Cataphora…Yummy! Part I

I’m in love with H5 and not just because of their killer website and name that has more cowbell than I can handle, but I also am having special moments with Cataphora.

In the run up to the Sedona Conference, I’m taking another look at legal tech from the perspective of what lawyers really need and I’m pretty sure that the teeny weeny email application I’m writing (prototype due out at the end of the summer) is on the right track.

That being said, Cataphora really does have the right approach and are FIXING IT! “It” being the way search and retrieval of meaningful content is and ought to be done.

So, understand their mission, if you choose to accept it (and you should):

Defining principle

Cataphora’s success and very existence are based upon one defining principle. This arose from a conceptual breakthrough that was simply stated, yet proved to be radical in its practical effects. This idea was that, in order to truly understand a document, you have to know about the circumstances in which it arose. In other words, you have to understand its context.

The negative

Ok, they’re a bit … oh, I don’t know whiny and snarky,

Trustworthiness is a core value in the legal marketplace and at Cataphora. We strongly recommend examining all vendor claims carefully. One way to do that is by looking at how their website used to look. The Wayback Machine makes that easy – just go here and enter the URL for the vendor in which you are interested.

I mean, really! Who CARES what a website looked like in the Wayback Machine?! Is this really part of the E-DISCOVERY dog/pony show to which unsuspecting clients are subjected? Didn’t think so.

If that’s the standard, then most legal tech projects would be doomed, because when some of us were using computers in litigation, some others of us were still in high school counting spots. And, of course, some others of us were practicing law and making googobs of money (ahem!). Besides, an appearance on the Brewster Kahle show is not really an indicator of algorithmic quality. It just means you’re lucky, really smart or have your own private Tardis.

OK, so I don’t think Cataphora folks are lucky. I think they’re really, really smart. Buuuut, it’s not exactly rocket science. Maybe it was 10 years ago, but not any more. Ever looked at Digg Labs?

Two Patents? Hmmm. Gotta think about that one.

I’ve read both, but now I’d better look at the pictures, because this is one area where I’m pretty sure there’s so much out there now that these patents may not hold much water. Not a huge fan of business method patents anyway, but when they involve stuff that seems to be open-sourced to the hilt, it gives me pause.

I could be so incredibly wrong, so I’ll take another look, but at first blush, what they write about on the site seems right out of Collective Intelligence, a book I keep next to the bedside, cuz I’m that much of a dork.

Back to the Positive

But, Elizabeth Charnock, the founder of Cataphora is a much bigger dork, said with all sorts of love, so I think worship might still be in order.

Plus, she’s a girl, and that makes her AWESOME! And, a little scary.

I love Cataphora because….

they “get” the wisdom of letting computers do what they do best. And, computers don’t really care whether you have 1 or 2 terabytes. Which means that you can leave your data unculled, and the computer will keep chugging along.

Not only that, but once the data has been marked as “non-responsive,” it can still be used for all sorts of things. Like weighting. And, making your useful dataset searching smarter. Wanna know how? I bet you do!

Call me! No, really: call me.

So, let’s get real: [ bold statement ] there’s absolutely NO real reason to cull ESI ! [ /bold statement ]

I found this really HYSTERICAL presentation the other day entitled The Real Cost of Privilege Review ( and here) and all it did was make me think of lollipops. Read it and weep.

I want to know who out there is wasting soooo much money…so I can sign them up as clients, because this sort of process is so yesterday, even your 10-yr old could probably re-engineer it to get better and more cost-effective results. I mean, hasn’t anyone ever played pick up sticks???

So, why am I adamant that people stop culling? Because it’s like trying to speak French without any understanding of grammar.

To be more precise, I’m advocating that lawyers stop culling at the first tier, as if their lives depended upon a massive reduction in terabytes. I’m suggesting that culling ought to be done by the computer, and that valuable metadata (in a really, really board sense) ought to be retained until the end of the project. I’m intimating that the document corpus is a body and it’s integrity depends upon the entirety of its members.

In other words, in Cataphora-lingo:

Cataphora is the first and only provider to develop deep analytics (not mere data statistics or simple email widgets) that give insight into the facts expressed by the ESI dataset. True analytics can (among many other things) detect individual and organizational “heartbeats” and de facto organizational substructures, evaluate typical versus anomalous behavior, assess consistency and variation in an organization’s processes, and detect patterns of data deletion.

If you’ve got lawyers doing the culling and searching, here’s yer sign: you’re going about it the wrong way. It’s like taking a hachet to an old growth forest of oak with no appreciation for the vital role played by acorns.

I say, hire yourself a legally-trained person who knows about taxonomies and understands the difference between DATA, INFORMATION and ARGUMENT.

Lawyers, do not. Not unless they’ve taken “Data 101.” They usually work bass ackwards and try to squeeze everything into theory, instead of first trying to understand what they’ve got.

This is where Cataphora’s mission is key: understand the forest before you start cutting trees.

Thus, sayeth the Mighty Snarker, thereby ending-eth the lesson!

The State of Document Review

No, it’s not a Second Life island.

It’s doc review and it’s being held under the microscope this past week.

Disclaimer

I do doc reviews. I like doc reviews.

And, yes, I’ve practiced law,–corporate, criminal, legal services, international, state, federal, appellate…blah, blah, blah! And that, more than any other reason, is why doc review is just fine by me.

And, yes, like many others, I do doc reviews because I have an ulterior motive. Eh…I want to master the Art of the Doc Review.

• Do I worry about finding a job? Sometimes…but then again, there aren’t that many experienced Japanese business fluent U.S.-licensed attorneys willing to do document reviews. So, eh, I feel pretty OK with my little contribution to international dispute resolution.
• Do I particularly care about who will win the case ? Nope. Not my job.
• Do I stay up late at night worrying about my metrics? Nope! If they tell me to slow down or change the way I code, I will.
• Do I miss making lots of money? Duh! But, there are other things in life and getting paid to dork out on doc review software while moving the mouse now and then sure beats *working* for a living!

No…I’m one of those oddballs who does the Time Warp inside my head every time a new Japanese Document Review listing hits Craig’s List…more on that later.

State of Document Review

Ok, so what is the State of Document Review?

First, I would say that in terms of hiring lawyers to do the work…that’s almost near the end. But, there’s a shift that will happen that will save a few…more on this later.

Between technology and outsourcing, American lawyers will soon be completely ghettoized to the point where it makes no sense to continue to pay bar dues.

The question is whether the firms will continue to support the downward spiral in document review wages…and whether attorneys will continue to accept them after the markets pick up and clients get litigation happy feet once again.

If the ABA and other organizations step in with a stimulus package (“Document Review is The Practice Of Law”), that will slow the hemorrhage, but that’s about it. New lawyers already have nowhere to go and they’re not, therefore, as able to stay competitive when the rent man comes calling.

The professionalization of document review, in my mind, therefore, is a good thing. But, only if the rates go back up.

Oh sure, we’ll always have small firms that can take on the big firms when they need taking on, but like that partner from Heller said recently,

“For less than $100 a month, we have all the capability we had at Heller,” Kim said. “For a small, three-person shop to have the big-firm capabilities that five to six years ago you could only get at a huge shop is a cool thing.“

What worries me is that there are so many people out of work now…what are they going ot do in the short term when teh rainmaking was down to partners like Kim adn they never got the chance to build their own client base?

Second, my prediction is that law as we know it in America is going to be re-imagined in a major way. It has already started with Obama’s transparency program. There’s nothing the big firms, solo practitioners or the ABA can do about it, because contrary to popular opinion, law is NOT rocket science. In fact, there’s very little science involved: it’s mostly method. And, computers are very, very good at methods.

Which brings me to my final point for now…

Third, it’s the technology, stupid! There are some VERY cool companies and products out there that are making legal tasks magnificently easy. There’s cutting edge work being done in document review, which will have a trickle sideways effect on the rest of legal practice. Just you wait and see!!

Have you read Serge and Brin’s thesis “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine“?

I HAVE! And, it’s still effin’ brilliant, because it has given people permission to conceptualize data-related tasks, sort of like one of those massive firecrackers on July 4th that keeps going and going until the next one and you never get a break in the action, so you’re never sure where one ends and another begins.

[ Oh geeze. Do NOT google firecracker images. Just don't. ]

Throw in a few lines of Bekkerman and the implications are not even 1/2 fulfilled, as far as law is concerned. So, colleagues of mine: hold onto your hats!

Companies with CRAP interfaces better hold onto their lunches, though, because companies like H5 and Mimosa are taking things to the next level.

These companies truly rock. Why? Because the stuff they’re doing is me + $10 million dollars. What’s not to like?!

Richard Susskind’s New Book

Richard Susskind’s new book “The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services” is making the rounds, and it’s a must read.

I wrote all sorts of notes on his last ones, which I’ll upload when I get the chance since at least one volume is over there on the shelf, but chances are, the foreward on the new book will have something like “Oh, well, Yes, I *did* write a book on legal technology several years ago…but this is the book you should now read.” So, why not start there and I’ll drag up the other stuff later.

To be honest, on the whole, I thought his original model was…er…eh…not all that brilliant. I actually said so in a presentation I gave to the PHP Works! conference in Toronto and got away with it, because PHP5 was much more exciting than legal software.

In other words, the programmers there didn’t give a sh*t about legal software as a service (as it is now called) even though I jumped up and down and said how cool legal tech could be delivered over the Internet…I think some of them were just happy to see a girl who wasn’t there just for lunch [sigh].

It was a good presentation…not it wasn’t…but it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen. Anyway, no sense being embarrassed: I’ll try to find at least the PDF of the slides and post it. I think I sent it to M. Susskind way back then, so I might as well stand by it!

Maybe Susskind’s work was seminal,–but then again, lots of things are seminal. That doesn’t make them right. I guess the main problem I had was that it was what I’d call “top down analysis.” I’m pretty sure I also thought the economics was off, because in my experience, the differentiator for big firms was not the technology (rapidly being brought to the average attrney), but the ability to marc=shall resources to GET THINGS DONE by throwing bodies and consolidating influence.

But, who am I? Nobody. So, get the book and judge for yourself! Oh, and read the review by the Adam Smith, Esq. Blog for an idea of what you’re getting into.

Then, come on back and argue with me!

Not much use to those of us in the trenches envisioning the tools that lawyers could use. See, the problem with any book about legal technology is that it’s old before it makes it to the bookshelves.

And, in the early 2000s, it would have been old before the final edit, because things on the ground were moving at the speed of a Yahoo yodel.

So, I’ve two books to read somehow in the next few months (hopefully I’ll get a BRIEF…a few weeks is all I want… breather between projects).

Then, we can have a nice chat about the “State of Document Review.”