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Content Assessment: Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From AI Benefits and International Tax to Industry Acquisitions and Provider Earnings
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A short assessment of the qualitative benefit of the recent Vendor Voices in eDiscovery update on selected industry press announcement and articles as highlighted by ComplexDiscovery.
Editor’s Note: Welcome to “Vendor Voices in eDiscovery,” a regular and trusted waypoint within the rapidly changing landscape of eDiscovery. Here, we carefully curate and distill the core essence of recent press releases and articles from selected vendors that are integral to this continually evolving ecosystem. In each Vendor Voices segment, we strive to present concise summaries, key insights, and emerging industry trends, enabling you to hear directly from the source – the eDiscovery vendors themselves. Our aim is to cut through the noise of the bustling eDiscovery domain, extracting relevant details and transforming them into an easily digestible format. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned eDiscovery veteran navigating the shifting sands of the industry, or a newcomer trying to get your bearings in this complex landscape, “Vendor Voices in eDiscovery” serves as your dependable resource.
November 15, 2023 Update
Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From AI Benefits and International Tax Insights to Acquisitions and Exits
ComplexDiscovery Staff
Array Acquires Acorn Legal Solutions in eDiscovery Services Deal
Array, a leading litigation support firm, has acquired Acorn Legal Solutions to expand its eDiscovery capabilities and cement its position as an industry leader for law firms. Based in Chicago, Acorn provides fully managed eDiscovery services to mid-size and regional law firms and corporate legal departments. The company offers tailored engagement models to fit clients’ budgets and needs.
Weighing AI’s Benefits and Risks in Litigation and eDiscovery
Artificial intelligence and generative language models like ChatGPT have sparked robust discussions about their impending impact on the legal profession. This timely theme took center stage during a recent webinar titled “Demystifying Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, and Large Language Models in the Legal Industry,” hosted by eDiscovery services company HaystackID.
Swimming in Data? Exterro Welcomes Divebell to its Fold
In a strong move in the legal governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software space, Exterro today announced the acquisition of Divebell, a recognized leader in data discovery solutions. This acquisition propels Exterro to a unique position in the market, enabling it to offer customers a comprehensive solution for identifying, mapping, and understanding all organizational data – both structured and unstructured.
Hanzo, a pioneer in dynamic collaboration data preservation, collection, review, and export, today shared its latest innovation that delivers the market’s first tool designed for automated conversational relevancy assessment, answering the primary concern in discovery. Legal professionals no longer need to be daunted by extensive data, especially with the surging influx from collaborative platforms. Leveraging trustworthy AI, Hanzo has achieved 95% recall in pinpointing pertinent documents to a case, transforming a once arduous manual task into a swift, automated process.
Morae Expands Global Reach, Acquires UK’s Exigent
In a relevant development demonstrating further consolidation in the legal industry, Morae Global Corporation has announced its strategic acquisition of Exigent Group Limited, a UK-based provider of technology and managed legal services. This merger represents an investment-based approach for Morae as it looks to expand and enhance its capacity for delivering robust global legal solutions. By acquiring Exigent, Morae effectively doubles its service delivery capabilities, integrating the expertise and resources of both companies into a unified platform.
Legal Tech Provider ProSearch Strategies Gets New Private Equity Owner
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Consello Capital announced on Thursday that it has acquired a majority stake in ProSearch Strategies, a prominent provider of tech-enabled legal services for large corporations and law firms. ProSearch, founded in 2005, assists enterprise customers in streamlining litigation, regulatory compliance, and data privacy matters through the use of data science and artificial intelligence. The company has over 200 employees across locations in the U.S., Ireland and India.
DISCO Announces Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results
“We are pleased with our third quarter results, which included record-breaking revenue and a 10% year over year increase in customer count,” said Scott Hill, Chief Executive Officer. “Among other highlights for the quarter, we executed a licensing agreement for all historical United States case law, statutes, regulations, and court rulings, including regular data updates. Once integrated into our product, this new feature will further the Company’s ability to serve the needs of legal professionals as they transform legal work with our leading innovations around AI and intelligent workflow solutions. We are energized about the future and believe that the Company is on the right strategic track in terms of our product roadmap and growth strategy.”
KLDiscovery Inc. Announces Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results
“We continued to generate outstanding financial results in the third quarter of 2023, with year-to-date results delivering a Company record of $260 million in revenue, our lowest cumulative net loss of $(20.5) million and a Company record Adjusted EBITDA of $57 million, which is 22% of revenues,” said Christopher Weiler, CEO of KLDiscovery Inc. “We achieved $79.3 million of revenue in the third quarter of 2023, a 6% increase compared to the third quarter of 2022. Additionally, in the third quarter of 2023, net loss improved 34%, EBITDA increased 173%, and Adjusted EBITDA was up 40% year-over-year. Our Q3 2023 gross margin was 50%, increasing from 45% in Q3 2022, and year-to-date gross margin was 51%, increasing from 47% year-to-date gross margin in 2022.”
Cellebrite Announces Third-Quarter 2023 Results
“I am pleased with Cellebrite’s third-quarter 2023 performance, which demonstrates continued business momentum and meaningful strategic progress,” said Yossi Carmil, Cellebrite’s CEO. “Against the backdrop of a healthy demand environment, we reported record quarterly revenue, ARR and adjusted EBITDA due in large part to the strong traction we are generating within the digital forensic units and investigative units of our law enforcement customers. We move into the final quarter of the year with a compelling value proposition, attractive prospects to grow our wallet share with customers, and an increasingly efficient cost structure that supports ongoing profit improvement. These dynamics are reflected in our updated outlook for 2023.”
Strategic Tax Insights for eDiscovery Expansion in Emerging Europe
Emerging Europe, with its diverse economies and evolving tax systems, offers a unique landscape for eDiscovery businesses. The International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) provides a comprehensive analysis of tax policies across the globe, with particular emphasis on the OECD countries. This article dives deep into the ITCI, highlighting its relevance to eDiscovery businesses considering expansion into emerging Europe, a region teeming with opportunities and challenges. By offering insights into countries like Estonia, which consistently ranks first on the ITCI, this piece guides eDiscovery professionals on strategic investment and expansion decisions in the region.
Purpose Legal and Redgrave Data Announce Strategic Partnership to Revolutionize Legal Service Delivery
“We are elated to join forces with Redgrave Data, a team renowned for their technological prowess and legal ingenuity,” said Kris Taylor, President at Purpose Legal Together, we are set on a trajectory to redefine the legal landscape. This partnership underscores our commitment to providing our clients with an unparalleled combination of legal expertise and innovative technological solutions. It’s not just about moving with the times; it’s about leading the charge.”
DISCO Partners with vLex to Leverage Legal Industry’s Most Comprehensive Primary Law Database
DISCO, a leader in AI-enabled legal technology, announced today a new licensing agreement with Fastcase, Inc., part of the vLex group of companies (“vLex”), a global legal intelligence and AI solutions company. This long-term agreement allows DISCO to leverage vLex’s U.S. primary law library, one of the most extensive collections of American legal and regulatory information, which includes a comprehensive library of U.S. federal and state case law, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions. The company will also receive regular updates for the vLex dataset, ensuring that current and historical knowledge of the law remains an up-to-date asset for customers.
Consilio Promotes Meredith Kildow to President
Consilio, the global leader in legal technology solutions and enterprise legal services, today announced the promotion of Meredith Kildow to President of Consilio, effective immediately. In her new role, Kildow will oversee Consilio’s combined commercial business lines, including revenue, account management, and operational delivery. Kildow’s promotion to President is an indication of Consilio’s commitment to inclusive leadership for the company and its clients.
Nuix Joins Forces with T3K, to Provide a Media Data Solution that Helps Make the World a Safer Place
The market for image detection is experiencing an unparalleled surge globally. In 2022, the overall market value for image recognition stood at USD 45.02 billion and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4% from 2023 to 2030. There is also an increase in interest from government institutions, military bodies, and commercial entities in exploring media detection methods, including images and videos. Nuix and T3K have initiated a strategic alliance to couple their capabilities and respond to this growing need. The combined forces of Nuix and T3K software can help with identifying and curtailing the distribution of illegal content in images and videos, leveraging the premier AI-based classifiers and mobile forensic analytics platform of T3K with Nuix’s powerful data collection and processing capabilities.
Cybersecurity Experts Urge Responsible AI Adoption, Not Overreliance
At the recent NetDiligence Cyber Risk Summit, HaystackID’s Chief Innovation Officer and President of Global Investigations & Cyber Incident Response Services, Michael Sarlo, shared his expertise on a panel exploring artificial intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity. Moderated by Risk Strategies’ Allen Blount, the session “AI in Cybersecurity: Efficiency, Reliability, Legal Oversight & Responsibility in Incident Response” covered the potential benefits and risks of deploying AI for security operations.
EDRM Unveils New Draft Guidelines for GDPR Compliance in Cross-Border Discovery
The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) has released new draft guidelines aimed at assisting legal practitioners with navigating conflicts between U.S. discovery rules and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The “General Data Protection Regulation Cross-Border Discovery Guidelines” offer best practices for collecting, preserving, and producing evidence located in the EU that is potentially relevant to U.S. litigation or investigations. The guidelines, along with accompanying resources such as a checklist and model documents, are intended to facilitate compliance with both U.S. discovery obligations and GDPR data protection requirements.
HaystackID® Adds New Information Governance Leader to Accelerate Global Advisory Practice Growth
HaystackID, a specialized provider of legal services, announced today that Nate Latessa has joined the company as Executive Vice President of Advisory Services to lead and expand its high-growth Information Governance, Forensics and Technology Consulting Practices. The strategic hiring aligns with HaystackID’s focus on investing in and growing its advisory offerings to help its expansive corporate client base operationalize critical information, data governance initiatives, and technology selection and deployment objectives.
FTI Consulting Appoints Data Expert Dera Nevin as Managing Director
“Increasingly, our clients are seeking support across a range of related and simultaneous challenges, such as information governance and e-discovery, data privacy and protection, regulatory compliance, legal department advisory and digital transformation,” said Sophie Ross, Global Chief Executive Officer of FTI Technology. “This is why we have continued to grow a robust and flexible panel of leaders with experience in these and other critical areas. With a background that extends from the early days of technology-assisted review to today’s most complex governance issues, Dera is a prime example of the depth and breadth of expertise that underpins our data-focused solutions and services.”
Brian Weir-Harden joins Proteus Discovery Group as Principal Consultant
“Brian’s skill set is a great complement to our team, and his deep experience in white collar matters really solidifies our offering to that segment of the market,” said Proteus co-founder Jon Mattingly. “We’re well positioned to handle the unique workflows compared to traditional litigation discovery.”
L2 Services: Exceeding Client Expectations Across the USA
With decades of experience, L2 Services has developed a reputation for excellence and reliability in the legal services industry. We are a leading full-service provider of eDiscovery and litigation support, serving law firms, corporations, and government entities nationwide. Our comprehensive services and expertise help clients address the challenges associated with legal discovery and investigations.
Law In Order Enhances Construction Project Dispute Resolution: Streamlining Data Collection with Aconex Data Collector
Law In Order Innovation has introduced Aconex Data Collector, a tool that streamlines data collection in construction project disputes. The tool automates the cumbersome manual process, safeguarding vital metadata and supporting eDiscovery reviews. It allows for structured gathering of Documents, Transmittals, and Mails from Aconex, using an API Key provided by clients to ensure accuracy and completeness. The system is compatible with established review platforms like Relativity and Nuix Discover, enhancing the efficacy of Early Case Assessment (ECA).
Nuix Discover Named Leader in SoftwareReview’s eDiscovery Solutions Data Quadrant for the Second Consecutive Year
Nuix’s flagship eDiscovery platform, Nuix Discover, has been named a leader in Info-Tech’s eDiscovery Solutions Data Quadrant. This marks the second consecutive year of achieving this prestigious ranking, further validating the platform’s reliability in delivering excellent performance, ROI, and user satisfaction. Info-Tech’s Data Quadrant Reports provide a comprehensive evaluation of popular products in the market. Data is collected from real end users, and each product is compared and contrasted with all other products in the category to give a holistic, unbiased view of the product landscape.
KLDiscovery Introduces Cutting-edge Alerting Feature in its Client Portal
“Our clients deserve access to the most up-to-date information and tools to make informed decisions about their legal matters,” said Chris Weiler, Chief Executive Officer at KLDiscovery. “With the introduction of our Alerting feature, we are putting the power back into the hands of our clients, helping them manage their legal portfolios effectively and proactively.” Danny Zambito, Chief Operating Officer at KLDiscovery added, “The value Client Portal brings to our clients cannot be understated. By leveraging Client Portal, our clients can confidently focus on the tactical execution of their matters knowing that the new Alerting feature can keep them proactively informed of critical data points around budget attainment, work in progress, and sudden changes of matter activity. How do you put a price tag on peace of mind?”
NuStar Energy Chooses Casepoint as eDiscovery Solution
“Casepoint checked all our boxes and introduced features to us that will enhance our processes. Their solutions align perfectly with our needs and introduce the use of AI and advanced analytics to our workflows,” said Michael Maul, Manager of I/S Project at NuStar. “This partnership will help us achieve our goal of seamlessly integrating our in-house and outside counsel workflows, reducing legal spend, and increasing efficiency. We look forward to a successful partnership with Casepoint.”
Legal Industry Embracing AI But Gaps Remain in ESG, Talent Needs
A sweeping new global survey from Wolters Kluwer reveals that while the legal industry rapidly adopts new technologies like generative AI, work remains across priority areas like environmental, social, and governance (ESG) preparedness, talent recruitment, diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The 2023 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey polled 700 lawyers across the US, Europe and other regions. It found that 73% of attorneys expect to integrate generative AI like ChatGPT into their legal work within the next 12 months. Many feel confident about the technology, with 68% saying they are prepared for its potential impacts on the profession. However, perspectives on AI differ internationally. More lawyers in the Netherlands (65%) see it as an opportunity compared to professionals in the US (46%), Belgium (38%) and France (20%). Understanding of AI applications also varies, with 89% of Dutch lawyers and 80% of US lawyers saying they grasp how it applies to their work.
Stay Ahead in 2024: A Concise List of eDiscovery Events
In 2024, legal, business, and information technology professionals navigating the evolving workplace and workspace environments can leverage this concise list of eDiscovery-related events, conferences, and meetings as a starting point to explore education, awareness, and demand-generation opportunities in the realms of cybersecurity, information governance, and legal discovery. This curated list, while not exhaustive, offers a variety of events catering to diverse interests and needs within the eDiscovery community, providing a platform for learning, networking, and showcasing products and services.
October 2023 HSR Analysis: Gauging the Current Climate of Mergers and Acquisitions
The October 2023 Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act transaction data provides a concrete measure to assess the current state of the merger and acquisition market. This macro analysis compares the 157 transactions recorded in October 2023 with those of the previous year, examining the implications of this change on the market. The focus is on understanding the reasons behind the transaction pulse rate, considering factors such as economic conditions, regulatory changes, and strategic shifts in business investments. Additionally, the report delves into the broader impact of these numbers, including the stabilization of transaction volumes and their significance in the context of fiscal trends, regulatory environments, economic outlook, and global influences.
[October 2023 Update] Andrew Haslam’s eDisclosure Systems Buyers Guide – Online Knowledge Base
Andrew Haslam’s eDisclosure Systems Buyers Guide is widely recognized as one of the most comprehensive and credible resources for legal and IT professionals seeking to understand and apply eDisclosure and eDiscovery concepts, processes, techniques, and tools.
ComplexDiscovery is a distinguished digital publication that delivers journalistic insights into cybersecurity, information governance, and eDiscovery developments and technologies. Learn more today at ComplexDiscovery.com.
Assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies
Previous Vendor Voice Updates
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From EDRM and LLM to M&A and FTK (complexdiscovery.com) (October 18, 2023)
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: Arrivals, Departures, and Overestimations (complexdiscovery.com) (September 20, 2023.
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: Artificial Intelligence, Acquisitions, and ILTACON Announcements (complexdiscovery.com) (August 22, 2023)
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From AI-Enabled Discovery to Industry Announcements and Investments (complexdiscovery.com) (July 25, 2023)
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From Remote Collection and New Business Models to Pricing, Partnerships, and Promotions (complexdiscovery.com) (June 16, 2023)
- Vendor Voices in eDiscovery: From New Zealand and London to AI and Investigations (complexdiscovery.com) (May 18, 2023)
Additional Reading
- eDisclosure Systems Buyers Guide – Online Knowledge Base
- A Running List: Top 100+ eDiscovery Providers
Source: ComplexDiscovery
