Legal Commentary

Anne Kershaw and Joseph Howie report that their "Judges Guide to Cost-Effective E-Discovery" is hot off the cyber-press, just in time for next week's Georgetown Advanced E-Discovery Institute. Kershaw is president of the nonprofit eDiscovery Institute, the publisher of the handbook that is available online at www.eDiscoveryInstitute.org and is being distributed in print to 500-plus U.S. magistrate judges. Howie is director of metrics development and communication.

The guide is designed to provide judges with information on cost-reduction processes, to help them make decisions when confronted with arguments from counsel. Lawyers, says Kershaw, often overstate cost or burden because they don't know about, or fail to use, proven processes that can significantly lessen the workload.

It also addresses ways to improve consistency of results, including de-duplication, e-mail threading, document categorization, predictive coding, etc.

Kershaw and Howie wrote our October issue cover story about predictive coding, and discussed that feature on our Law Technology Now podcast.