November 15, 2008 – 12:38 pm
In the past, I’ve written lots of system/software documentation/specification and project plans etc. but today I really feel a different sense of achievement.
My article “Electronic Discovery/Disclosure: From Litigation to International Commercial Arbitration” appeared in The International Journal of Arbitration, Mediation and Dispute Management, V 74, N 4, Nov 2008 (The Arbitration Journal by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators).
Just want to pass on my acknowledgement here (which appeared in the footnote in my article):
The author (me) would like to thank Martin Goodman and Roger Clough for their individual reviews. This essay is based on the author’s dissertation for a post-graduate diploma in International Commercial Arbitration. The author also wishes to thank Angie Raymond and Stavros Brekoulakis, Queen Mary College, London for their support. Also, many thanks to those who kindly provided access to their articles on their websites/blogs, e.g. Ken Withers.
However, the source of the inspiration for doing my dissertation on ediscovery/edisclosure started when I was involved in a document management programme with a major subprime mortgage company, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers (yeah!). Companies and all the system documentation (many versions/iterations – which I considered unnecessary but then…that’s another story) disintegrated and perished.
Well, nothing beats experience and I’ve certainly been fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved in exciting software/technological projects. Experience itself though is rather like a piece of paper stored in a cupboard (or rather in the mind). By writing my dissertation and having my article published (reviewed and critic) serves to remind myself the power of sharing/collaborating one’s experience with others. A piece of paper written (like the many documentation I’ve produced) and never opened and shared with others is akin to creating and building junk instead of building one’s knowledge with self and others.
I hope I will continue to learn more by sharing with others. I also hope that others will open up and share their experience. Many thanks to others who have shared their experience with me in many unconscious and conscious ways.
October 22, 2008 – 12:24 am
Last week, I went to the second e-discovery conference held in Victoria, London and heard an interesting speech (no slides presentation) by Master Whitaker, Senior Master, Queen’s Bench Division. Master Whitaker shared his thoughts and insights on edisclosure which was probably the highlight or spotlight of the conference. Most of the presentations held over the two days were uninspiring and there was even a presentation on the credit crisis. Do I need to be reminded of the credit crisis on an ediscovery conference? I dozed off to sleep during the credit crisis presentation…just not interested to hear yet more blah blah blah.
However, Master Whitaker’s concluding remark resounded or rekindled the credit crisis blah blah blah…
I heard Master Whitaker’s remark towards the end of his speech that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing when it comes to edisclosure.
Mmm…a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, however no knowledge whatsoever creates mass tort as shown by the credit crisis that has swept across from the US to Europe. So credit crisis blah blah blah and ediscovery/disclosure has a common theme or rather a common myth.
When it comes to e-discovery/disclosure, most of the time we are dealing with no knowledge in that no one really and truly knows where the hack a piece of e-document or evidence is located. If we do, then why all the fuss over the need to have such and such policy in place and for keyword search, concept search and other guessing tools?!
Long time ago when I first started work in finance/banking I heard a remark that ‘money is not just on paper transaction but on digital transaction’. It was a difficult concept for me to grasp as I just couldn’t find a ‘tangible’ handle to tie paper (stuff from trees) to digital (stuff of zeros and ones). One thing I did grasp was that digital money is not tangible and not traceable unless the person handling the digital money is tangible or traceable. In all digital transactions which generally involve more than one party, we never really know all the parties involved except we know them as digital accounts. So we have a little knowledge in that we have digital money and digital accounts (and other stuff which we really don’t want to know as we really don’t know – like who owes who and who else owes who etc..in the digital chain of e-money). We have no knowledge of what happens in between the digital money being transformed into paper money and vice versa. Is the little knowledge dangerous? Is the credit crisis dangerous?
Perhaps dangerous in that it has created a global crisis and not dangerous in that it has started a new industry, the ‘credit crisis industry’.
Master Whitaker’s remark was indeed refreshing and relevant in edisclosure. There are still far too many legal practitioners (except perhaps the large law firms in the UK) with little or no knowledge on edisclosure or ESI and many judges that have no knowledge on edisclosure or ESI.
So we are still in dangerous territories when it comes to edisclosure.
October 14, 2008 – 12:17 am
If you have visited my blog yesterday and also previous yesterdays, you may have noticed that the Google ads have ‘vanished’. Apparently my Google Adsense account has been disabled. I received an e-mail from google adsense saying ‘we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers’. Also ‘we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers.’
I am unable to figure out what have I done to have ‘posed a significant risk’?! I believed I have followed the rules and policies etc. Don’t I deserve a warning or a better explanation for the sudden account termination?
In the past I have avoided online ads as I find them a nuisance and a major distraction. However, I was curious about Google ads as Google seems to occupy a big ‘cloud’ online and churning out applications and swallowing up other online companies and also launching a browser. So I jumped on the Adsense wagon.
Nothing to do with ediscovery, right? Not yet…
Looks like I am not a publisher or an advertiser under Google Adsense (certainly not going to use AdWords!) . I am certainly a user. Maybe Google Adsense left this category of ‘user’ out in their meshup of various ‘clouds’ of platforms or applications.
Are we heading towards ‘cloud computing’ and OpenSocial platforms whereby users are considered ‘risky’ ?
I want to make a point – I am a user and will seek out other ways and options to drive into more sunny ‘clouds’.
October 6, 2008 – 1:29 am
I am catching up on my e-mail alerts and came across an article in the Economist dated 28th August 2008 (that’s when I was away from my computer in sunny Hawaii!).
The article titled ‘The Big Data Dump’. Great title for an article that touches on pretty much the reality of life from technology, business and from the kids to the big boys to the Supreme Court.
Well the ‘dumping’ also extended to changing the law (American Civil Law) or some new rules. Ms Love Kourlis’s quoted in the article : ‘Judges in civil cases, she says, need more power to assess and define the appropriate amount of information that can be sought in each case. Civil cases ought to require both sides to disclose what information they have, as in criminal cases, thus ending the game of hide-and-seek that makes both parties ask for more, for fear of missing something. And shifting lawyers away from being paid by the hour (see article) would mean that they no longer had an incentive to add to the process.’
So what next?
October 5, 2008 – 12:30 am
For those interested in more than just googling or e-mailing find out what Marc Andreessen wrote about ‘internet platforms’ back in Sept 2007 at his blog. The blog reads like a marketing speech for Marc’s venture into Ning (Ning platform). Still… Ning platform has turned into a ‘rich’ playground for Marc and Co.
In my computing days before the www, platforms are stuff that makes computing a fun playground. With Web 2.0 and the various social networking sites weaving into the www, it’s nolonger just ‘internet’ or www but also ‘the cloud’.
Mmm…searching in the ‘cloud’ and whether I will have a choice as to whether my blogs and e-mails are still ‘mine’ and not lost in the platforms.
October 2, 2008 – 2:10 pm
I just noticed that the Juris Conference which is on today (see my previous post- A Conference for ‘up & coming’ arbitration practitioners – Establishing Your Case in International Arbitration) has an interesting announcement on the Juris website.
My guess is that my subscribers/readers (from various jurisdictions/institutions) have noticed my remarks and took heart and have joined forces with each other. Well..that’s a pretty wild guess since none have the heart to comment on my blogs. Ah! maybe my readers don’t feel comfortable blogging their views and just prefer the ‘safe’ way to conduct business within their ‘safe’ closed network.
What I can’t understand is why the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators have not announced their newly ‘Protocol for E-Disclosure in Arbitration’ to their members (which I am one). I have searched on the CIArb site and nothing on ‘protocol’. I feel rather #!#!cheesed off#!#!
Will direct my ‘cheesed off’ energy elsewhere!
September 29, 2008 – 6:38 pm
Yesterday (Sunday 28th September), I started a social networking site at www.adrtribunals.ning.com
Soon the site will be just www.adrtribunals.com.
There is also an iADRt (international ADR tribunals) ‘badge’ located on this blog right hand side menu.
Do visit and join for free and welcome any views/comments.
September 21, 2008 – 9:21 pm
My friend, Conrad highlighted an interesting article to me:
Web Science: Studying the Internet to Protect Our Future
Studying the Web will reveal better ways to exploit information, prevent identity theft, revolutionize industry and manage our ever growing online lives.
By Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee
I am aware that there are couple of ‘closed’ networks (i.e. closed as they not operated like Open Source groups or like a social network of like-minded open groups of community) that have been setup to define various protocols for ediscovery related issues. I am not against closed networks as their output/contribution will be beneficial to their network.
If we are going to define protocols for ediscovery where do we start?
If we know where to start, do we really know how to define the protocols such that the protocols make sense to people who need to use/interpret them?
I guess protocols are just protocols and not to be confused with finding solutions or finding the appropriate questions to ask to lead to the desired outcome. I remembered a lawyer struggling to phrase his questions or needs at a brown bag discussion group during the DESI II workshop held in London back in July. What I remembered was that he was frustrated that he has not found the ‘search solutions’ to help him (and his client) to perform ediscovery searches. He mentioned keyword search when asked to elaborate further.
Let’s hope that Web Science will also reveal simple and better ways to make sense of our information intensive lives.