Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/24/2010 -- Discerning the differences among the skyrocketing number of electronic discovery vendors is harder than ever before. Beyond speed of processing, what really counts is how efficiently a vendor helps you get through the entire process. Most of the expense of e-discovery is actually dollars spent on human teams that review electronically stored information (ESI). A vendor's understanding of that process and tools that make it efficient are huge differentiators.

Kiersted / Systems, LP promotes efficiency through workflow and validation. Workflow is simply the automated movement of groups of documents from one defined review phase to the next. Validation consists of coding rules for each workflow stage, and each rule must be satisfied before a group of documents can move to the next stage. According to Kiersted's executive vice president Andre Guilbeau, "You really don't want to reach the deadline and realize that half of the documents were never reviewed for privilege or other criteria. That can be catastrophic, calling for hours of re-review when you can least afford it."

Clearly important in managing the process, automated workflow is not inherently present in all review systems. Guilbeau sees systems that cannot model even the most basic workflow without extensive project management intervention and constant monitoring. A user must run QC searches, queries, or scripts to determine how many documents are in any stage of review and also to qualitatively assess their readiness for production. Far less time-consuming and risky, a better approach is to define workflow stages in advance based on the client's processes, and then set milestones.

Kiersted's native review platform builds on this automation by assigning document access according to team members' roles so they can self-administer the process. The value of this "self-administration" aspect of electronic discovery workflow is painfully apparent when the clock is ticking and the meter is running, but nothing is happening. In a typical system, a reviewer either waits to be assigned documents to review or conducts a search to obtain them. Guilbeau explains, "Automated workflow that relies on a self-administering review process is wonderful because of the efficiency that it brings, along with speed and cost savings. In our system, reviewers who are ready for more documents simply grab a 'bin' from the pool without waiting to be assigned or having to find someone to ask."

Teams often scramble to meet tight e-discovery deadlines, and last-minute problems are very unwelcome. Key to preventing such situations is validation, an important feature of review that is not always apparent on the surface. Validation enforces rules that govern the linear progression of documents from one milestone stage to the next. Guilbeau says that the number of validation rules for each workflow stage should be unlimited and entirely customizable. If a rule is not satisfied, Kiersted's system prompts the user to fix the issue.

The different features offered by various vendors can seem complicated, but it really all comes down to a high quality review process that meets specific needs. Kiersted built its system sitting next to attorneys working on real cases under incredible deadlines, and came up with some cool features that make the system fast and easy to use, such as "hot" keys, single-click tagging and filters that show only documents relevant to a workflow stage or items that failed validation. Another differentiator is the ability to generate metrics, one of many powerful administration and management features that help projects run smoothly.

Planning properly and using resources effectively requires knowing immediately when staffing levels are off. Yet many systems don't provide comprehensive review metrics that let you see where you are. Information should be available at your fingertips to show the number of documents in each stage, review rates, frequency of responsive hits, and individual reviewer productivity.

Beyond technology itself, a vendor's expertise behind the scenes is crucial in keeping the project on track. Skilled managers can guide the process and recommend strategies and rules according to industry standards. The goal is to speed up and streamline every step of the review process so you save time and money. When you select an e-discovery vendor, insist on a flexible system that automates all the review stages and validation rules you need -- a system that addresses real world situations faced by litigation professionals. You will eliminate extra costs from waiting time and administrative delays, and avoid missed deadlines due to inconsistent coding that necessitates rework. Powerful workflow and validation capabilities will help you catch what others miss and get it right the first time.

For more information on advantages of systematic approaches to litigation technology, contact Kiersted / Systems, LP at http://www.kiersted.com or 1-866-543-7789.

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Annual Conference Offers Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Sharing and Professional Development

Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/16/2010 -- Kiersted / Systems, a seasoned leader in electronic discovery and legal technology consulting, has announced that it is a Signature Sponsor of the 12th Annual Conference of General Counsel, including support for the Magna Stella Awards Dinner recognizing in-house excellence in leadership. Kiersted's sponsorship also extends to the annual golf tournament. The awards dinner and golf tournament will be held at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort in San Antonio on November 18th followed by an all-day conference on November 19th.

The Forum is a community of 500 general counsel and senior managing counsel that strives to be the best at discovering, benchmarking and sharing best practices, and delivering them to members in a peer-to-peer environment. The annual conference offers meaningful opportunities for knowledge exchange and professional development.

President George Kiersted says, "We enthusiastically express our admiration for general counsel who successfully tackle the overwhelming challenges faced by corporate legal departments. We understand the obstacles they must overcome to achieve greater productivity and effectiveness amid a difficult economy, and we are privileged to help honor their leadership."

"We launched our company in Texas 26 years ago and were an early pioneer of litigation support and electronic discovery solutions for corporate legal departments," Kiersted adds. "Fortune 100 companies continue to rely on us for streamlined processes and technologies that support their efforts today."

More than 400 in-house and outside lawyers will attend the conference, including some of the most celebrated lawyers in Texas. More information about the Texas GC Forum and the Magna Stella Awards is available at www.tgcf.com.

About Kiersted / Systems
Kiersted / Systems, LP is a proven leader in electronic discovery and legal technology consulting. Its team of experienced, senior professionals provides a full range of legal technology services, including electronic discovery processing, forensic data collection, and corporate legal department consulting with a focus on matter management, legal hold, and electronic billing. Founded in 1984, Kiersted / Systems, LP is headquartered in Houston, TX. More information is available at http://www.kiersted.com or 866-543-7789.

Media Contact:
Linda Gordon, Vice President, Sales & Marketing
866-543-7789 ext. 306
lgordon@kiersted.com

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New Approaches Help Impact the Bottom Line for Corporations and Law Firms

Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/14/2010 -- Kiersted / Systems, a seasoned leader in electronic discovery and legal technology consulting, has announced that it will exhibit innovative and important new offerings during the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) 2010 Conference at the ARIA Resort in Las Vegas on August 22nd to 26th.

Linda Gordon, Kiersted's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, says, "This year's conference focuses on skills, leadership and technologies that help law firms and legal departments thrive in today's demanding environment. Kiersted's smart approach to electronic discovery is right in line with ILTA's theme: Strategic Unity. Kiersted's value-driven suite of consultative and service-based electronic discovery solutions resonates with organizations eager to impact the bottom line."...

Visit the following link to read this article in its entirety: http://tinyurl.com/36g6y6s

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Technology makes it better, faster, and easier

Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/13/2010 -- The cost and effort involved in complying with court mandates related to electronic discovery can be overwhelming for organizations dealing with litigation. Case law dictates that companies must preserve all forms of relevant information when litigation is reasonably anticipated. This may not sound complicated on the surface, but preserving potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI) immediately presents challenges.

A notice or communication from legal counsel to suspend normal disposition of records triggers the legal hold process to preserve all forms of relevant information, both ESI and otherwise. An official notification (such as a subpoena) or an event (such as an accident causing injury to people, property or the environment) can also create reasonable expectation of litigation. Failure to demonstrate a repeatable, defensible legal hold strategy can bring court sanctions and fines. Unfortunately, many legal departments fail to develop a comprehensive legal hold management approach that ensures compliance with FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). The bright spot on the horizon is new technology that supports a sound methodology and repeatable process.

The first step is to analyze the duty to preserve information. This requires experience, analyzing the facts on a case-by-case basis, and making a determination based on a variety of factors. Establishing guidelines can help. For example, only matters that exceed a minimum ceiling for potential damages might automatically trigger a legal hold.

The next step is to establish a clear scope that strikes the right balance. The scope of the legal hold should be confined only to data systems and individuals identified as having relevant information (custodians). Casting too wide a net drives up costs, while preserving too little increases risk. Based more perhaps on the art of law rather than the practice of law, this careful consideration includes facts and circumstances, key players, previous similar cases, and various locations where potentially relevant data may be stored.

Technology clearly proves its worth at this point in the legal hold process. Integrating the legal hold process with the legal department's matter management solution offers greater control over the discovery process by storing matter management and legal hold information in a central location. Legal departments can automatically monitor progress, set reminders, and enforce a policy to escalate the request to higher levels if needed. A full audit trail of notices and responses proves measures are being followed.

The notification process proceeds much more smoothly with repeatable and consistent messaging based on templates and accurate matter information automatically pulled from the system. Technology enables workflow that ensures that notices are reviewed and approved prior to distribution. Summary reports and online statistics deliver at-a-glance information for a comprehensive view of the legal hold process. Portals offer a place where people involved in the hold can interact and more easily collaborate.

Subsequent to notifications, and depending on specific responses, counsel may want to conduct interviews with persons identified as holding relevant information. To reduce business distraction, technology affords faster and more effective interviews with the option to conduct them online or in-person. In addition, templates help formulate consistent questions and reduce the need for follow-up interviews.

Legal holds can endure for several years amid changing circumstances. New information may come to light that makes it necessary to modify the hold. Technology tools to track and compare information in the system with the facts, so legal hold teams can make modifications and avoid missing important data or doing anything improper.

Implementing the hold presents other stumbling blocks. A key communication challenge is maintaining alignment with the internal IT group, which essentially sits at the nexus between the corporation and its information. While IT can be very helpful in initiating holds and implementing instructions of the hold, they may fail to consider the ramifications of moving data.

Regular meetings about projects, plans and the IT roadmap provide the legal department an opportunity to advise and prevent unintended consequences. After all, as one legal professional recently pointed out, the goal of a records retention program is not to retain records but to destroy them as fast as legally possible. To put it even more forcefully, "They are kept for the benefit of those who sue me." IT may keep information longer than needed without realizing the potential impact.

The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing, particularly when employees who are part of a legal hold leave the company. Human Resources, IT, and Finance departments can use checklists that help, but even a well-intentioned person can let information fall through the cracks when the process isn't thoroughly followed. Technology can save the day by flagging records and triggering automatic notifications to appropriate departments or individuals. For example, sending a reminder to IT can prevent them from carelessly wiping clean the laptop of a custodian or erasing shared folders -- both actions that could bring court sanctions.

Litigators lift the hold when they settle a case, or when the time period for an appeal passes or the scope of litigation changes. Until then, tracking people and data sources through the life of the hold is crucial in reducing the risk that evidence is overlooked or mishandled.

For many organizations, business continuity and business stability are a constant struggle. Besides not being sued in the first place (a fantasy for almost every organization), the best answer is to create a process that is repeatable, auditable, and defensible with clear-cut rules. Technology can power the process, help maintain tight control over your ESI, and bring additional benefits such as improved efficiency and reduced cost of electronic discovery.

For more information about a sophisticated approach to legal hold management, please contact Kiersted / Systems, LP at http://www.kiersted.com or 1-866-543-7789.

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Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/13/2010 -- Companies are facing unprecedented demands in preserving and producing electronically stored information (ESI), specifically related to electronic discovery. In addition to potential fines and sanctions that result when information is not handled properly, the cost associated with performing required tasks can be huge and often without apparent limits. The paramount goal is to capture more meaningful information - better, faster, and more easily.

Fortunately, new solutions from legal technology providers offer relief. Not all solutions are equal, so selecting the right one requires careful consideration. Companies must evaluate each approach for capabilities that will help them determine early and throughout the e-Discovery process if the case has merit and how best to proceed. The right approach will sharply lower processing costs by quickly culling down case datasets to only what is relevant, and will significantly cut review costs by reducing the number of documents that attorneys must review. Using manpower wisely is key. The review phase of electronic discovery is the most expensive because it requires attorneys' time and expertise to evaluate ESI and determine what is relevant and privileged. The right review platform promotes accuracy, reliability, security, quality and speed. A clever user interface design helps reviewers plow through a huge amount of material in a very small amount of time. Powerful workflow and rules-based processes help prevent coding inconsistencies, incorrect privilege calls and other errors that necessitate going back to make changes when a deadline is approaching -- thus costing a lot of time and energy.

Litigation professionals work under incredible deadlines, and they need to be empowered to self-administer the review process and eliminate waiting time and delays. It is important to set up, steward and enforce processes automatically in real time with workflow (intelligent item routing) and validation (work product quality control). A fully configurable workflow process, combined with integrated quality controls, helps ensure that projects proceed efficiently with consistent results. For example, a single click that allows the reviewer to validate a bin of items and receive real-time feedback on validation errors, as well as the ability to go right back in and swiftly clear errors, will reduce the number of problem items until the entire family of documents under review successfully passes validation. The ability to assign access to team members according to their roles helps employ the right expertise level for specific tasks and avoid paying for more than is needed. Of course, reducing the quantity of data to begin with is crucial, especially data that requires higher levels of review expertise.

As more companies adopt SharePoint?, the way they store and manage data is presenting new e-Discovery challenges. SharePoint sites can be massive, and while the primary challenge is to make sure nothing is lost that could be relevant in litigation, companies do not want review costs to explode when they backup such large volumes of information. According to George Kiersted of Kiersted / Systems, LP, "We are careful to avoid over-collecting. We encourage clients to identify specific sites rather than backing up the entire network. And we whittle the data down by looking for duplicates and relevance through search terms and various techniques. This takes a potentially large collection and narrows it down to a relatively small review set. And on the upside, the richness of metadata in SharePoint makes the case assessment process even better because of the ability to slice and dice across new dimensions."

Assessing information about the case early in the process promotes clearer understanding and smarter decisions about how to proceed with a case. A solid cost-benefit analysis minimizes unnecessary costs and protects the interests of the organization. Coining the term "dynamic case assessment" rather than "early case assessment," Kiersted explains, "Case assessment is ongoing throughout the discovery process and even before. SharePoint is a dynamic live system that constantly changes, and case assessment must be dynamic too. This is consistent with our approach to workflow in general. Seamless integration of culling and post-preliminary processing gives you the flexibility to come back to "the well" if circumstances change. We help you assess, readjust and reprioritize on the fly." Clearly, the right technology will render information in a sensible way so reviewers can understand the meaning in context without jumping through hoops. A solid workflow process will streamline review activities so nobody gets bogged down. Standard progress reports will show review status, metrics will compare user productivity, and flexible search capabilities will save time and money.

In addition to cost control benefits, the right tools offer legal teams new ways to analyze ESI, ensure quality and consistency, and make better decisions about how to proceed. For more information about a smart approach to electronic discovery, please contact Kiersted / Systems, LP at http://www.kiersted.com or 1-866-543-7789.

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Corporate legal departments and the law firms who serve them are facing complicated electronic discovery challenges presented by the increasing use of Microsoft SharePoint.

Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/18/2010 -- The application is changing the way enterprises manage data by bringing greater collaboration and smoother workflow to processes. SharePoint's search and integration with other Microsoft Office applications means faster access to information. But dealing with the side effects can be tricky, particularly during the collection and review phases of the e-discovery process.

The primary challenge is to make sure nothing is lost that could be relevant in litigation. This includes metadata, such as an email's subject line, dates sent and received, who received it, and more. For documents, metadata would include the author, title and date when it was last accessed. The metadata must be collected and preserved so the review team can use assessment tools and search capabilities to determine its relevance. SharePoint further exacerbates the issue because it contains a wealth of metadata beyond what is typically stored in Office documents.

Although information is searchable based on keywords, most collection tools in the market today focus on document libraries within a SharePoint site. These tools help determine how much content might be responsive, but they are not fully capable of forensic collection. Rather than exporting data from document libraries, a sound collection methodology uses back-up techniques to preserve and capture the content of specific sites within a SharePoint network or system. This approach offers the added benefit of avoiding any disruption to the client's use of the SharePoint application during normal business operations.

After collecting electronically stored information (ESI), attorneys evaluate the data to determine what is relevant and privileged prior to producing such information to opposing counsel or the court. Accuracy is essential in avoiding court sanctions, and legal teams face the huge challenge of making sure that all items are properly reviewed. Complicating the situation is SharePoint's web page interface that encourages the use of new content types such as wikis and blogs that can easily lose their meaning when isolated portions are taken out of context. During a traditional document review, a blog entry and subsequent replies would be treated separately, but new technology can help reviewers see all the items in context to understand how they relate to each other.

Another difficulty is that emails in SharePoint are more likely to include a link to a document rather than the actual attached document. Reviewers must be able to follow links and experience the embedded files in their actual context to make the right decision.

Additional challenges surround SharePoint's ability to maintain multiple versions of documents. In a typical scenario, someone creates a document and someone else creates a new version and then the originator revises it. Capturing only the most recent version could prove dangerous if previous ones are crucial in understanding potential relevance.

Besides capturing and preserving information in a forensically defensible way, the right methods help contain the spiraling cost of electronic discovery particularly during the review phase. The first step in cost containment is to avoid over-collecting. According to George Kiersted, president of the consulting firm Kiersted / Systems LP, "Considering the massive size of some SharePoint sites, it is best to identify specific sites rather than backing up the entire network. Then cull the data down to a relatively small review set by using search terms and various techniques to look for duplicates and relevance in order to reduce the body of material in a defensible way."

Technology can also provide solid workflow processes to enable reviewers to efficiently plough through a huge amount of material in a very small amount of time. This helps avoid coding inconsistencies, incorrect privilege calls and other errors issues that force legal teams to make changes when a deadline is approaching.

Selecting the right technology is critical. An optimum solution expedites the transition from forensic collection and analysis to review and production so electronic discovery teams can quickly move on to the next phase of their project. Kiersted emphasizes, "SharePoint data is just one of several different kinds of information that need to be rendered in a sensible way so reviewers can understand the meaning in context without jumping through hoops."

In addition to compliance and efficiency benefits, the right tools offer legal teams new ways to analyze ESI, perform early case assessment, and make better decisions about how to proceed. For more information about a sophisticated SharePoint approach to native file review, please contact Kiersted / Systems, LP at http://www.kiersted.com or 1-866-543-7789.

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