In a global legal landscape defined by digital conversation and unprecedented volumes of data, legal practitioners need a clear understanding of the technologies available today, and what is just around the corner.

1. NEW FRONTIERS IN EDISCOVERY | 19
In a global legal landscape defined by
digital conversation and unprecedented
volumes of data, legal practitioners need
a clear understanding of the technologies
available today, and what is just around the
corner. When you factor in the growth of
data sources, changing privacy regulations
and continual technology innovation,
staying up-to-date can be challenging.
To help, Kroll Ontrack has captured
commentary from a variety of experts to
share insight into the latest technology
trends, challenges and best practices.
What new data sources should
now be considered in legal
or compliance matters?
There are infinite sources of data which can be
interrogated during investigations – email, chat, social
media, audio and video – with some more readily
available than others for analysis. Document review
platforms are quite sophisticated when it comes to
reviewing and analysing email data, but many are
making great headway with chat room data, as well.
We are also moving towards a world where social
media data (from Twitter, Skype, Facebook etc.)
will be integrated with email and chat room data to
provide even deeper and more holistic insight around
a particular matter. Adding to that, technologies are
also now pulling evidence and insight from audio
and video data. The ability to pick out inflection and
cadence in a voice recording, for example, is paving
the way for greater analysis of phone recordings
without the need to listen to every minute.
Even when advanced technologies are available,
practical considerations of cost and legal considerations
around data protection will always limit how far an
organisation can and will go to uncover information.
Nevertheless, data is one of the greatest (often
untapped) resources businesses have at their
disposal, and there are endless opportunities
to generate value from that data.
How are evidence streams
from messaging systems
impacting ediscovery?
The prevalence, relevance and regulation of non-
email communication formats such as chat and
messaging has become increasingly important
in legal and investigative matters. Traditionally,
chat data has been archived, reviewed and
produced in email or plain text format; however, this
introduces a variety of challenges as it relates to
the loss of context and chat specific metadata.
Emerging technologies are allowing us to maintain
these communication types in a near-native
format, empowering case teams to more easily
and efficiently search, review, and produce the
most relevant data in their matter while maintaining
the original integrity of the data itself.
How is artificial intelligence gaining
traction in legal matters?
What we continue to learn is that the use of artificial
intelligence in document review is not defined by a
single approach; there are many hues to the technology
that allow for flexibility and a scaled introduction. In
fact, adoption itself has been on a sliding scale, with
lawyers gaining comfort as predictive technologies
are more widely used to assist with discovery. What
started with simple tagging and searching has
become, for many lawyers, full-scale adoption of
predictive coding – the result of progressively trusting
technology outcomes over a number of years.
For companies, the tipping point to using artificial
intelligence tends to be awareness of its existence and
knowledge of its cost savings. When that happens, they
may suggest to their law firm that artificial intelligence
may be suitable for their matter. Savvy law firms benefit
from bringing the latest technologies – including artificial
intelligence – to the attention of their clients. When
it comes to best practice, it is important to ensure
that the external counsel that use it are comfortable
promoting its use – both in the courts and to their
clients. This all-around greater awareness, combined
with a long line of decisions in the United States and
more recent U.K. court decisions, is driving greater
interest and adoption of predictive technologies globally.
Getting Creative: Taking Technology
beyond Ediscovery

2. 20 | KROLL ONTRACK | Report
The clear benefit to using artificial intelligence is
efficiency and accuracy, and achieving those benefits
in turn drives the use of artificial intelligence. Whether
using predictive coding in house or working with a
document review service provider, the technology
aims to achieve the same goals – reduce the legal
costs associated with the review of electronic evidence
and achieve an accurate, defensible outcome.
There are now enough examples of its use across a
broad spectrum of cases, in addition to refined work
flows that assist legal teams with understanding
the benefits it will bring to their specific case.
How are ediscovery technologies
being used outside of
traditional ediscovery?
“Ediscovery” means many things (or a single thing)
to a variety of people. Some tie it to the legal
discovery procedure followed in U.S. litigation. Some
associate it with the technologies used in discovery.
Whatever meaning is ascribed to ediscovery, the
principal concerned is usually to find evidence
or facts to answer one or more questions.
Today, fact-finding is a daily exercise for most
businesses, for a variety of purposes and not at all
limited to understanding contentious issues. For that
reason, ediscovery (or the practice thereof) has a very
broad future, which is only just beginning to evolve.
Currently, ediscovery is practised by professionals
working on legal cases in litigation, regulation,
competition law and merger control, employment
law and, to some extent, arbitration. It is also widely
employed in an anticipative manner, by companies,
to identify, isolate and address any concerns
about compliance that can expose them to the
risk of some form of intervention or sanctions.
Among these situations, litigation is the most
established context, while merger control (responding
to detailed requests for internal documents) is
more recent. That said, wherever it is necessary
to gather and analyse information in an efficient
manner and answer critical questions as efficiently
as possible, ediscovery technologies are certainly
up to the task. The only challenge is to visualise
where this technology could be applied next.
What emerging technologies and
trends will the next year bring?
Over the next year and for the foreseeable future,
emerging legal technology solutions will be
influenced by what is happening in enterprise data
management. On one hand, enterprises are creating
more data than ever before, and this data can be
found anywhere there are storage devices to hold
it – data centres, endpoint devices such as desktop
computers, laptops, mobile phones and tablets, and
of course the Cloud. As a result, we see a gradual
move away from email being the main data source
for fact-finding and instead envision a using a wider
array of data sources in an integrated platform.
Additionally, as companies have become really
good at creating data, the ability to locate, inventory
and find the information needed at the time it is
needed is incredibly complicated. There is a need
for globally consistent legal technology and data
intelligence solutions that can access and drive
insight from this data, regardless of geographic
location and storage device, and bring all of those
insights together into a cohesive and usable whole.

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How can technology address
emerging data privacy challenges?
Technology will play a vital role in helping companies
comply with the tough new data protection regulations
currently being implemented in Europe which have a
global impact, without curtailing key business activities.
Mobile ediscovery technology can capture, process,
filter and examine data onsite, avoiding the legislative
complications associated with transferring data across
borders. New data protection legislation also has
tougher requirements when it comes to processing
sensitive personal data. Mobile solutions can assist here
by segregating and filtering out personally identifiable
or sensitive data, sensitive company information or
privileged documents. This technology is versatile and
can be used in almost any investigative situation.
The General Data Protection Regulation also has
strict rules for protecting individuals’ rights to both
access and delete personal data. Ediscovery
technology will enable companies to quickly
search for and erase this data should an individual
request it. Without appropriate technology,
searches could be time-consuming, inaccurate and
place a company at risk of non-compliance.