Wednesday’s Litigation Support Day during the ILTA>ON virtual conference – conducted by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) – had several great sessions, including the Clawbacks, Redactions, and Formats…Oh My! session I was grateful to be in with several terrific panelists.  But, another session with a couple of terrific panelists conducted a few polls of the attendees with some interesting results.

In the Disruption in eDiscovery session conducted by David Greetham of Ricoh and Jeffrey Shapiro of EY, the panelists – in addition to giving an excellent presentation discussing topics including remote discovery, emerging data types, the future of eDiscovery AI for corporate legal departments and use of eDiscovery platforms for non-claims and disputes matters – also polled the audience on a handful of topics.  Here are the results of their polls of approximately 90 or so attendees (the number fluctuated over the course of the session):

• Prior to the pandemic, did you work remotely?: 68 percent of the audience said “occasionally”, 11 percent said “mostly”, 9 percent said “always” and 12 percent said “never”.  So, 88 percent of the audience had worked remotely at least occasionally before the pandemic.
• How many “connected” devices do you have?: 77 percent of the audience said “6+”, 21 percent said “4 to 6” and 2 percent said “less than 3”.  So, more than three-quarters of the audience had 6 or more devices connected to their wifi network.  Several of us in the chat indicated how many we do have – I had 16 devices connected (4 iPhones, 3 iPads, 1 laptop, 2 Apple Watches, 2 smart TVs, 4 IoT devices).  One person who lived in a smart home had 45 devices connected!
• Have you ever used predictive coding or active learning technologies?: 41 percent of the audience said “on several occasions”, 32 percent said “often”, 10 percent said “once” and 17 percent said “never”.  So, 73 percent of the audience had used predictive coding related technologies at least on several occasions, which is likely much larger than the legal industry average, but not that surprising at a conference full of legal technology professionals.
• Have you ever used eDiscovery technology for matters not involving claims or disputes?: 51 percent of the audience said “on several occasions”, 7 percent said “often”, 12 percent said “once” and 29 percent said “never”.  So, at least 58 percent of the audience had used eDiscovery technology for matters not involving claims or disputes at least “on several occasions”.  While (again) this was a session full of legal technology professionals, it does illustrate that discovery isn’t just for litigation anymore.

Post Mortem Time!  Now, it’s time to let me know what you thought of this year’s first ever virtual ILTA>ON conference!  What did you like about the virtual conference format?  What did you miss from previous in-person conferences?  How well do you think the conference went overall?  What suggestions, if any, do you have for improvement?

If you would like for your thoughts about the conference to be published in a blog post in eDiscovery Today this week, here’s what you do:

• Provide your name, company and title
• Give me three to five sentences regarding your thoughts and observations regarding the conference.  If I get more than that, I may or may not be able to use it all if I get a lot of responses.  So, please keep it brief.
• Email that information to me at daustin@ediscoverytoday.com.

I will take any observations I receive and will publish them in one or more posts as is (assuming no inappropriate content, of course) and abbreviated for brevity if it exceeds five sentences.

Also, just a reminder that, this Wednesday, September 2nd, at noon ET (11:00am CT, 9:00am PT) our EDRM September monthly webinar of cases covered by the eDiscovery Today blog will discuss cases related to cooperation disputes, including disputes related to in camera review, boilerplate objections, forensic analysis and search terms and more!  And, it includes Tom O’Connor (Director of the Gulf Legal Technology Center), Mary Mack (CEO and Chief Legal Technologist of EDRM) and Craig Ball, President of Craig D. Ball, P.C.!  Click here to register – don’t miss it!

So, what do you think?  Did you attend this year’s virtual ILTA<ON?  Then, please send me your feedback about the conference!  Otherwise, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.