eDiscovery is the name of the litigation game these days. There is so much more to legal technology though, and LegalTech NY is a great place to learn about it. Each year, ALM puts on this conference in early February in New York and a West Coast conference later in the spring in Los Angeles. LegalTech includes over 21 tracks and hundreds of exhibitors, all dedicated to legal technology and various law practices. Lawyers, IT staff, law office managers, and paralegals come together for three days for CLE, the exhibit hall, a fantastic opening reception, and incredible presentations.
The Day One keynote was “TOR, Bitcoin, Silk Road and the Anonymous Web: Drugs, Bombs and Murder-for-Hire” by Jason Thomas, Chief Innovator, Thomson Reuters. While the technology is awesome, there are some very frightening applications. Mr. Thomas discussed colleges and hotels, and assassins for hire taking Bitcoin for payment. He talked about the very first real estate transaction and common weapons deals being structured to accept Bitcoin. Mr. Thomas also told us about the Xbox 1 camera that can detect the user’s pulse, and determine age and gender, too. He mentioned a headphone device on Kickstarter that vibrates the bones of your skull so that only you hear what you are listening to - it doesn’t transmit sound waves via earphones that may “leak” sound, but directly to your skull! The takeaway was that technology is rapidly moving forward, and we as professionals need to know what is happening and how it may affect our practice.
Day One tracks included Risk and Compliance, Information Governance, Technology and Trends Transforming the Legal World, Technology in Practice, General Counsel, E-Discovery, Advanced IT, and Emerging Technology, plus additional “Super Sessions” throughout the day. I attended Risks and Responsibilities of Legal Hold (ethics), the plenary session “Disrupt” for Lawyers, Dipping a Toe in the Waters of Predictive Coding and Advanced Analytics - How to Use a Little Cutting-Edge Technology to Make Document Review a Lot Better, and The ePractice Transformation. The day concluded with the Welcome Reception, with live music and an artist who painted to the music (hard to explain, but his strokes were almost choreographed to the music), open bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres.
Day Two began with the Judges Panel keynote, moderated by Craig Ball, attorney and forensic technologist, and featuring Judges Shira Scheindlin, John Facciola, James Francis, and Andrew Peck. The judges focused on eDiscovery, 502d, FRCP 26f, and the new proposed amended 37e. Judge Peck startled the audience by saying that not having a 502d order should be malpractice.
Learning tracks on Day Two included Actionable E-Discovery, Big Data, Business of Law, Law Firm Management, Corporate Legal IT, Cost and Risk, The Evolution of Lawyering, and Transforming eDiscovery, plus Emerging Technology and “Super Sessions”. The morning session I attended, Technology and Trends in Corporate Legal, part of the Corporate Legal IT track was fantastic, with global futurist Rohit Talwar. ILTA sponsored this session, and if you are an ILTA member (free membership for the first year and includes the entire firm) they plan to put this session on their website - I highly recommend listening to it. Mr. Talwar talked about knowing what the future of technology might hold, and preparing a plan to deal with it. He discussed the plans of a Russian millionaire attempting to overcome mortality by 2044, and the steps he has already implemented, including creating robots in place of his body - and the Chinese hospital that is currently using robots in patient care. Think about the implications for the hospital’s legal staff. What liability do they have, what terms and conditions, what releases do they need? Think about the estate planning implications for the Russian millionaire should he succeed! How does your firm advise the man who has beaten death? What ethical implications are there? The afternoon session of Collaboration Models for Corporate/Law Firm Partnerships was also very good, with teams from DuPont and Toyota Motor Sales on the panel. They discussed how they make the in-house, outside counsel, vendor partnerships work. An interesting technique that DuPont uses is an annual meeting with all their service providers. They also have a diversity initiative that outside counsel and vendors participate in, and an annual survey of their providers. The day “concluded” with several exhibitors hosting offsite receptions - I understand many of them lasted well into the night! New York is certainly a good place to unwind.
The keynote on Day Three was highly unusual, with Monica Bay, Editor-In-Chief of Law Technology News, filmmaker Cullen Hoback, director of “Terms & Conditions May Apply”, Donna Payne, CEO of PayneGroup, and Lisa Sotto, of Hunton & Williams discussing Privacy and Security. They showed a short clip from Mr. Hoback’s film, which challenges all the nuances of the terms and conditions and advocates for more privacy for individuals. Ms. Payne discussed the challenges of identity theft and the need for security as well as privacy. Ms. Sotto talked about the reasons behind the seemingly incomprehensible legalese of most terms and conditions and how Federal Trade Commission regulations impact that. An interesting tidbit from this keynote: Mr. Hoback discussed the metamorphosis of Google Glass. He talked about how incredible they are, using as example the information you can retrieve from Google Glass if you tend to forget names and facts about people you have met. His concern is that people are already complaining about having to wear them - glasses aren’t cool - and a shift toward Google Glass as contacts. The difficulty is that then no one can see you are using them, may not appreciate the intrusion into their privacy. He believes the logical next step is implantable Google Glass. I was fortunate to meet Mr. Hoback upon his arrival (he likes green tea and we both wanted the last green tea bag). No matter how sci-fi his comments sound, he was clearly a researcher and interested in bringing this discussion to the public.
The Power of eDiscovery, Legal Operations, Government Investigations and ED, Information Governance: Secrets of Success for Strategy and Action, Technology Assisted review, Managing big Data, and Emerging Technology led the Day Three tracks. Additionally, there was a free half-day (ISC)2 CCFP℠ CBK® Training Preview and “Super Sessions” going on. I attended Integrating In-house Legal and Contract Management Functions - Proactive and Strategic Approaches, hosted by the Institute of Law Department Excellence before heading back to Richmond. Moderator Jason Smith of Duff & Phelps, and panelists Mark Ross of Integreon, Tom Fuchs of IMS Health, and Shari Wilkozek of Motorola Mobility, a Google Company talked about ways to make contract management work smoothly with in-house counsel. They discussed pros and cons of having the contract management function within the legal department or as a separate department and how to prevent legal from being known as the Sales Prevention Department. They discussed certain provisions, such as “most favored nation” clauses, that should come to legal regardless of the process your organization takes, determining contract trends and evaluating each contract provision, and then sitting down with business owners and discussing the dollar value of standard contract provisions. They had a panelist battle on shortest Non Disclosure Agreement - Mr. Ross began by saying NDAs should be a fully automated process, then Mr. Fuchs commented that IMS Health had trimmed their NDA to 2 pages. Ms. Wilkozek countered that she’d be happy to help them further - Motorola Mobility had reduced their NDA to ¾ of a page! They agreed that determining the biggest risks is key to a simpler contract review.
If the learning tracks aren’t enough, the exhibit halls were tremendous. There were three separate exhibit halls, each with 100 or more exhibitors, plus exhibitors in the main hallways. I actually managed to visit all but about ten of the booths and brought back information and goodies from most of them - look for door prize bags with LegalTech NY goodies for the next several RPA meetings! I also met a few vendors in Virginia who may sponsor RPA meetings - so networking is high on the list of things to do at LegalTech NY. Fun Fact - I saw Elisse Stern, CP, NALA Region I Director and a New York City resident, and Karin Scheele, ACP, NALA Region VII Director before the Welcome Reception. Elisse was interviewed on Law Technology News for her opinion of Day One! Check out www.lawtechnologynews to look for her interview and more on LegalTech NY.
There was so much going on that I can’t possibly cover it all here. If you are interested in learning more about the conference feel free to ask or visit www.legaltechshow.com. Save the dates of February 3-5, 2015 for next year’s LegalTech NY!
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