An informal and occasional selection of recent international eDisclosure / eDiscovery / GDPR / legal IT / data protection / information governance / interesting news / articles collated since 2011 by Jonathan Maas of The Maas Consulting Group in London. Simply pick and click from below.
These links are copied from a recent BONG! We BONG! most work days as an email to subscribers: anyone can email Jonathan@MaasConsultingGroup.com to subscribe / unsubscribe. Subscription is free.
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BONG!
If you want to save money on eDiscovery, you can (Exterro: Tim Rollins) https://maas-bong.io/2VUZcNJ
“We believe that, for many organisations, in-sourcing eDiscovery operations and implementing an eDiscovery platform make good sense. The benefits are clear-cut and real."
BONG!
Innovation and change are up to us (LinkedIn: Matt Fawcett [NetApp]) https://maas-bong.io/2VWmWBl
"Most GCs are products of BigLaw, so we are most comfortable working in this model. We complain about cost overruns and mismanaged billing surprises, but we go along with it because it is what we have always known. We know how to navigate inside that model. So we bear a big share of the responsibility for perpetuating it."
BONG!
Six lessons (Colin Levy) https://maas-bong.io/2VUKmHk
"Lawyers are not magicians. Lawyers do not perform magic. The time has come to open up the curtain. To share what we know. To share how we do what we do. To teach others and to learn from others. To innovate."
BONG!
Winners: Innovation Awards 2019 (Legal Week) https://maas-bong.io/2VRiX9b
"The Awards, now in their fifth year, ... celebrate outstanding achievement within the profession. By recognising exceptional achievement and best practice, they underline the crucial role played by lawyers working in tandem with colleagues in other disciplines such as marketing, business development, finance, IT, project management, operations, PR and recruitment in the promotion of innovation."
BONG!
Civil procedure back to basics 46: How to instruct counsel: Hints and tips from the internet (Civil Litigation Brief: Gordon Exall QC) https://maas-bong.io/2VSdGy8
"There is an ongoing debate on Twitter about 'how to instruct counsel’. More particularly, the problems caused by ‘instructions' being sent in a chain of emails (or other electronic communication) with major difficulties in finding the documents. Alternatively, instructions are sent in a file which is, inevitably, broken. There is some useful guidance available online."
BONG!
Government algorithm use growing, regulation needed: Study (Nine to Noon) https://maas-bong.io/2VSr8BT
"The increasing use of artificial intelligence by [New Zealand's] government agencies has researchers calling for more oversight."
BONG!
Ramadan in Mideast is for fasting and Facebook, data shows (AP News: Aya Batrawy) https://maas-bong.io/2VWrmrV
"The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with its long days of fasting and prayer meant to draw worshippers closer to God and away from worldly distractions, is being reshaped by technology."
BONG!
Something's stirring up business development in the legal industry (Microsoft) https://maas-bong.io/2VUKyWT
"There's a new way of winning business in professional services: It's more scalable, more systematic, and entirely measurable. And it's helping the most innovative law firms run circles around their competitors."
BONG!
Let’s get down to the “business" of law and the role of non-lawyers [Yuck!] (The Legal Intelligencer: Jessica Mazzeo) https://maas-bong.io/2VYq933
"Today, being effective at ‘lawyering' does not always equate with being a successful lawyer as there is now much more involved in what is now known as the business of law."
BONG!
It's all Belgian fries to me: The art of multilingual eDisclosure (Part I) (Inventus: Jérôme Torres-Lozano) https://maas-bong.io/2VUASfd
"The rise in global commerce has seen an increase in cross-border litigation, arbitration and compliance investigations, which has, in turn, meant that the industry has had to develop or tweak existing technical and human solutions to deal with the processing, keyword searching, the review and potential translation of documents for these types of legal matters."
A selection of upcoming and potentially interesting live webinars / webcasts
29 May 1300 EDT Everything in moderation: Proportionality in eDiscovery (XDD) https://maas-bong.io/2J3NZaO
30 May 1200 EDT Bias in the age of the algorithm (IEEE TechEthics) https://maas-bong.io/2VUqWlN
05 Jun 1500 BST Legal IT security: Keeping reputation, data and money secure (Eze Castle Integration) https://maas-bong.io/2VQJUcY
06 Jun 1300 ET Your eDiscovery processes: How do you measure up? (ACEDS / Epiq / Exterro) https://maas-bong.io/2UPJx1K
17 Jun 1700 BST Legal tech, more than hype? (University of St Gallen) https://maas-bong.io/2W7IrDh
18 Jun 1300 ET Why your eDiscovery billing process is leaving money on the table (ACEDS / Logikcull) https://maas-bong.io/2VMyKGk
19 Jun 1300 ET How to keep your review from going off the rails (ACEDS / Kutak Rock / Catalyst) https://maas-bong.io/2LGIm5u
20 Jun 1300 ET Five steps to improve your eDiscovery outcomes (ACEDS / LDM Global) https://maas-bong.io/2ViJMCB
02 Jul 1230 BST Cybercrime in 2019 (LexisNexis) https://maas-bong.io/2QJPfQQ
Let me know of any upcoming webinar / webcast you'd like to see included in this list.
Still not ready for the GDPR (really??)? Ask us about
www.trust-hub.com, the best tool for assessing, achieving
and maintaining your GDPR compliance
("'one to watch' in 2017": Cyber Security Awards 2017).
By the way, we have noticed that sometimes the links we compile above have registration/paywall information inserted between the referenced site and you. At the time we compose these emails there are no such distractions so we can only assume sites randomly impose registration/payment requirements on links to them. We apologise in advance as my intention is to give you all untrammelled access to this information.
(Incidentally, and for those outside the UK (or in the UK but without televisions), BONG! is a reference to the main evening TV news in the UK, on which headlines are read out between strikes (bongs) of the now-silent Big Ben, the bell in the Elizabeth Tower (renamed from the Clock Tower in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee) at the Palace of Westminster. (You can thank a particularly persistent pedant early on in the life of the BONG! for this rather precise explanation.)
©️ 2016-9 | The Maas Consulting Group Ltd
©️ all photographs 2016-9 | Jonathan Maas
BONG!
(28 May 2019)
View Jonathan Maas'
Welcome to the web site of The Maas Consulting Group. We specialise in working with lawyers, IT people and suppliers, negotiating, delivering cost-effective solutions, writing, speaking, listening, hearing, attention to detail, humour, determination, tact and diplomacy, project management, encouraging the best out of people, removing problems, team work and getting things done.
Who we are
The Maas Consulting Group is led by Jonathan Maas, a renowned paper and electronic discovery/disclosure veteran with an unparalleled 36 years experience in the field: 28 years in international law firms and eight years in international consultancies. Jonathan speaks and writes on the subject widely and has been involved in developing civil procedure in England & Wales to respond to the modern demands of litigating in the digital age.
Jonathan’s métier is acting as a verbal or written bridge between technical experts and lay people, whether it’s conveying complex technology concepts to a legal audience or explaining matters of detailed legal procedure to IT specialists. He has the ability to unite diverse teams to complete discovery exercises as cost- and time-effectively as possible. In this way he has delivered numerous successful projects for national and international businesses and local and central government. This translates into extremely experienced and empathetic support for lawyers and IT professionals.
His experience of identifying, collecting, classifying and acting on data in the legal environments of investigations and disputes continues to add value in the current environment of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Information Governance and preparations for the UK to leave the European Union (BREXIT). Sound and defensible data management is more important in business than it has ever been.
Jonathan has also researched and implemented computer systems in law firms for the purposes of library and know-how management, litigation support, costs budgeting, collaborative working and more.
At a glance, since 1982 Jonathan has worked at:
Hogan Lovells
Simmons & Simmons
The Litigation Support Company
DLA Piper
EY
Huron Legal
Consilio
Maas Consulting Group
This is the home of the BONG! Jonathan regularly sends out a popular daily email alert (see to the right, his “BONG!”) to subscribers, containing brief snippets of interesting and current discovery, GDPR, legal technology and other news. Every weekend The Project Counsel Group sends out curated selections from that week's BONGs to an international distribution list of some 12,000 individuals, from Swiss paralegals to US judges. Also, every month Jonathan distills the more important eDiscovery news from that month's BONGs into a column - "ICYMI" (In Case You Missed It) - for Legal IT Insider, with a brief note putting each selected item into context.
Although based in London Jonathan has set up and managed case teams in Australia, Bermuda, France and Hong Kong.
Click here for information about some example projects from Jonathan's long career.