Kitchen Sink for January 16

The Kitchen Sink for January 16, 2026: Legal Tech Trends

This week’s kitchen sink for January 16, 2026 (with meme from Gates Dogfish) discusses Dr. Phil & allegations of deleted texts, who’s winning and losing the AI race, the musical Tilly Norwood & more!

Why “the kitchen sink”? Find out here! 🙂

The Kitchen Sink is even better when you can include a brand-new eDiscovery meme courtesy of Gates Dogfish, the meme channel dedicated to eDiscovery people and created by Aaron Patton. For more great eDiscovery memes, follow Gates Dogfish on LinkedIn here! You can do it, sweetie! Just… try not to set anything on fire. (Hey, it’s the cleanest quote I could find!) 🤣

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Here is the kitchen sink for January 16 of ten-ish stories that I didn’t get to this week, with a comment from me about each:

We’re up to 807 AI hallucination cases and counting (including this one we suggested)! As I discussed in this post, here’s what’s causing all these AI hallucinations and how to fix it, IMHO.

AI Hallucinations, Sanctions, and Context: What a Florida Disciplinary Case Really Teaches: Speaking of AI hallucinations, Judge Ralph Artigliere does a great job discussing a disciplinary case on the EDRM blog where he notes “discipline works best when it is anchored in context and culpability.” He also reiterates the terrific four-pillar approach developed by Professor Bill Hamilton for courts and disciplinary bodies to assess AI-related misconduct.

Media Reports “Dr. Phil accused of deleting incriminating texts amid bankruptcy filing….”; Accusation is Disputed: Michael Berman covers this case on the EDRM blog while acknowledging he unable to find the court’s decision on Westlaw (apparently, because it was an oral ruling). If the allegations are true, I have one question for Dr. Phil: “How’s that workin’ for ya?” 🤣

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The Grok Stress Test: Global Regulators Confront AI Sexual Deepfakes: Rob Robinson covers the scandal regarding “X-rated” (my pun, not his) deepfake images of women and minors created by Grok and shared on X. Finally, yesterday, they announced on X that they “have implemented technological measures” to keep this from happening. Victims say the change has come too late to undo the harm already done.

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error: What the flock?!? 😉 A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. The data has been turned into a searchable tool on a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which says it has data on more than 2.3 million license plates and tens of millions of Flock searches. Oy.

Is AI coming for your job? Here’s one labor indicator that could soothe your fears: Hey, at least one report is downplaying the job replacement panic: a Forrester report finds that AI could replace only 6% of US jobs by 2030. Of course, that’s still 10 million jobs. Whomp, whomp! 😉

Gemini is winning: As this author notes, Gemini appears to have everything it needs to take down OpenAI and everyone else and discusses what that is. Apple has certainly bought into that – they announced that Gemini will power the next-generation Siri that’s coming later this year.

This Is What Convinced Me OpenAI Will Run Out of Money: If Google is the Crimson Tide, does that make OpenAI “Deacon Blues”? 🤣 This guy says: “The probable result is that OpenAI will be absorbed by Microsoft, Amazon or another cash-rich behemoth” and that “OpenAI’s investors would take a hit.” Ouch.

Carvana and the New Hyperlink Fight: “Contemporaneous” Isn’t Automatic—It’s Earned: Clever title for Kelly Twigger’s coverage of the United Ass’n Nat’l Pension Fund v. Carvana ruling that happened this week. Turns out that discovery of contemporaneous hyperlinked files is hard! Who knew? 😉

Six key steps for stakeholder engagement: Terrific article – the title explains the topic. Don’t want to read it? There’s an even better infographic at the top that spells it out for you!

Is Sienna Rose AI? All signs point to ‘yes’: What in the name of Tilly Norwood is going on here? Now, it’s a neo-soul “musician” named Sienna Rose, whose biography describes her as “an anonymous neo-soul singer whose music blends the elegance of classic soul with vulnerability of modern R&B.” No real artist wants to be anonymous, just sayin’.

The Shrinking Giants: How Small Language Models Are Rewiring Corporate Security and Legal Strategy: Rob Robinson is thinking “small” again with this terrific article about the advantages of Small Language Models (SLMs). I’m a big believer in the potential of SLMs – I’m glad Rob keeps highlighting their benefits!

Hope you enjoyed the kitchen sink for January 16, 2026! Back next week with another edition!

So, what do you think? Which story is your favorite one? 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 authors and speakers themselves, 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.


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