Just enjoy the Eye Candy

My friend John Salem at Telemedia Productions in Harrisonburg Virginia was kind enough to shoot a commercial for my company this fall. I found it amazing that he could come into my business, look around for 15 minutes; decide what to shoot and come away with something so in tune with what I do for a living. I expect that those of you living outside of the ediscovery or litigation support realm are flumoxed by this commercial and to this I say... "just enjoy the eye candy"

I found this tidbit on Kroll's website and found it worth sharing

COURTS CONTINUE IMPOSING SANCTIONS FOR ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY SHORTCOMINGS

From Jan. 1, 2009 to Oct. 31, 2009, 108 significant opinions representing e-discovery rulings were analyzed. The breakdown of the major issues involved in these cases is as follows:

* 39 percent of cases addressed sanctions
o 66.67 percent of sanctions involved preservation and spoliation issues
o 16.67 percent of sanctions involved production disputes
o 16.67 percent of sanctions involved other discovery abuses
* 27 percent of cases addressed various production considerations
* 12 percent of cases addressed privilege considerations and waivers
* 12 percent of cases addressed various procedural issues (such as searching protocol)
* 4 percent of cases addressed cost considerations
* 4 percent of cases addressed computer forensics protocols and experts
* 2 percent of cases addressed preservation and spoliation issues (but not sanctions)
* 1 percent of cases addressed discoverability and admissibility issues


THIRTY NINE PERCENT - WOW!

Giving Thanks this Week and Beyond

So another Thanksgiving is upon us and here at the Wilson household we are celebrating with family and friends over 3 days from Richmond to Roanoke and ending up Saturday at the UVA vs Va Tech football game in Charlottesville. Enjoying friendship and fellowship, catching up with family, and reflecting on the shared joys of life are enough to make me lose sleep at night in anticipation of this weekend. I expect there will be some somber moments this weekend as well as we reflect on those friends and family who are no longer with us and try to draw strength remembering the love and joy and laughter we shared. "count your blessings"!



On December 3rd my oldest son Austin turns 14. I'm proud of him in many ways but I give special thanks and realized how lucky I am again this week - when he asked if i could facilitate his 3rd annual football game to raise money for the Central Virginia Foodbank
The concept is simple - 24 of his middle school friends gather to play football (mudball?) and instead of bringing presents for Austin - the bring donations in the form of $$ and canned goods to donate to the food bank. He started this when he was 11 and its become a tradition that I am profoundly proud of. His awareness and generosity will serve him well in the future.

Should you feel so inclined Austion would welcome your donation to food bank either with food or a monetary donation, or heck just send him a note enforcing his generosity and good will @ footba10363@gmail.com

Defining a Legal Strategy ... The Value in Early Case Assessment: PowerPoint

Take a minute to check out this SlideShare Presentation by Aubrey Owens, Vice President-Technology at Superior Document Services

Defining a Legal Strategy ... The Value in Early Case Assessment: PowerPoint

View more documents from Aubrey Owens.

Compiled Services announces new product: ReadyEndorse

Many users of our ReadyConvert and ReadyPrint products have asked for new ways to work with their existing image sets. We’ve built an incredible base product handling multiple image formats and load files. Now, we are extending that functionality to include features that will allow the user to endorse, redact, recognize (OCR), renumber, and create new image sets. Over the next several weeks, we will be highlighting these changes in a multi-part series to our development blog

Using ReadyEndorse, litigation support teams can efficiently apply endorsements to their existing image sets. Endorsements can comprise of bates numbers, page numbers, metadata fields, confidential endorsements and any custom text. With nine regions to apply endorsements, and multiple alignment settings, endorsements can be added virtually anywhere.
Need to remove an existing endorsement? ReadyEndorse allows you to redact existing endorsements by specifying regions or portions of a page. Removing the footer of an image is incredibly fast and easy.
With a built-in spell checker, ReadyEndorse will check behind you as you type. Don’t worry about those silly errors and see those misspelled words underlined with the familiar red 'squiggly' line.
ReadyEndorse handles industry standard load files, including Summation, Concordance, IPRO and EDRM XML. Additionally, ReadyEndorse supports most common image formats, including PDF, TIF and JPG files.
Features:
Endorsing
• Apply endorsements to multiple image types, including TIFF and PDF,
• Position endorsements in up to nine specific quadrants,
• Use identifiers, page numbers, metadata fields and custom text in endorsements,
• Adjust the images header and footer by increasing its canvas,
• Instantly preview endorsement settings before you start the batch process, and
• Spell checker provides reassurance as you type.
Endorsements
• Choose font family, style and size for each quadrant,
• Specify color endorsements for color images,
• Align endorsements to the left, right, center or full-justify,
• Change text orientation to horizontal, vertical or a specific angle,
• Enter multiple lines of text, and
• Synchronize settings across all quadrants with ease.
Redacting
• Trim portions of the page, including the header, footer and sides,
• Redact regions by selecting areas to remove,
• Move the redaction selection using the preview window and adjust its size,
• Use a white or black background for the redaction region, and
• Instantly preview redaction settings before you start the batch process.
General Features
• All features included in ReadyConvert,
• Filter options include first page only, even/odd pages, and landscape or portrait,
• Intuitive interface requiring no training to get started,
• Wizards guides the user with step by step instructions,
• Supports automatically checking for updates,
• Fully Unicode compliant,
• Help documentation provides useful notes on each feature.

eDiscovery Solutions Group Adds Kriss Wilson to its Advisory Board.

Washington DC (October 15, 2009) - eDiscovery Solutions Group, an emerging leader in providing comprehensive eDiscovery and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) consulting, services and technology worldwide announced today that it has added Kriss Wilson to its Advisory Board.

Mr. Wilson is the founder and president of Superior Document Services in Richmond Virginia. A lifelong entrepreneur, Mr. Wilson has been involved in numerous business start ups in industries as diverse as property and casualty insurance; video production, software solutions, and process service. Founded in 1995 as a simple litigation support copy shop, Superior Document Services has grown to the largest provider of e-discovery services in the central Virginia region. With a client base stretching from Fortune 250 Corporations to working with some of the largest law firms in the Country; Superior has leveraged its hands-on approach providing exceptional customer service into a groundbreaking technology company utilizing innovative and creative custom solutions.

With a background of over 17 years of industry specific expertise, a passion for technology, and a lifetime of business achievement Mr. Wilson’s business acumen is attributed to a resourceful, creative, and highly personal business model. His management skill set puts an emphasis on results through detail oriented quantifiable processes. Under his guidance, Superior Document Services has grown from its original 600 square foot copy shop / office to its state of the art, secured 10,000 square foot production facility. As Superior has grown to encompass more regional, national and international document productions, Mr. Wilson by necessity has evolved into an expert on all phases of electronic data discovery including defensible forensic collections; on- line review hosting platforms, early case assessment and the need for transparency in these processes.

Behind the scenes Kriss has managed to gather some of the brightest innovators in the litigation technology business. This includes a team consisting of project managers, programmers, database administrators, and systems analysts - the infrastructure at Superior Document Services is second to none. By utilizing exceptional talent and empowering the concept of “thinking outside the box” Superior has become a trailblazer in the litigation support and e-discovery community. Solutions include creative early case assessment models, offering “predictive” pricing, to “Compiled Services” (Superior’s in house custom software business). Kriss manages to leverage the creativity and drive inherent in his employees and business partners.

A native of Wilmington Delaware; Mr. Wilson attended James Madison University on a swimming scholarship and majored in Public Administration and Business. His spare time is utilized coaching and mentoring the youth of tomorrow.



Founded in 2009, eDiscovery Solutions Group is a consortium of leading regional litigation service providers, eDiscovery consulting firms, independent eDiscovery consultants and best in class eDiscovery technology companies that have come together to provide all of the services, consulting and technology necessary to support the entire eDiscovery lifecycle.

Lessons in Customer Satisfaction :Dellstyle

Yesterday I lost 8 hours of my life. One of my favorite days of the year - opening day of the NFL season - was completely ruined when I made the mistake of calling Dell to attempt to resolve a technical issue . The support session lasted several hours ( read 8) and was completely futile. I dealt with first level support people. I dealt with second level support people. I was disconnected numerous times. Sometimes they called back; sometimes I got to start the whole process over again. Some insisted they had fixed the problem; some charged me. Several tried to sell me ad on services ( extended support and new virus protection for example) All wanted to repeat painful steps taken by previous support techs. I finished my eight hour stint talking with a supervisor who finally refunded my tech support money and then took glee in taunting me that Dell was no longer going to help resolve my issues! It seems to me that they hired the most arrogant, know nothing, support people on the planet to man the operation.

During my full 8 hour day on the phone I discovered one of the many reasons why outsourced tech support sucks -the rep has a decision tree and script they have to read from. What this means to the average customer is that no matter how many times you call support for the same issue, they always ask you the same questions over and over and over again. It appears that they are not allowed to go "off-script" or use any other resource than what Dell provides them regardless of what common sensce might dictate.

In the classic old school business structure, where you walked in and bought something then walked back in when a problem arose, nobody would EVER consider doing what Dell does, because within a few months everybody in town would know the business did that and nobody would shop there.

Dell counts on the anonymity of online/phone transactions, and their ability to stonewall you precisely because you CAN'T walk in, to basically rob people. In the classic structure, a single pissed off customer costs the business 100 customers. Each piss off will tell at least 10 people, who will each tell 10 more. Under Dell's business plan, they will piss off masses of people, figuring the money they stole will pay for ads to entice another 100 people who don't yet know what charlatans they are.

Yes, they actually operate that way and believe it will succeed. At least for THIS fiscal quarter, which is all they EVER consider. Once the darling of NASDAQ, Dell will soon be the subject of business texts titled "Don't let Dell happen to you".

Remember:

1) An unhappy customer will bad-mouth you to everyone they know. (see above)

2) It’s a lot easier to retain your current customers than to acquire new ones.

3) The cheapest way to grow you business is though positive word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.

It’s truly mind-boggling how many large corporations ignore these three basics!

eDiscovery Solutions Group Announces Partnership with Third Coast Consultants

Premier Consulting Firm to Provide Comprehensive Strategic Services for Proactively Managing Electronically Stored Information (ESI) to Improve the Overall eDiscovery and Compliance Process

August 18, 2009 --
Boise, Idaho - eDiscovery Solutions Group announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Third Coast Consultants to provide litigation readiness, general data retention and management strategies and information security services designed to help corporations and their outside counsel better understand and manage the risks and costs associated with the accelerating volume of Electronically Stored Information (ESI).

Under the terms of the partnership, Third Coast Consultants will provide a wide range of litigation readiness consulting and data retention policy development for eDiscovery Solutions Group clients throughout the United States and South America. In addition, other partners from the eDiscovery Solutions Group consortium will enable Third Coast Consultants to expand its eDiscovery offering with additional eDiscovery consulting, services and technology with support in most of the major metropolitan markets in the US, Canada, Europe and the Far East.

The Company indicated that its partnership with Third Coast Consultants is a major component of an overall strategy to provide a comprehensive solution to corporations worldwide to proactively manage the accelerating volume of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) and associated costs of compliance and eDiscovery. The Company points out that according to a January 9, 2009 article by Debra Logan and John Bace of Gartner, Inc, entitled “Reduce The Cost and Risk of E-Discovery in 2009, “Electronic discovery will be close to the top of many organizations’ IT project agendas in 2009, and will remain important for years to come, regardless of the state of the economy.”

“Given the exponential increase in the volume of ESI within our client base worldwide that is straining every aspect of the information management process, we wanted expand our core offering beyond the standard eDiscovery process as defined within the Electronic Discovery Reference Model as established by Socha and Gelbmann,” stated Charles Skamser, Founder and CEO of eDiscovery Solutions Group. “With a strategic foundation firmly rooted in providing litigation readiness consulting for Rule 26(f) conferences as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and vision to further assist corporations with a wide range of data retention analysis and policy establishment, Third Coast Consultants will provide the leadership to extend our current eDiscovery offering(s) to be more strategic, proactive and reach beyond the eDiscovery paradigm,” continued Mr. Skamser.

As part of the strategic planning services designed to support the requirements of the FRCP Rule 26(f) conference, Third Coast Consultants coordinates communications and activities between the corporate client and the supporting law firm to analyze and understand: (1) historical and current information preservation processes; (2) corporate content repository structures and locations; (3) the total cost of responding to the potential eDiscovery requests; (4) content accessibility; (5) collection methodologies, and; (6) eDiscovery production recommendations.
 
“Based upon our membership in the eDiscovery Solutions Group Consortium, once we have completed our Rule 26(f) analysis and made our recommendations for collections and eDiscovery production, we will then be able to offer a comprehensive and seamless solution to deliver everything that our clients require to fulfill our recommendations,” states Alan Blakley, Esq. Senior Consultant, Third Coast Consultants. “As such, we are very pleased to be joining the eDiscovery Solutions Group,” continues Mr. Blakley.
In addition to strategic planning support for the FRCP 26(f) conference, Third Coast Consultants is also equipped to provide data retention analysis and policy development, data security analysis and policy development and general strategic consulting to better understand and manage corporate information.

“One of the main reasons that eDiscovery is so expensive is based on the fact that most corporations are not proactively setting up data retention policies that enable them to easily and cost effectively respond to eDiscovery requests,” states Charles Skamser. “The methodology and technology exists to support these needs and Third Coast Consultants have the expertise to develop the right data retention policies and recommend the most cost effective data archiving technologies to any corporation in the world before the next matter becomes an expensive issue,” continues Mr. Skamser.

With a growing consortium of partners worldwide, eDiscovery Solutions Group offers a broad array of eDiscovery consulting, services and technology along with project management to support the entire eDiscovery lifecycle. Following the eDiscovery processing paradigm of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), eDiscovery Solutions Group has developed an eDiscovery best practices framework that includes consulting, collection, analysis, processing, production, review and presentation.

Within this framework, the eDiscovery Solutions Group can deliver data retention policy, development, data archiving, eSecurity, eCompliance, eDiscovery readiness, strategic planning, implementation support, paper and ESI collection, investigations, expert testimony, data recovery, computer forensics, early case assessment, data analysis, data redundancy management, conceptual search, de-dupe, near de-dupe, scanning, copying, coding, language translation, EDD, TIFF conversion, hosting, on-site, on-shore and off-shore review, legal process outsourcing (LPO), courtroom graphics and presentations, tool training, systems integration and custom solutions.

About Third Coast Consultants
Third Coast Consultants is an international information management consulting firm focusing on litigation readiness, compliance, records management, and data retention strategy. With experienced information management professionals throughout the United States and South America, Third Coast Consultants work with corporations and their outside counsel to analyze, develop best practices and policies and manage Electronically Stored Information (ESI) to support corporate business objectives, governance, compliance and litigation. Our mission is to limit risk and manage costs with solutions that fit the specific needs for each of our clients. To learn more about Third Coast Consultants, please visit http://www.3rdcoastconsultants.com.

About eDiscovery Solutions Group
eDiscovery Solutions Group is an international consortium of leading independent eDiscovery consultants, eDiscovery consulting firms, regional litigation service providers and best-in-class eDiscovery technology companies that have come together to provide all of the services, consulting and technology necessary to support the entire eDiscovery lifecycle for the legal departments of corporations, the IT departments of corporations that need to support eDiscovery requirements and litigation centric law firms. For more information about eDiscovery Solutions Group, please visit: http://www.ediscoverysolutionsgroup.com/.