I got somewhat caught by surprise walking into the newly renovated Boston Convention Center for the AIIM-On-Demand Event last week and seeing a hanging banner for FAST eDiscovery litigation protection enterprise search technology solutions. This is not what I expected as the first vendor that would pop out and catch my eye. I guess I was thinking more in lines of a big Kodak sign or an EMC directional sign. Regardless, I quickly dismissed this as I got my badge at registration. The reason for my fleeting interest was because of my background in the litigation support and eDiscovery industry. To give you an idea before my day's with TAWPI, in Chicago I worked on and supported many of the largest litigation cases in the country.
To my surprise and later on meeting with many of the vendors on the ECM side of the floor I discovered more and more exhibitors were talking about litigation support and eDiscovery. Iron Mountain brilliantly has introduced an email management tool for storage which plugs into your companies infrastructure and restores, organizes, and delivers email and other records for litigation preparedness. So when you get sued (not if but when) a company can easily pull the pertinent emails involved in the case and quickly and efficiently pass them along to their defense team. Computer System Innovations was also showing software for the legal industry and NUANCE displayed a capture solution with redaction capabilities. The only problem, this show did not seem to attract this type of audience to pitch these services to at least from my perspective and talking with some folks on the floor? Speaking with one of the exhibitors about redaction he told me that I was the first person walking around who knew what redaction was...not a good sign.
Now I'm not saying that ECM has nothing to do with email management and ultimately eDiscovery and litigation support. But my experience moving over from the legal vertical market to a broader corporate market focus with verticals like Financial Services and Insurance it seems many of the vendors playing in that space do not understand who the major players and decision makers are and how to cross-sell into the legal industry. The reason no one knew what redaction was at the AIIM Show is because paralegals are doing redaction for attorneys and partners on litigation cases. These professionals are rarely going to tradeshows. The end-users in this space currently are the litigation paralegals and litigation support staff. Many times law firms are outsourcing their litigation scanning and eDiscovery to companies like a Williams Lea, IKON, and/or Merrill. Even major accounting and consulting players like Price Waterhouse Coopers and Deloitte and Touche are ramping up eDiscovery services for their clients.
To my surprise and later on meeting with many of the vendors on the ECM side of the floor I discovered more and more exhibitors were talking about litigation support and eDiscovery. Iron Mountain brilliantly has introduced an email management tool for storage which plugs into your companies infrastructure and restores, organizes, and delivers email and other records for litigation preparedness. So when you get sued (not if but when) a company can easily pull the pertinent emails involved in the case and quickly and efficiently pass them along to their defense team. Computer System Innovations was also showing software for the legal industry and NUANCE displayed a capture solution with redaction capabilities. The only problem, this show did not seem to attract this type of audience to pitch these services to at least from my perspective and talking with some folks on the floor? Speaking with one of the exhibitors about redaction he told me that I was the first person walking around who knew what redaction was...not a good sign.
Now I'm not saying that ECM has nothing to do with email management and ultimately eDiscovery and litigation support. But my experience moving over from the legal vertical market to a broader corporate market focus with verticals like Financial Services and Insurance it seems many of the vendors playing in that space do not understand who the major players and decision makers are and how to cross-sell into the legal industry. The reason no one knew what redaction was at the AIIM Show is because paralegals are doing redaction for attorneys and partners on litigation cases. These professionals are rarely going to tradeshows. The end-users in this space currently are the litigation paralegals and litigation support staff. Many times law firms are outsourcing their litigation scanning and eDiscovery to companies like a Williams Lea, IKON, and/or Merrill. Even major accounting and consulting players like Price Waterhouse Coopers and Deloitte and Touche are ramping up eDiscovery services for their clients.
In the end though it will really comes down to whether or not corporate customers who are/will be represented by law firms will proactively prepare for litigation or will they hold off on those expenses and let the legal team do their thing?
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