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.
Don't forget to visit our BONG! archive. All our BONG! items are available and searchable (via your web browser). Thought you saw it? Now you can search for it!
BONG!
The 2018 Litigation and Practice Support Technology Survey results (ILTA) https://maas-bong.io/2UVIaPh
"It's clear that the role of the eDiscovery professional is changing, as evidenced by the articles in this white paper which shed light on the additional knowledge and skills required to remain current."
BONG!
90 percent of law firms managed social media evidence collections in 2018 (X1 Discovery) https://maas-bong.io/2UQTWuc
ILTA's "very informative and comprehensive law firm eDiscovery practice survey [see above] received responses from 181 different law firms - small, medium and large - on a variety of subjects, including eDiscovery practice trends and software tool usage. It reveals three key takeaways regarding social media and website discovery."
BONG!
Will Google’s "Document Understanding AI" move the market? (Artificial Lawyer) https://maas-bong.io/2UR576d
"Some stories hit the headlines like a tornado, others seep into public consciousness over several weeks. The news about Google now offering extraction and analysis of unstructured data from contracts is of the latter variety. But will it make an impact, will it shake up the legal AI market?"
BONG!
Active learning workflows 101 (Relativity) https://maas-bong.io/2UUemT3
"The most fundamental purpose of TAR is to categorise documents as relevant or not relevant. There are many different flavours of TAR, but overall the technology has two main categories: sample-based learning and active learning ... This article will walk through the active learning workflow and how it can be leveraged for your next case."
BONG!
AI tools “too biased” for sentencing decisions (Legal Futures) https://maas-bong.io/2UWmhPE
"Many contributors to a report by the independent US-based Partnership on AI (PAI) - which has over 80 members, including AI, machine learning research and ethics specialists - accepted that only individualised judicial hearings should inform decisions on detention to achieve just outcomes."
BONG!
Not all legal analytics tools are created equal (LawSites: Josh Becker) https://maas-bong.io/2UXUw9H
"Machine learning and natural language processing are powerful technologies, but they still need assistance from human beings with practice-specific experience and a deep understanding of the nuances of specialised legal language in order to make sense of the data and be practical for demanding legal use cases."
BONG!
I’m going down to Lucky Town (Above the Law: Brad Blickstein) https://maas-bong.io/2UWjXZ8
"The CLOC [Corporate Legal Operations Consortium] 2019 Vegas Institute is coming up in a few weeks, so I thought I would take a few minutes to share my 'CLOC Wishlist' for this year’s event."
BONG!
Video: The Matrix on a budget (Studio 188) https://maas-bong.io/2UTTw6q
Imagine the bottom half represents your client's expectations and the top half reflects what you can deliver within that same client's budget (with thanks to Tash Whitaker).
BONG!
Clare Chalkley joins Integreon from Clifford Chance (Legal IT Insider) https://maas-bong.io/2UQYUHm
"Clifford Chance's long-term litigation support manager Clare Chalkley has joined Integreon as a Senior Director - Legal Services focusing on litigation support services and document review for law firms and corporate legal department clients."
BONG!
UnitedLex Luthor (Above the Law) https://maas-bong.io/2UTPYkC
"Meet the alternative legal service provider [UnitedLex] bent on taking over the world."
A selection of upcoming and potentially interesting live webinars / webcasts
02 May 1700 BST Dealing with complex public records requests (ZyLab / Best Best & Krieger) https://maas-bong.io/2URzlWB
07 May 1230 BST Evidence and disclosure in 2019 (LexisNexis) https://maas-bong.io/2QJOsPS
07 May 1100 ET ILTA online tools & resources (ILTA) https://maas-bong.io/2ISldKb
08 May 1300 ET Doing more with less: How Walmart and Veolia are revolutionising corporate discovery (Veolia / Keessal / Logikcull) https://maas-bong.io/2ISj8OH
15 May 1300 EDTThe Sedona Conference commentary on application of attorney-client privilege and work-product protection to documents and communications generated in the cybersecurity context (Sedona) https://maas-bong.io/2UUtJLg
17 May 1400 ET Compliance investigations: Best practices and effectiveness essentials (Hanzo / Volkov / Fox) https://maas-bong.io/2UV8bON
24 May 1300 CEST One year GDPR: What's up (next)? (ACEDS / ZyLab) https://maas-bong.io/2UQJ27N
29 May 1300 EDT Everything in moderation: Proportionality in eDiscovery (XDD) https://maas-bong.io/2J3NZaO
06 Jun 1300 ET Your eDiscovery processes: How do you measure up? (ACEDS / Epiq / Exterro) https://maas-bong.io/2UPJx1K
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
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("'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!
(02 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.