hides documents that may not be relevant to your case, allowing a quick and proficient review of documents before production.

We used to rely heavily on vendors for this process because many of the products out there did not have Early Case Assessment (ECA) capabilities and certain products were not forensically sound.  With Summation, you have all the ECA capabilities, can seamlessly cull your data, and give reviewers access to the relevant documents – all without ever having to leave the Summation platform!  Sound difficult?  It really isn’t.  Like many of our Summation users, I came from the iBlaze days and was a bit intimidated by the robust functionality Summation possessed.  Don’t be.  Technology is evolving and change is good… well, in the world of Summation, at least.  Data culling in-house can save you time and money so why not dive in and give it a try.

Let’s discuss all walks of data culling, pre- AND post-processing:

• DeNISTing is the removing of non user created data such as system files, operating system files and other file formats that generally hold no evidentiary value.  This is a simple way to reduce non-relevant documents during data processing.
• Deduplication is the identification and separation of duplicate documents and emails.  These documents and emails are flagged across the entire case and filtered by the custodian, allowing a faster review of relevant data without repeatedly seeing the same files.
• Cluster Analysis, or Near Dupe Analysis, is the process that compares the contents of documents and emails in order to group similar documents. This allows reviewers to view the data as a group, therefore saving time.

All three of these pre-processing data culling methods are available to you in Summation and, even better, in one location within the user interface.  Once the data is processed, there still may be thousands of documents and emails that are simply not relevant to the case.  There are many options in Summation to remove the rest of the non-related data, such as filtering.  Filters are simply predefined categories populated with metadata during ingestion and processing of the data. Evidence can be filtered by criteria such as custodians, date or date ranges, file size, display names and many other metadata fields.  Filtering in Summation is by far one of the easiest and most intuitive features to use.  Keyword searching can further the data culling process. Within Summation’s advance search feature, you can build complex queries without having to know the syntax, parenthesis, operators and other details of crafting a search. This is a great advantage when combined with advance search variations like stemming, phonic, synonyms and fuzzy searching.

Data culling assists us in separating and prioritizing relevant and non-relevant data to save time, money, and gets us to the prize: an efficient production set for review.

The corporate  in-house legal team clearly plays a role at the intersection of e-discovery, GRC and security.  Many concerns require frequent and tight cooperation between the corporate legal team and the compliance team as a GRC program matures and new security headaches come to light.  Here are a few examples:

• Risk Management and Assessment – Topics like non-compliance and investigation of new and yet to be identified risks can, and should, be sourced through legal.
• New Internal Policy Review – There is no better source than the legal team for review and ultimate approval – especially for public organizations.  Legal is also a great source of exceptions and how they should be handled according to new policy.
• Regulatory Guidance and Interpretation – What and how does a new regulation apply to an organization and what steps need to be taken to ensure compliance?  Corporate legal teams are also a great source for historical reference when clear precedent is yet to be set.
• When a Cyber-Security Incident turns into Litigation – The sooner legal is involved, the greater the potential to reduce risk and exposure. Attorneys think in terms of a timeline or sequence of events.  Having them play an active role as events unfold is invaluable.
• E-Discovery Sanction Avoidance – There are still organizations out there that treat the process of e-discovery in a disjointed manner, meaning the collection, analysis and preliminary case assessment is performed by IT or a third-party without legal oversight.  Legal should understand and routinely review these practices to ensure compliance with a dynamic legal landscape.

I’m a pragmatist and while this sounds great, actually extracting the value of this interaction is a challenge.  I submit that the technology used to effectuate and enable these business functions can serve as a catalyst to draw these seemingly disparate groups together.  What do I mean?  I mean e-discovery tools have very similar workflow and features to GRC and even cyber-security investigation platforms.  For example, although at its core a litigation support tool, a proper enterprise class e-discovery platform also provides the following features:

1. A rules and notification engine – these features support litigation hold, status updates when processing or collecting data and reporting on review/analysis jobs
2. Audit and logging – who touched/viewed/exported what data elements and when is paramount to ensuring security and compliance, especially when that system has proprietary, financial or data related to HR
3. Document and data management – usually in the form of a database, but some way to supervise data as it flows through the system, including disposition
4. Automated workflow – an engine that guides the system user from inception to point of decision – in e-discovery terms this is inception from legal hold to production of data for litigation
5. Reporting – any number of summary documents that describes status, metrics and stats about the data, investigation or case

All of these features are necessary for e-discovery, GRC and cyber-security investigation teams.  A common system supporting the common data stored therein reduces redundancy and also consolidates the overhead in securing and managing teams and systems.  While these are valuable returns onto themselves, the real value appears when the corporate legal team and others involved can begin to stitch together the true status of an organization’s environment.  This leads to a more proactive approach to changes in the business and more insight into the true cost of what once were separate teams.  The e-discovery tool that supports this has application across the entire enterprise.

As a leader in both markets, AccessData has no intention of being late to the convergence. Frankly it was our anticipation of this convergence that led us to acquire Summation. For those of you that remember, my first blog post was actually entitled “In eDiscovery, Forensics Is NOT a 4 letter Word.” Since our acquisition of Summation we have focused a huge percent of our effort on delivering integration between our Summation and FTK products and the reward of those efforts will be realized in the coming months. Summation 4.2, which will be release in mid April, and FTK 5.0, which will be released in early May, will not only run on the same database, but they will completely and seamlessly inter-operate. Summation users and FTK users will not only be able to work the same case at the same time but they will be able to engage in real-time collaboration across all including review, data manipulation, and exploration. For the first time in the digital investigation, discipline users will be able to combine the data manipulation capabilities of FTK with the market leading review capabilities of Summation. This will not only further coalesce these two markets, but over time will fundamentally dissolve the barriers that have made them separate markets since inception.

As a statement supporting the value proposition of the combination these tools will bring, our President, Brian Karney, recently got this email from an FTK user:

Brian, I hope all is well.  As you are aware, I am a huge AD advocate and have been particularly excited about the release of FTK 4.2 and the upcoming release of Summation 4.2.  Today, I participated in a Webex conference hosted by Scott Lefton & Darryl Tramonte where they provided a demo of the integrated FTK-Summation platform.  I am quite pleased with how the platform works.  AD has done something that no one else has ever managed to accomplish.  Kudos!

I am somewhat of an anomaly in the forensic & e-discovery market.  Our firm is one of the very few firms in the U.S. that are recognized as experts in both forensics and e-discovery.  We combine these two fields of expertise to provide our clients with a custom cost-effective solution.  In addition to running a business, I am attending law school in the evenings to complete my law degree.  Although we don’t officially provide legal advice, I regularly inform our law firm clients of state & federal precedent involving e-discovery & forensics.  We not only provide the technical assistance but also provide strategy and defensibility consulting services in both state & federal matters.

The FTK-Summation combination has the potential to up-end the e-discovery market and forever change how these services are priced and delivered.

I don’t actually think the writer of the email is as much of an anomaly as he thinks. Frankly I see the convergence of forensics and e-discovery just about everywhere and I think the release of our integration will dramatically accelerate that convergence. While our initial integration will be based on collaboration between an FTK and Summation user, we will focus over the coming year on totally erasing the distinction between the two. The end goal is to have a single product capable of offering a client the full power of both solutions. Once these capabilities are truly exposed with a simple, uniform interface and customers see the increase in power and efficiency, I hope to soften expert opinion about the great divide between the e-discovery and forensics markets.

While law firms hold enormous stores of client data, it is no secret that cyber security is not one of their core competencies.  In fact, most law firms and, thus, most attorneys’ electronic files are not well protected.  Indeed, most firms (and most small- to-medium-sized businesses in general) simply can’t (or won’t) provide the resources necessary to vigilantly protect their highly sensitive, confidential, documents.   Many firms are not even aware that they have suffered a breach until well after the incident, when an agency like the Federal Bureau of Investigation informs them that their client’s data has been found on a server in another country as a result of a security compromise linked back to the firm.

So, what data is being targeted?  The answer is every conceivable form of documented intellectual property.  For instance, proprietary knowledge around an invention:  specifications, lab notebooks, draft patent applications.  Financial details concerning a merger or acquisition (even a transaction that never fully materialized) would give any interested outside entity an upper-hand in future negotiations.  Similarly, any details about an organization’s inner-workings – details typically shared with attorneys during many different types of litigation – would enable competitors to assess the financial stability of an organization, among other things.   The bottom line is that clients generally do not approach law firms when things are going well and they have no sensitive issues.  They seek counsel when they are engaged in either deeply sensitive and highly expensive conflicts, which tend to generate correspondingly sensitive information that is of potentially great value to third parties.

So, how we prevent this?  First, we need to discuss how the attacks are done today.  In most cases, simply, busy end-users who are not security-savvy unwittingly leave the firm’s virtual doors unlocked or ajar.  Once an intruder has access to a single individual’s networked machine, he or she has the ability to move freely within the entire organization.  Like a cat burglar from the movies, the intruder can prowl the network, generally undetected, gathering all of the information they want, and slipping away before detected.  Unlike a cat burglar, however, this intruder only steals a duplicate of the information.  So in the morning when the weary staff hobbles back for another day, no one notices the theft.

Even more troubling, while firms certainly have not kept up with security needs, they have stayed abreast of emerging technologies.  They use thumb-drives, virtual machines, remote “war rooms” many strive for “paperless” offices.  They also work from their mobile devices and their homes and regularly meet through virtual conferences to discuss their highly-sensitive work.  At every point along the way, they open a new possibility for breach. If you simply Google cyber attacks on law firms you will get over 3 million results, which is absolutely staggering.

In my opinion, firms need to start looking at the cyber security threat in the same way that large corporate enterprises and the federal government does.  And, conversely, corporations and the federal government need to thoroughly vet the securities practiced by law firms before they hand over their data.  Do they have up-to-date network diagrams, physical access logs, and legal notices upon logging in?  Do they utilize and log firewalls, intrusion detection systems, remote access servers, virtual private networks, and web servers?  Again, Mary Galligan put it quite bluntly at LegalTech, “The more mobility you have, the more documents you’re sending through the internet, the more likely you are to be the victim of a cyber-attack, and that’s what we’re seeing at law firms.”

AccessData has been in the business of detecting, preventing and, when that fails, helping businesses recover from cyber threats for nearly three decades.  We understand that the threat continues to evolve at a rapid pace and that answers to and anticipations of the threat require constant and vigilant development as well.  In order to find out more about how AccessData is helping organizations deal with cyber security threats, please take a moment to visit us here.  And, if you don’t feel that your organization is prepared to deal with this initiative on its own, please contact our Professional Services department and allow us to assess your needs and provide managed security options.

To quote Special Agent Galligan one last time:  “The cyber threat is too big for any of us to fight alone,” – especially when the stakes are so high for law firms.

I have worked in and around the legal industry for nearly a decade.  I have also suffered through and graduated law school.  And I have watched more Perry Mason, Law and Order, Boston Legal, Damages, et cetera, than any human should have.  None of this, however, prepared me for the high seriousness of this event.  The reverence shown by both teams (Los Gatos High School and eventual champions Willow Glen High School) was nothing less than awe-inspiring.  As was the seriousness of the scorer’s room prior to trial – where sitting judges and practicing attorneys gathered around a table to discuss the facts of the case as if they were a jury and the Defendant’s life hung in the balance.  They were detailed — very detailed, questions asked to the organizers — about gaps in the timeline and the placement of the main players’ feet, for instance.  Serious deliberation.  And then there were heartfelt thanks from the organizers and coaches and from one attorney who had gotten his start in this very competition an unspecified number of years ago.  It was clear to me that all participants understood the impact their time would have on the future of these students.  Then, finally, it was time to make our way through the courtroom, crowded and buzzing with excitement, to take our seats in the jurors’ box.

From the Bailiff’s call to order all the way through to the final arguments, I was riveted as each player took command of his or her role.  The competition began with arguments for and against an in limine challenge to the Defendant’s alleged confession, given in the back of a police car without appropriate Miranda notice, turned on the issue of whether or not the Defendant was in custody at the time.  The hypothetical situation was the stuff of law school and bar exams, designed to test and tease apart its victims’ ability to mount convincing arguments atop a fact set which truly offered no “right or wrong”.  And the two attorneys who took up the challenge were marvelous.  Ultimately, their explication of the law and able advocacy of their side’s interest left this scorer with no true winner.  I won’t divulge who I ultimately gave a slight edge to, but I will say that it was based more on a feeling than on any sense that either opponent did not give her all.  I am spending a few sentences on just this opening ten minutes or so of the competition as a way of demonstrating that I could go on and on about what followed for the next 90 minutes:  it was stunning.  While I did, in the end, have a sense of how I thought the facts and the law should go (and, frankly, Justice Manoukian and I disagreed on the outcome!) I do not believe that the outcome was the goal for these students.  Perhaps surprisingly, I believe that their thorough preparation of their cases and their ultimately flawless performances must have been their only goals in mind.

And then, perhaps even more surprising to this first-timer than the maturity displayed by these “kids” during the trial, was their post-trial questioning of the scorers.  I suppose I have become accustomed to a different sort of high school “student”.  The one who resents all feedback, scoffs insecurely at any attempt made by any adult to provide “helpful suggestions”, who disappears in a haze of “I guesses”, “whatevers”, “you knows” and “yeahs”.  Here, rather, each student approached me, looked me in the eye, and asked, “Do you have any notes for me?  Is there anything I could have done better?”   I’m not sure if what I’m conveying here is more a testament to the moxie and accomplishment of these legal athletes or to my own dark expectations of a purportedly jaded and ironic generation.  I certainly hope it’s the former.   I hope to convey in this brief post just how hopeful I felt, how optimistic, that — in an age where the value of eloquence and focus has become fragmented and strewn about the Internet — these two teams demonstrated such a passion for legal analysis, for the pursuit of justice and for producing two excellent narratives from one hypothetical set of facts.  While I am happy that the team I scored highest did go on the next week to win the final round, I will nevertheless fall on a tired but completely accurate cliché:  here, if what truly matters is how you play the game, there were no losers to be found.

Did you know there are literally THOUSANDS of custom layouts that you can make with SummationPro?

Yeah, no joke. A layout is any combination of viewer panels, positioning of those panels on the screen, and name for the layout.  Since SummationPro has 17 panels in total that you can mix and match together in any combination – plus you can either pin or dock them in multiple quadrants or areas of the browser window – there are seriously thousands of layout options. In this post I’ll show some popular panels, how to position them, and how to manage them.

Now the program comes with 4 default layouts: Search, Culling, Review, & Transcript, and those are very useful, but let me show you a few of my favorites.  Here is my layouts drop down; the first four are the defaults, the rest are custom layouts.

1) Column & Image

Oh “Column & Image”, I seriously do not know what I’d do without you…  This is a favorite amongst IBlaze users, and is probably the layout I use the most.  Mainly it’s good for doc review and coding at the same time.  Keep in mind you can also use dual monitors by selecting the “Move viewers to new window” option in the layouts drop-down menu.  Also note that I keep the CaseExplorer Panel pinned in the upper left corner in case I need to change my record set or search scope. I’ve also docked the natural image and text viewer so I can quickly change viewer if the record is native or image or if I want to see the OCR/Filtered text.

2) Email Review

This is a good layout for reviewing email.  Notice the Conversation viewer is on the right allowing me to see a whole conversation instead of just 1 email.  I can click on any message in the conversation viewer if I want to jump around the thread.  Also note I’ve docked the Family and Coding panels in case I need to look at parent/child relationships for a given doc, or if I want to code an individual document.  Keep in mind you can bulk code from the Conversation and Family panels by using the Actions button.

3) Transcript & Exhibits Review

In keeping with our IBlaze roots, SummationPro allows for deposition exhibits to be uploaded and associated to transcripts, furthermore you can link depo text to these exhibits.  The “Exhibits” panel is dedicated for depo exhibits and it will show you how many exhibits are associated to a single transcript.  Click on the exhibit name and the exhibit will open up in a new window. You can do this as many times as you want if you want to bring up more than one exhibit. Note the hyperlinks in the transcript will also open the exhibit in a new window if you click on them.

4) Document & Note Review

The notes tool in SummationPro treats document notes and transcript notes the same way.  Just bring up the “Notes” panel at anytime to see user’s notes for a document or transcript.  Clicking on the page#/line# hyperlink in the notes panel will take you to that note’s tools.  You can also click directly on the highlighted note text in the document viewer to open the note.  Note the different colors on this email, indicating which issues I’ve coded for the documents.

5) Presentation Layout

So this kind of layout is what I use if any kind of exhibit presentation is required.  Just bring up the natural/image panel.  For presentation use the “Edit” mode which will give you some enhancement zoom capabilities. You can also go “Full Screen” in our viewer to maximize the image on your screen/projector.  The “View” button in the viewer is good for showing the exhibit in thumbnail view or to rotate a specific page.  The nice thing about this layout is that to go to another doc all you have to do is just hit the next button or type the docid and click “go” at the top of the screen, or you will see that I have the item list and case explorer panels pinned in the upper left hand corner.  This allows me to quickly bring up other exhibits in my item list.

6 ECA Review

This layout is all about quick culling. Use the filter facets in the CaseExplorer panel to locate groups of documents that are most relevant, or use the filter to get rid of the junk.  I do like to have the viewer up in case I need to look at any specific document.

7) Tagging & Foldering

This is really pretty straightforward.  I have my Labels panel and my Coding panel docked to the left and my view pretty much full screen.  Just check next to the label I want to apply and hit save, or use the coding panel and click “save” or “save and next”.    This is good when looking at one document at time in linear fashion.

Creating Custom Layouts

This is really easy; just click and drag at the drop of the panel, then drop the panel where you want it to go.  You will see this icon indicating which zone you will place the panel. I’ve circled all the possible locations in this instance where you can put a panel. By using the icon in the middle you can group/dock panels together.  Now you can also “Pin” panels to the sides of your browser window, by simply clicking on the “Pin” icon in the upper right corner of the panel.

Managing Layouts

This is also really easy to do, just use the drop down menu to access the Manage Layouts utility.  This allows you to save, edit, or delete any custom layouts you’ve created.

So those are just some of my favorites, and you can see how easy it is to come up with some interesting layouts of your own depending on the type of evidence you are reviewing and what kind of review you are conducting.  Now this is just barely scratching the surface really; there are many other panels that I haven’t even touched like the Activity, Production, Review Batches, and Similar panels.  Once you put all this together you can see how flexible the SummationPro review interface can be.  Thanks for tuning in and hope these may help next time you use SummationPro!