Madison Chooses StoredIQ to Manage eDiscovery In-House

Madison Capital Management, LLC (“Madison”), an alternative investment management firm with offices in the US and Europe has deployed StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Platform to gain actionable intelligence from its rapidly expanding electronic data – allowing legal and IT teams to work in tandem to enhance eDiscovery strategies, meet compliance mandates and reduce risk and cost.

We wanted to better understand what data we have, where it resides and determine how we can better manage our information across the enterprise and do so in a proactive manner. With StoredIQ we are able to make intelligent decisions about the state of our data based on corporate policies and legal discovery requirements. – Tony Balding, vice president, software solutions at Madison

From a GC’s perspective, we needed a solution that allowed me to work closely with the IT department, analyze the data to determine the merits of a dispute quickly, understand related review cost and provide a defensible audit trail. StoredIQ exceeded that expectation with their unique capabilities, such as analyzing data where it natively resides, the user-friendly legal and IT workflow, and the scoreboard that keeps track of review costs as data is identified, preserved and collected. – Judy Michael, assistant vice president, legal, asset and risk management at Madison

Market-leading companies use StoredIQ to respond rapidly and efficiently to legal matters, litigation, and investigations. Utilizing StoredIQ, corporate legal teams can locate, analyze and act upon unstructured electronically stored information much more comprehensively and efficiently. As a result, companies can better manage their legal risk and reduce expenses, while formulating superior legal strategies. With StoredIQ, companies:

• Quickly locate matter-relevant electronic documents with advanced search technology
• Analyze electronic documents in-place with detailed data topology maps, advanced analytics, and precise data explorers
• Preserve and collect data to a secure legal hold repository, preserving all metadata and business context
• Perform first-pass reviews on documents before exporting data downstream
• Act on and manage potentially relevant data in a legally defensible manner with audit trails and a robust chain of custody

StoredIQ’s award-winning solution streamlines eDiscovery processes for legal and IT, allows for early case analysis “in the Wild,” and provides complete cost predictability.

StoredIQ Sponsors Risk Management Track at Upcoming ARMA International Conference & Expo

StoredIQ will be the conference sponsor for the Risk Management Track during next week’s ARMA International conference. The premier event in the records and information management field, ARMA International’s 55th Conference & Expo, will be held November 7-10, 2010, at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

Sessions within the Risk Management Track include:

•    A Case Study: Are You Ready for E-Discovery?
•    Cost Containment: Preservation Techniques for Litigation
•    The Nuts and Bolts of E-Discovery
•    Access Control and Permissions in Electronic Record Keeping Systems
•    Integrating E-Discovery Services into Corporate Records Management Programs
•    Privacy for Records Management Professionals
•    E-Discovery On the Move: Mobile Communications
•    SharePoint and E-Discovery Readiness
•    E-Discovery: Defining an Architectural Roadmap

The need to understand what information exists, and manage it accordingly, has grown exponentially.  Whether required for legal eDiscovery, compliance mandates, internal governance, or government regulation, fundamentally, this mountain of murky data now represents enormous risk and cost to a company.

Here at StoredIQ we are focused on delivering powerful information management solutions that can provide the comprehensive data insight and control that corporate counsel, compliance managers, and records managers need to make the best and most informed business decisions, while meeting the stringent requirements that IT departments demand.

In addition to sponsoring the Risk Management conference sessions, StoredIQ will exhibit our intelligent information management solution at booth 930 during the two-day event. Booth visitors can register to win a free data assessment service from StoredIQ. Attendees that would like to schedule a meeting in advance should contact Brent Pohl at info@storediq.com or +1 512-334-3107. To register online for ARMA International, visit the conference website.

Real World eDiscovery – Not Seen On TV

I’m not a lawyer. But I often wonder if lawyers watch TV legal dramas like Law & Order (the original or any of the many spin-offs we now have to choose from) and think to themselves, “Really, if it were only that simple.” Or maybe it’s more like, “Jack McCoy (played by Sam Waterson) you wouldn’t last a day prosecuting a real legal matter.” They make it look so easy. You find the evidence. You arrest the bad guy. You convict the bad guy. Case closed. What’s so hard about that? In the real word, a lot actually.

Working for an information management company I might be a bit jaded toward the lack of visibility TV dramas provide into the discovery process. However I do know it’s unlikely you’re going to find key evidence or a “smoking gun” wadded up in a trash can in the bad guy’s office – though it seems to happen a lot on TV. No, more than likely you are going to have to wade through terabytes or even petabyes of electronic data from multiple custodians spread across email, file shares, laptops, document management systems, etc.  Your first thoughts are probably, “How long is this going to take and how much is it going to cost?”

Organizations must expect the unexpected and be prepared to deal with several concurrent matters with varying electronic discovery requirements. In a recent whitepaper from Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, he discusses the often unpredictable and challenging eDiscovery process – and the opportunities that in-house eDiscovery solutions provide for real world improvement including:

• Incorporate All Data – ensure that your eDiscovery solution is comprehensive and goes beyond email to include other corporate ESI sources – locating the data you need to make informed case strategy decisions and minimizing your risk for non-disclosure sanctions.

• Timeliness Matter – other than meeting tight deadlines, organizations can benefit from speeding up the eDiscovery process by meeting the duty to preserve early, more accurately predicting case budgets, preparing for initial case assessments, and reducing reliance on outsourced review resources when pressed for time.

• Resource Scalability – utilizing a holistic eDiscovery solution, corporations can ensure that all departments and users involved in the legal discovery process are not overburdened by disparate tools and technologies, and that productivity isn’t impacted as the amount of corporate information and number of matters continues to grow.

As Mr. Babineau states in the paper, “Electronic discovery, when supported by the right technology has the potential to deliver benefits greater than a simple reduction of legal service provider costs. Corporate counsel can near-instantaneously analyze data to see what should be collected and preserved, enabling them to make strategic decisions sooner in the legal process, and swiftly adapt as new information is discovered.”

Perhaps as more organizations adopt in-house eDiscovery solutions, the legal discovery process will become more intelligent, less cumbersome, and less costly. And who knows, one day it may start to resemble the legal dramas we watch on TV. 

For more in-depth information, download the complete whitepaper from Enterprise Strategy Group.