LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding Software More Affordable

I highly recommend you watch this interview of an expert on e-discovery search whom I respect, Dean Gonsowski, Symantec eDiscovery Counsel. Dean is a former practicing attorney and general counsel who is now an expert on technology for Clearwell-Symantec. He has a good handle on the big picture of predictive coding type technologies, not only in litigation, but also in corporate information governance. The interview is well-done by Don McLaughlin, CEO of Falcon Discovery.

Stay to the end of the interview and learn about the possible use of predictive coding as an email management tool to file your email. I can just see the commercials of the near future! Let your computer do your filing for you. That way the computer can more easily retrieve your email when you want it. Manual self-filing will become a thing of the past, freeing up hours of time for the average information worker. I am all for that vision of the future. This is outlined by Dean, and so is the use of predictive coding in litigation. Dean talks at length, as did I at the time, about there being no real need to wait for a big decision approving predictive coding. We all used keyword search without an opinion approving its reasonability, so why should these new search technologies be different? Dean, like everyone at the time, pointed out that judicial approval of predictive coding might never come, or its coming could take years.

Dean is one of the key e-discovery people from Clearwell who are now helping to make Symantec a more dynamic, information-driven company. Their blog, e-discovery 2.0: thoughts about the evolution of e-discovery, is one of my favorites. They have new software called Clearwell Transparent Predictive Coding that will come out in a few months (price to be announced). I saw a private demo of it at LegalTech from the top people of Clearwell-Symantec. I told them then what I tell all of the vendors, bring the prices down! I will keep beating that drum so that predictive coding culling is affordable in all sizes of cases. It is the ideal tool to implement my Bottom Line Driven Proportional Review method.

In the video interview above Dean Gonsowski gives a new perspective on technologies and legal methods that goes back to Dean’s early days in e-discovery in 2003. Poor Dean never gets much of a chance to talk when I appear on panels with him, which I have done now for Clearwell for the last two years at LegalTech. He is usually graciously allowing his panelists to speak while he asks questions. When the tables are turned he has many interesting things to say, as this You Tube video shows. Frankly, I have never heard Dean speak for so long as in this video.

As a final note you might want to calendar a free webinar I’m doing for Symantec and Inside Counsel on March 22, 2012 at 2:00 ET. It is called Is Keyword Search in eDiscovery Dead? I’ll answer that question, talk about the old days of endless games of Go Fish, some of my new search methods, and the Kleen Products case, but not the other case. Presenting with me and trying to get a word in edgewise is Matt Nelson, eDiscovery Counsel for the Symantec Intelligent Information Group.

I wonder who counsel is for their Dumb Information Group? Glad I’m not presenting with that guy! Anyway, did I mention it’s free? So give it a listen and ask a question or two, such as, what will your predictive coding software cost when it comes out, and can you make it less expensive? I will cheer you on, and even if you don’t ask (or, more like it they don’t read your question), I will keep on trying to influence all of the software leaders.

I want to make predictive coding software an affordable, everyday item. Now that I’ve helped to open the door, I want as many people as possible to be able to walk through. With the right methods to use this tool, a new world of affordable e-discovery awaits.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2012 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Evidence, Forensic Exam, Lawyers Duties, Metadata, New Rules, Review, Search, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding Software More Affordable

Peter Pepiton says:

March 9, 2012 at 5:58 pm

Hey! Why does the ‘dumb’ guy on LinkedIn have to be from Louisiana?

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Ralph Losey says:

March 10, 2012 at 6:55 am

I don’t know. I was surprised to find him on Linkedin. Wonder how many other imaginary people are profiled there?

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Good, Better, Best: a Tale of Three Proportionality Cases – Part One « e-Discovery Team ® says:

April 8, 2012 at 4:27 pm

[…] LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding …; […]

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Going “All Out” for Predictive Coding and Vendor Cost Savings « e-Discovery Team ® says:

June 25, 2012 at 8:06 pm

[…] LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding …; […]

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There Can Be No Justice Without Truth, And No Truth Without Search | e-Discovery Team ® says:

March 31, 2013 at 6:45 pm

[…] LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding …. […]

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Technology-Assisted Review: From Expert Mentions to Mainstream Coverage | @ComplexD says:

June 7, 2013 at 3:14 pm

[…] New York Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding – bit.ly/xNYWYG (Ralph […]

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Legal Search Science | e-Discovery Team ® says:

November 17, 2013 at 2:12 pm

[…] LegalTech Interview of Dean Gonsowski on Predictive Coding and My Mission to Make Predictive Coding …. […]

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Ralph’s eDiscovery Books

e-Discovery for Everyone, (ABA, 2017). Also see Ralph's video on this book.
Perspectives on Predictive Coding and Other Advanced Search Methods for the Legal Practitioner, Contributor and co-editor with Jason Baron and Michael Berman, (ABA 2017)
Adventures in Electronic Discovery (West Thomson Reuters, 2011).
Electronic Discovery: New Ideas, Trends, Case Law, and Practices (West Thomson Reuters, 2010).
Introduction to E-Discovery: New Cases, Ideas, and Techniques (ABA 2009).
e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases (ABA 2008).

About the Blogger

Ralph Losey is an Arbitrator, Special Master, Mediator of Computer Law Disputes and Practicing Attorney, partner in LOSEY PLLC. Losey is a high tech law firm with three Loseys and a bunch of other cool lawyers. We handle projects, deals, IP of all kinds all over the world, plus litigation all over the U.S. For more details of Ralph's background, Click Here

All opinions expressed here are his own, and not those of his firm or clients. No legal advice is provided on this web and should not be construed as such.

Ralph has long been a leader of the world's tech lawyers. He has presented at hundreds of legal conferences and CLEs around the world. Ralph has written over two million words on e-discovery and tech-law subjects, including seven books.

Ralph has been involved with computers, software, legal hacking and the law since 1980. Ralph has the highest peer AV rating as a lawyer and was selected as a Best Lawyer in America in four categories: Commercial Litigation; E-Discovery and Information Management Law; Information Technology Law; and, Employment Law - Management.

Ralph is the proud father of two children, Eva Losey Grossman, and Adam Losey, a lawyer with incredible cyber expertise (married to another cyber expert lawyer, Catherine Losey), and best of all, husband since 1973 to Molly Friedman Losey, a mental health counselor in Winter Park.

Sedona Principles 3rd Ed

1. Electronically stored information is generally subject to the same preservation and discovery requirements as other relevant information.

2. When balancing the cost, burden, and need for electronically stored information, courts and parties should apply the proportionality standard embodied in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C) and its state equivalents, which require consideration of importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.

3. As soon as practicable, parties should confer and seek to reach agreement regarding the preservation and production of electronically stored information.

4. Discovery requests for electronically stored information should be as specific as possible; responses and objections to discovery should disclose the scope and limits of the production.

5. The obligation to preserve electronically stored information requires reasonable and good faith efforts to retain information that is expected to be relevant to claims or defenses in reasonably anticipated or pending litigation. However, it is unreasonable to expect parties to take every conceivable step or disproportionate steps to preserve each instance of relevant electronically stored information.

6. Responding parties are best situated to evaluate the procedures, methodologies, and technologies appropriate for preserving and producing their own electronically stored information.

7. The requesting party has the burden on a motion to compel to show that the responding party’s steps to preserve and produce relevant electronically stored information were inadequate.

8. The primary source of electronically stored information to be preserved and produced should be those readily accessible in the ordinary course. Only when electronically stored information is not available through such primary sources should parties move down a continuum of less accessible sources until the information requested to be preserved or produced is no longer proportional.

9. Absent a showing of special need and relevance, a responding party should not be required to preserve, review, or produce deleted, shadowed, fragmented, or residual electronically stored information.

10. Parties should take reasonable steps to safeguard electronically stored information, the disclosure or dissemination of which is subject to privileges, work product protections, privacy obligations, or other legally enforceable restrictions.

11. A responding party may satisfy its good faith obligation to preserve and produce relevant electronically stored information by using technology and processes, such as data sampling, searching, or the use of selection criteria.

12. The production of electronically stored information should be made in the form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a that is reasonably usable given the nature of the electronically stored information and the proportional needs of the case.

13. The costs of preserving and producing relevant and proportionate electronically stored information ordinarily should be borne by the responding party.

14. The breach of a duty to preserve electronically stored information may be addressed by remedial measures, sanctions, or both: remedial measures are appropriate to cure prejudice; sanctions are appropriate only if a party acted with intent to deprive another party of the use of relevant electronically stored information.

Reprinted courtesy of The Sedona Conference®.

Go to www.thesedonaconference.org to download a free copy of the complete document for your personal use only.

e-Discovery Team ®