Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Eric Robinson, vice president of global advisory services and strategic client solutions at software company KLDiscovery.
Ari Kaplan: Please tell us about your background and your role at KLDiscovery.
Eric Robinson: Throughout my career in legal/data management, I have worked on a combination of litigation management, e-discovery, and data governance. I’ve been fortunate to work in corporate law and law firms throughout my career, and he’s been on the provider side of KLDiscovery for nearly 16 years. This has given me a unique opportunity to develop and grow a highly consultative and strategic approach to client service. My team and I focus on custom client solutions, helping our clients manage their challenges in eDiscovery, information governance, incident response, and forensic consulting.
Ari Kaplan: What are the most common questions and advice services you receive from clients?
Eric Robinson is vice president of global advisory services and strategic client solutions at software company KLDiscovery.
Eric Robinson: In addition to our core e-discovery, we are increasingly involved in data management, information governance, compliance, and incident response issues. My team and I work closely with clients to guide them through the discovery, data management, and compliance process through evaluation of current protocols, recommend enhancements, and implement these strategies. There has also been a noticeable increase in customer requests for KLD to provide expert services and testimonials. Additionally, as data sources change with the growth of things like Microsoft Teams and Google Workplace, we educate and empower our clients to independently perform defensible data collection within their own environments. We increasingly offer consulting to help them avoid the pitfalls of storage self-recovery. We are also deeply involved in cyber incident response, with a particular focus on data management after identifying specific data sets that have been compromised. For our incident response services, we have developed a consultative approach to assist in data minimization before performing data mining reviews and creating customized reports to meet our clients’ needs.
Ari Kaplan: How do you incorporate KLDiscovery’s Nebula platform into the services you offer?
Eric Robinson: The Nebula Platform is our ecosystem that provides an integrated environment for clients to manage their data from rest to production. At the core of the Nebula ecosystem is a robust review tool intentionally designed to be intuitive, easy to use, and flexible based on user proficiency. The platform supports initial data and case evaluation and explores data at an early stage. For complete reviews, we can deploy our proprietary review enhancement and acceleration tools/protocols to help clients understand their entire data set quickly, efficiently, and defensively. This ecosystem also extends to the left side of his EDRM, offering archiving and preservation solutions that help legal teams manage large amounts of data for internal storage or create secure external repositories. To do.
Ari Kaplan: Why do e-discovery, compliance, data privacy, and cybersecurity seem to be converging?
Eric Robinson: They all relate to compliance at some level, as each of these components requires a defined process to ensure that the organization is aligned to either the regulatory scheme or the litigation schedule. I am. With e-discovery, there are special concerns about compliance with data privacy regulations as well as storage and modification. There is no comprehensive federal law protecting privacy. However, multiple states have passed their own data privacy rules, creating a web of regulations. Add to this the GDPR and other international privacy regulations, and things get even more complicated. Privacy and cybersecurity are intertwined because data security and data protection are paramount in today’s world. In the event of a data breach, it is essential to have robust processes and protocols in place, especially when dealing with downstream investigations and litigation. Just as you can’t evaluate an organization’s compliance program without understanding how eDiscovery and privacy are managed, today’s legal teams can’t think about eDiscovery without considering data privacy. It’s like a modern spider’s web, with all these disciplines interconnected within any organization.
Ari Kaplan: How will artificial intelligence impact this coordination?
Eric Robinson: We are already seeing great effects. AI is embedded in much of what we do every day, whether it’s a simple chatbot on a website or leveraging natural language processing in e-discovery. Some organizations are using AI technology to help manage privacy and compliance programs and to better understand and manage contracts. Generative AI, a type of AI, is also being used to draft contracts. In cybersecurity, AI can help identify threats, mine data in a defensible way, document affected entities, and identify sensitive data that may have been compromised.
Ari Kaplan: How are e-discovery professionals leveraging information governance to reduce risk?
Eric Robinson: The governance you employ around data management directly relates to the downstream complexity of e-discovery and overall compliance. Teams that develop and implement information and data governance programs have a more focused portfolio of information to manage. Organizations that don’t do this typically find themselves holding more data than they need, and because they have less insight into what data they actually hold, the risks associated with their data are significantly reduced. The amount of time and money required for certain matters also increases significantly. Implementing clear retention and disposal policies that specify and classify data greatly streamlines the discovery process.
Ari Kaplan: How do you think e-discovery will evolve?
Eric Robinson: The biggest concern here is how AI will impact e-discovery. In fact, we are already seeing results when applied to data. We will likely see more use and implementation of artificial intelligence and advanced analytical tools to more effectively interpret data and quickly identify and review documents at the earliest stages of a problem. During the review process, AI creates both positive and negative staffing efficiencies, but ultimately creates opportunities for proactive professionals to develop and enhance valuable new skills related to leveraging AI. Masu. Natural language processing and predictive analytics are already part of the fabric of eDiscovery, so the use of various forms of AI will expand and become more widespread, as well as the right skills to support new practices. A number of new roles may emerge for these people. .
Editor’s note: KLDiscovery is sponsoring Ari Kaplan Advisors’ “The Virtual Lunch” in November. this is, Reinventing the professional It’s a podcast, and the host is Ari Kaplan.
You can read the full interview here Reinventing the professional.
Ari Kaplan We regularly interview leaders in the legal industry and broader professional services community to share their perspectives, highlight innovative changes, and introduce new technology. blog And even more iTunes.
This column reflects the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ABA Journal or the American Bar Association.