There’s something magical about it. I’m not being whimsical or fanciful when I say it either. There’s something truly satisfying to me when I see it in action. It doesn’t happen immediately, by any means. It happens week-by-week and month-by-month. What am I referring to here? I’m talking about the authentic delight that I get when I see a new eDiscovery managed services client go from (almost) zero to hero. My wife says that I need another hobby, which is true — but this stuff just genuinely ex

Envision this scenario for a moment: your client calls on a Friday afternoon asking you to represent them in a new product liability litigation. You need to make sure your client has a litigation readiness strategy plan in place that includes preservation documentation, a records retention policy, and a data map of their organization. You’ll need to be able to assist your client in collecting data from 64 custodians from various data sources: corporate and personal e-mail, computer, and iPhone a

I travel so much across the country that I hardly have the time to really soak in the beauty of what each city holds. New Orleans is a perfect example. I fly in and out of that town so often, and yet, because of my schedule, I just don’t get the chance to stop and enjoy what she has to offer. This past week, I did just that. After a client dinner, I enjoyed live jazz, New Orleans style, at The Columns, in the way you only read about in books or watch in movies. Live jazz is a joy to watch. Even

Being in a technical/consultative role is far more interesting than when I was an eDiscovery sales rep for eight years, and candidly even more interesting than when I was a practicing lawyer before that. I have a much richer and deeper insight into what makes things really work when it comes to standing up eDiscovery software, the infrastructure, security, personnel, and processes needed to really make things work. In today’s post, I’m going to discuss the vast differences between the bells and

There are so many constraints tied to “doing” eDiscovery correctly that make getting to the substantive issues of law so much more difficult: Undoubtedly, the list goes on. But let’s imagine for a moment that utopian view of how cases could proceed if none of this was a constraint. How would your case proceed? How many more cases could you take on for your clients in this ideal world? How would your stress, your team’s stress, and the litigation support professional’s stress go down? How would

Aldo Gucci is credited with the expression, “You get what you pay for”. The expression has been used mainly in the negative: “My new porch is about to fall apart. I shouldn’t have gone with the cheapest contractor. I guess you get what you pay for.” Alternatively, it has also been used in the positive: “The Mercedes was much more than the Kia Sport, but you definitely get what you pay for”. When it comes to eDiscovery service providers, it is almost always used in the negative connotation. But

Let’s face it – practicing in 2014 is harder work than it was in 2004 and harder than it was in 1994. Why? A lot of it stems from being able to manage the proliferation of huge volumes of electronic data which has increased both the complexity and cost of litigation. Most lawyers who are not tech savvy, do not have the bandwidth to really understand metadata, infrastructure, security, the software that handles all of the data, or even what eDiscovery vendors really do. What most lawyers want is

I don’t mean to come off swinging with a bunch of scare tactics, but in today’s post, I will shed light on alarming statistics tied to data loss and the lack of security in most organizations today. Torn from the headlines, we find that major companies have become victims to cybercrimes. In November 2013, Target ignored warnings from their newly installed security system that hackers installed malware that would extract millions upon millions of their customers’ debit and credit card names and

When I made the transition from the practice of law to litigation support in the southeast at LexisNexis in the mid-2000’s, I could not have asked for better timing. Lexis had acquired LAW PreDiscovery, Concordance, and CaseMap, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were changing. Everyone was trying to figure out what the amended rules meant for them and I had a very unique opportunity to apply my experience as a practicing lawyer to my new role in litigation technology. Given my background

A few years ago, I gave a presentation in New York about eDiscovery case law, the increase in data, and best practices to help lawyers manage their data better so as to not become the “victim” of another spoliation case. Unexpectedly, a partner in the room interrupted me to teach all of us that cooperation isn’t a curse word, but rather a way to effectively reduce costs while at the same, get to the merits of a case much faster. I had just quoted both the Sedona Conference’s Cooperation Proclam

In the infamous “Job Switching”I Love Lucy episode, Ricky tells Lucy to go get a job and work for a week. She and her friend, Ethel, take up employment as assembly line workers at a candy factory where their job is to wrap chocolates coming down a conveyer belt. As the line speeds up, Lucy and Ethel are having more and more trouble keeping up. In a timelessly funny scene, they stuff as many chocolates in their mouths and clothing just to keep up with the conveyer belt. That scene can equally be

As you undoubtedly read online or saw in the news, a brand new “ransomware” virus called WannaCry impacted over 150 countries, 250,000 computers across multiple verticals including healthcare and banking. In March, I wrote about the seriousness of security threats, malware, and ransomware on our FlexManage blog, and what we can do about it to protect our client’s data. With the WannaCry ransomware impacting hundreds of thousands across the globe, I want to be certain that we are providing you w

Malware is no joking matter. It may be coming for you and your law firm when you least expect it. Imagine this scenario for a moment. An email comes in with the subject line Reply Brief due. The sender isn’t on the counsel list, but your reply brief is due. You open the email and it reads: “Counselor: Please open the attached document for the changes to our brief.” You open the document, and that’s when it happens.  It was at that moment that you unknowingly released malware through the veins o

Before coming over to run managed services for an IT services provider, I was a director for managed services with an eDiscovery (“electronic discovery”) services provider. Interestingly enough, there are a lot of similarities between the two. In eDiscovery, there were always bottlenecks between retrieving data for litigation, the processing of that data, storing it, reviewing it, and then producing it for discovery purposes. The constraints were almost always around the costs associated to per

Typically, a product is merely defined by the code it stands on. For instance, Word allows you to type your work product (like I’m doing now), Excel helps you compute, PowerPoint provides you with a platform to tell a story (hopefully without bullet points), and Outlook is our source for an overly-flooded electronic mailbox (for better or for worse). But sometimes, there comes along a product that helps to not just redefine a category, but actually makes our always-on, always-connected and highl

Daniel Gold is a productivity consultant and keynote speaker who helps companies & individuals leverage new technology to be more efficient. He is also an author of several eBooks on personal productivity. Consulted with C-Level professionals on how to enhance their productivity both at work and at home. Ran two different top 5 productivity podcasts on iTunes. He speaks across the country on emerging issues related to litigation professionals. In addition, He writes a blog on both legal issues and productivity on several websites, and write white papers on a myriad of pressing issues faced by legal professionals.

Daniel Gold is a lawyer, consultant, technologist, speaker and author. Dan's mission is to make a difference in the lives of professionals both at work and in life. He is known for his productivity e-books such as "Evernote: The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done" and "Make It Happen: How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your eBook." He is also regarded as an expert in e-discovery and IT managed services. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielGoldEsq and @DEGConsulting.

Here is my presentation I gave to Dave Savage's MortgageCoach.com weekly Leadership webinar. In this presentation, I focused on 3 things: 1) The problem with productivity apps; 2) What must go right for you; and 3) Exercising Consistency.

This article first appeared on Alpha Efficiency Magazine: Issue1: Collecting, subscribe and buy here I’ve known Daniel Gold for some time now. We’ve done a podcast together, where we talked about Evernote and numerous other things, and in a sense, I’ve always found Daniel as a role model: a person that knows what he is doing, and is getting the results he wants. His practical advice in productivity comes from real life experience, and as such contains a lot of value. Daniel is a lawyer, but he