| eDiscovery
Solutions Group CEO Speaks on Current Status of the eDiscovery and
the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Markets
Information technology management veteran predicts a
paradigm shift and convergence of technology and services to support
both eDiscovery and compliance markets within the next five years
Chicago, Illinois August 31, 2009 - eDiscovery
Solutions Group announced today that Charles Skamser, the
company’s Founder and CEO, spoke on the current status of the
eDiscovery and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) markets at a
Chicago area luncheon for litigators and global information
management professionals on July 31, 2009.
Mr. Skamser, Founder and CEO of eDiscovery Solutions Group,
started out his speech by listing what he called, “the known
truths about Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and eDiscovery.”
- eDiscovery is not that complicated
- eDiscovery is too expensive
- eDiscovery will be brought back into the IT departments of
the Global 2000
- There will be a convergence of eDiscovery and GRC technology
and management
- Most eDiscovery and GRC solutions will be cloud based in 10
years
Mr. Skamser went on to talk about how the increase in the
volume of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) has perpetuated
the dawn of a new technology era in litigation.
“Even though most lawyers ignored the advent of the integrated
circuit and the subsequent introduction of the personal computer in
the 1980s, evidence collection and processing has been slowly going
through a paradigm shift from paper based evidence to electronic
evidence,” stated Charles Skamser, Founder and CEO of eDiscovery
Solutions Group. “However, with the accelerating volume of
Electronically Stored Information (ESI) surpassing anyone’s
expectations, it is now fool hardy for even the most stayed and
cautious litigator to not realize that the game, and more
importantly the technology of litigation, has changed,” continued
Mr. Skamser. “As a result of this eDiscovery paradigm shift,
it is time for the Global 2000 to get serious about managing ESI for
eDiscovery and GRC,” stated Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser went on to claim that the attempt by law firms and
many litigation service providers to utilize eDiscovery technology
has failed and as a result corporations worldwide are bringing
eDiscovery processing in house.
“Over the past three years, I have heard a common message of
dismay from many of the partners from the top litigation law firms
in the country,” stated Mr. Skamser. “This common message
of dismay is that they went to law school and either started a firm
or joined a firm to practice law. And, one morning, several
years ago, they all woke up and found themselves managing a
technology company. It is my opinion that we would all be
better off if lawyers and law firms went back to being lawyers and
let the technology experts handle the technology,” added Mr.
Skamser. “The lawyers would be happier; the technologist
would be happier; and, most importantly, the clients would be
happier,” stated Mr. Skamser
Mr. Skamser next contended that eDiscovery is too expensive.
“A really good litigator is probably worth $400 or more per hour
when engaged in defending your company in a multi-million dollar
matter.” stated Mr. Skamser. “However, beyond the dynamics
of the free market economy, I have never been able to justify
spending $2,000 per gigabyte to find the ESI that is required to
respond to a request. Further, I have found very few
litigators and corporate counsel that could even explain what
exactly it was that they were getting for their $2,000.”,
continued Mr. Skamser. “The overall cost of identifying,
collecting, processing, reviewing and producing ESI has come down in
the past 12 months. However, it is still way too high and
still excludes many if not most from the legal system,” contends
Mr. Skamser. “Armed with a better understanding of what
eDiscovery technology does and what it should cost along with a new
crop of cloud based vendors with a much lower cost of production
that are willing to challenge the current cost structures, I predict
that the cost per gigabyte to process ESI will fall below $100 in
the coming years,” predicts Mr. Skamser. “At some point, you
should be able to push a couple of buttons and get a report on the
electronic evidence that you need to better understand and, if
required, support your matter,” added Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser next spoke about the technologies that he believes
will survive and thrive in the new eDiscovery and GRC marketplace.
“In general, when an industry goes into a paradigm shift, chaos
irrupts and creates opportunities for new technology and new players
to emerge. And, this is exactly what we have been seeing in
the litigation services, eDiscovery and GRC market,” stated Mr.
Skamser. “Up until 2007, there were only few major
technology players in the litigation services space and because
there wasn’t much competition, the market pretty much gave them a
pass and allowed them to get by with peddling out of date and
inferior technology at very high prices. Further, there was
very little integration between the various core component
technologies required to process data,” added Mr. Skamser.
“This was great for the vendors that had a strangle hold on the
market. But, not so good for clients and not so good for the
industry as a whole.” “This all began to change in late
2007 about the same time that the changes to the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure went in to effect. I believe that it was a
coincidence that this all happened at about the same time.
However, the changes to the rules may have at least added some
creditability to the notion that dealing with ESI was going to be
much different than dealing with paper.”
Mr. Skamser went on to predict that there would be a
convergence of eDiscovery and GRC technology.
“Given the requirement that both eDiscovery and Governance, Risk
and Compliance (GRC) need to have access to all of the ESI that an
organization creates; and, given the fact that both eDiscovery and
GRC need to be able to examine and act on the most granular ESI
available; and, given the fact that it is much more efficient in
both eDiscovery and GRC to be proactive instead of reactive, I
predict that eDiscovery and GRC technology will converge into a
single integrated solution,” predicts Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser went on to predict that Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) and cloud based computing will become the technology of
choice for both eDiscovery and GRC.
“Regardless of what many of the so called industry experts are
saying about the dangers of cloud computing and SaaS based
solutions, the security sky isn’t falling. And, I predict
that within 5 years most, if not all eDiscovery and GRC solutions
will rely on SaaS and cloud based computing infrastructure,”
stated Mr. Skamser. “There is just too much technical and
investment momentum for it to go any other direction. So,
although I am not a investment guru, I would suspect that an
investment in anything SaaS and/or cloud based for eDiscovery and/or
GRC will end up paying big dividends,” added Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser next commented that he believes that the technical
support of eDiscovery and GRC will become the responsibility of the
information technology groups within the enterprise.
“Litigation services and now eDiscovery have created a financial
boondoggle for law firms and litigation and eDiscovery service
providers throughout the world over the past five years,” contends
Mr. Skamser. “As a result, the cost of eDiscovery has
remained high and there has been a real disconnect in expectations
between clients, outside counsel, general counsel, internal IT
departments and the service providers,” added Mr. Skamser.
“Further, when you put into perspective the fact that the average
multinational corporation faces more than 150 lawsuits per year,
eDiscovery. Add to that the fact that corporations collectively
spent several billions of dollars on electronic review and you have
an issue that requires watching. It becomes crucial to better
understand these processes and to learn where you can cut costs
effectively. As a result, I predict that that technical
support and management of eDiscovery and GRC will become the
responsibility of the information technology groups within the
enterprise with General Counsel having more direct responsibility
and outside counsel taking on more of a consulting role,”
continued Mr. Skamser. “This doesn’t mean that the
litigation services, eDiscovery technology vendor and eDiscovery
consulting market is going to go away. It just means that they
are going to take on more of a consultative role supporting the
internal operations of the enterprise,” added Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser next spoke about his views of the current
contraction in the number of players in the eDiscovery technology
vendor community.
“Although I didn’t have any more than experience from other
technology industries, personal observation of the litigation
services industry and anecdotal evidence to back up my claim, I
predicted early last year that as with any other technology industry
that is in a throws of a paradigm shift, the eDiscovery technology
and services market would suffer aggressive contractions with
mergers, acquisitions and a large number of vendors going out of
business,” stated Mr. Skamser. “Late 2008 and 2009 have
proven my prediction correct as litigation services and the
eDiscovery technology industry have both been hit hard by natural
contraction and the downturn in the economy. And, even though
most of the companies that took hits during this contraction would
contend that it was due to the downturn in the economy, I contend
that the eDiscovery market as a whole is actually still expanding
and therefore any casualties had old technology, lack of industry
understanding, poor customer service or all of the above to blame
for their demise,” added Mr. Skamser. “And, even though I
have my doubts about the theories of evolution in general, the
current state of the eDiscovery market is s perfect example of
survival of the fittest. As a result, we are now entering a
time when the options will be the best of what’s left,”
continued Mr. Skamser.
Mr. Skamser next indicated that industry wide standards and
professional certifications would be the key to the long term
stability and success of the eDiscovery and GRC markets.
“Having spent most of my career helping IT professionals from the
Global 2000 utilize leading edge and disruptive software technology
to attain business objectives, I am very familiar with the power of
industry standards and professional certifications,” stated Mr.
Skamser. “The quicker the leaders from within the eDiscovery
and GRC markets establish and enforce both standards and
certifications, the quicker we will begin to see a normalization
effect that will enable the entire industry to move forward in a
more coherent way,” he continued.
Mr. Skamser finished his speech by indicating that, although
there is lots of chaos and a shortage of answers, it is a very
exciting time to be involved in the eDiscovery and GRC markets.
“I hope that my speech today didn’t paint a negative picture of
eDiscovery and GRC or leave you confused in regards to how to
successfully navigate the rough waters of eDiscovery and GRC,”
stated Mr. Skamser. “On the contrary, I hope that you are
encouraged by the prospects of what lies before us and can see the
light of success at the end of this tunnel,” added Mr. Skamser.
About eDiscovery Solutions Group
eDiscovery Solutions Group is an international consortium of leading
independent eDiscovery consultants, eDiscovery consulting
firms, regional litigation service providers and best-in-class
eDiscovery technology companies that have come together to provide
all of the services, consulting and technology necessary to support
the entire eDiscovery lifecycle for the legal departments of
corporations, the IT departments of corporations that need to
support eDiscovery requirements and litigation centric law firms.
With a growing consortium of partners worldwide, eDiscovery
Solutions Group offers a broad array of eDiscovery consulting,
services and technology along with project management to support the
entire eDiscovery lifecycle. Following the eDiscovery
processing paradigm of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM),
eDiscovery Solutions Group has developed an eDiscovery best
practices framework that includes consulting, collection, analysis,
processing, production, review and presentation.
Within this framework, the eDiscovery Solutions Group can deliver
data retention policy, development, data archiving, eSecurity,
eCompliance, eDiscovery readiness, strategic planning,
implementation support, paper and ESI collection, investigations,
expert testimony, data recovery, computer forensics, early
case assessment, data analysis, data redundancy management,
conceptual search, de-dupe, near de-dupe, scanning, copying, coding,
language translation, EDD, TIFF conversion, hosting, on-site,
on-shore and off-shore review, legal process outsourcing (LPO),
courtroom graphics and presentations, tool training, systems
integration and custom solutions. For more information about
eDiscovery Solutions Group, please visit: http://www.ediscoverysolutionsgroup.com/.
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