eDiscovery Daily Blog
The Forecast at Legaltech is Always (Word) Cloudy: eDiscovery Trends
Legalweek starts today, with Legaltech® starting in earnest tomorrow. The past couple of years, I have run the agenda through our CloudNine review software to generate a word cloud, but I didn’t really get a chance to do it up right this year. Fortunately, InsideLegal has done theirs again – for the ninth year in a row! Let’s take a look.
As you can see in the image above, there are a lot of words and phrases (you could almost call it a “phrase cloud” as well). Not surprisingly, words like “legal” and “technology” (because it’s Legaltech, duh!) are the biggest in the word cloud. We’ll also discount other words like “panel”, “session” and “new”. Some other notable other words and phrases:
- The word “analytics” appears a lot in the agenda (I have it as the seventh most often used word when running a straight word count using the agenda minus the list of speakers), so that seems to reflect the trend towards the use of analytics in legal technology;
- The word “privacy” appears a lot too – at least 18 times by my count. Add in hits for “General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)” and, not surprisingly, data privacy is a big topic this year, given all of the developments with regard to data privacy trends last year. And, we just had our first big GDPR fine!
- Of course, the terms “eDiscovery” and “discovery” hit a lot too. But, this year’s show just doesn’t feel as eDiscovery focused as in years past. Maybe it’s just my perception – what do you think?
- The term “risk” has a lot of hits as well. This is a term I expect to see more of in the coming years – along with “compliance” and “investigations”. If you’re wondering why, come to my NineForum session on Tuesday!
- And, of course, terms like “Artificial Intelligence” (or “AI”), “cloud”, “mobile devices”, “information governance” and even “Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)” register on the word cloud.
As always, the word cloud reflects some interesting trends at the show. Looks like fun! Here is a link to all of the word clouds Inside Legal has done over the last nine years.
Regardless, one thing that’s happening at the show for sure is that CloudNine will be at the show in a big way! Of course, we will have a booth in the exhibit hall (booth #310), but that’s not all. On Tuesday and Wednesday, CloudNine will launch its new NineForum Discovery Education Series where prominent and highly respected eDiscovery and litigation support experts will deliver 9 TED-style talks, 20 minutes each, covering important topics impacting the legal community. We’ve got a great list of eDiscovery thought leaders lined up for our first NineForum, so if you are at the show, come check it out. The schedule for the topics and speakers is available here.
Not only that, but on Wednesday from 4pm to 6pm is the 3rd annual Drinks with Doug (as in me!) and Mary (as in Mary Mack!), sponsored by ACEDS, CloudNine and Compliance Discovery Solutions. Believe it or not, you can still register here. We have a ton of people who have already registered and, trust me, you don’t want to be left out. We’re going to take over Ruth’s Chris Steak house. Seriously.
So, what do you think? Are you going to Legaltech this week? It starts tomorrow! Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine 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 Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.