From e-Discovery Team:
Robert Pirsig spent a good deal of time on his motorcycle in the 1970s contemplating the metaphysics of quality. In my own way, I’ve been on a similar quixotic mission for at least the past eight years — in search of “quality” in the e-discovery search space. This particular quest for the Holy Grail has involved seeking out the perfect search where one finds “just” highly relevant documents in response to a FRCP 34 document request, or, as a matter of early case assessment, “just” the hot documents one needs to win the case. I’ve searched the world over for answers, and along the way decided that I had been asking the wrong question.
At one time, I thought I knew what the problem was, and what the information retrieval “task” should be to overcome the problem. The problem, I thought, was simply the naïve use of keywords. Or at least, the way lawyers naively think about keywords when going about the task of searching for electronic evidence. I think many lawyers still practice with the assumption that using simple keywords, without more, to find responsive ESI is sufficient to get them through the day in dealing with their e-discovery obligations. While this remains a problem, it is not in my view the problem. And the task is not simply to try to “beat Boolean” with other search methods.
Members Gain Free Access to Nation’s Smartest Legal Research Tools
Washington, DC (February 1, 2011) — Legal publisher Fastcase and the District of Columbia Bar Association today announced a partnership that will provide all active and judicial members of the D.C. Bar with free access to the Washington, D.C. libraries in Fastcase’s comprehensive online legal research system.
Beginning February 1, 2011, more than 70,000 attorneys will receive free and unlimited access to one of the nation’s largest law libraries through the D.C. Bar website, www.dcbar.org. The service is unrestricted by time or number of transactions, and unlimited printing, reference assistance, and customer service are included for free.
The D.C. Bar is one of the nation’s largest bar associations, representing almost 10 percent of all attorneys in the United States. Its partnership with Fastcase reflects the Bar’s commitment to providing its members with outstanding services that enhance their practice.
“The D.C. Bar is excited to announce this new benefit and free resource for our members,” said Katherine Mazzaferri, Chief Executive Officer of the D.C. Bar. “Our members range from local solo and small firm attorneys to global law firm leaders, so offering free access to Fastcase is a valuable benefit that our entire membership can appreciate.”
Members will get free access to Fastcase’s D.C. law libraries, as well as the ability to subscribe individually to the Fastcase nationwide Premium subscription for $195 per member per year (the service normally costs $1,140 per year). Law firms can get even larger discounts by subscribing to Fastcase’s Enterprise Edition.
“A member benefit like this is difficult to value, but comparable services cost at least $2,000 per attorney per year, making Fastcase worth more than $140 million per year to members of the D.C. Bar,” said Ed Walters, Fastcase CEO. “Fastcase’s approach to research harnesses the power of smarter research tools. We can provide better service at high volumes, which makes partnerships like the D.C. Bar such an effective win-win proposition.”
With the addition of the D.C. Bar partnership, Fastcase now provides free premium legal research to more than 500,000 subscribers, in dozens of AmLaw 200 law firms, 20 state bar associations and dozens of voluntary bar associations and law schools.
“That makes Fastcase by far the largest legal research service outside of Westlaw and LexisNexis,” said Phil Rosenthal, Fastcase President. “Fastcase is larger than Loislaw and Bloomberg Law combined. And those numbers are paid subscribers only — they don’t include users of Fastcase’s award-winning, free mobile apps.”
Fastcase was founded 11 years ago by two attorneys seeking to democratize the law and build smarter tools for legal research. Fastcase has gained overwhelming support from state bar associations, many of which have upgraded to Fastcase from LexisNexis, Casemaker, and Versuslaw in the last year.
“We’re excited to work with the D.C. Bar,” said Rosenthal. “We are a D.C.-based company, and have spent countless hours practicing law on the same side of the desk as many of the D.C. Bar members, so we understand the importance of saving time, keeping costs competitive, and using the right tool for the job.”
Fastcase has gained very strong momentum in the legal research market in 2010. Fastcase was voted #1 in Law Technology News’s inaugural Customer Satisfaction Survey, finishing first in 7 out of 10 categories over traditional research providers Westlaw and LexisNexis. Fastcase’s free apps for iPhone and iPad have dominated the category, winning the prestigious New Product of the Year award from the American Association of Law Libraries. And Fastcase joined Apple, Google, Twitter, and others in the prestigious EContent 100 listing of companies that matter most in the digital economy.
About Fastcase
As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 500,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.fastcase.com.
About The District of Columbia Bar
Created by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1972, the District of Columbia Bar is the second largest unified bar association in the United States. The D.C. Bar’s core functions, supported by member dues, are the registration of lawyers, operation of a lawyer disciplinary system, maintenance of a Clients’ Security Fund, and certain other administrative operations. The D.C. Bar serves over 95,000 member attorneys, which represents nearly 10 percent of all attorneys in the United States. For more information, visit www.dcbar.org.
We here at nSourceIT would like to congratulate our friends at Adduci Mastriani & Schaumberg on another stellar year before the International Trade Commission.
From Lifehacker: ”There are lots of ways to fix a wayward, crash-prone Android, whether you’re watching your processes or very carefully managing tasks. But sometimes things just seem generally, generically busted. That’s when it’s time to give your phone the factory reset.
Tech site Tested writes an informative piece on all the things you can do to avoid running your phone through a factory reset, but eventually comes around to noting that, through dumb luck, it’s occasionally unavoidable.”
From PDF for Lawyers: ”Here are some newsworthy items that relate to PDFs or Acrobat, or just plain old ‘being paperless’:
From the New York Law Journal: ”The costs associated with the discovery of electronically stored information continue to increase at unknown rates. While much of the discussion regarding costs centers on those associated with accessing, reviewing, and producing ESI, an oft-overlooked but (in many cases) significant driver of the high price of discovery are the [...]
