The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50823
TECH SUPPORT far as Bell in insourcing the rest of the e-discovery process — perhaps only 10 to 15 per cent of Canadian enterprises, mostly larger companies and those "in the business of being sued," as Jaar puts it. This compares to more like 50 per cent of corporations in the U.S. Canada will catch up in the next two to three years, he believes. Bell, meanwhile, has the capability to perform all phases of the e-discov- ery process in-house. Schweizer won't say how much the company invested in infrastructure and applications to achieve this, but the return on its ini- tial investments was rapid. "We got it back in the first year," she says. "From a strictly economic perspective, when you S IPAD HANDS-ON ince delivering a slightly glib endorsement of the iPad a few months back, your humble cor- respondent has himself succumbed to iPad-mania and purchased a unit. Most of what has been written, good and bad, is borne out. The good — the quality of the screen, the intuitiveness of the touch interface, its aptness as a reading device, the sheer coolness of the thing — all hold. The signifi cance of some of the criticisms, however, comes home. The onscreen keyboard, for example, is so touch sensitive it's diffi cult or impossible to touch-type with accuracy. The lightest brush generates a character. In fairness, Apple Inc. does sell a docking station keyboard that holds the screen upright so it works like a laptop, and you can also use Bluetooth wireless keyboards. The other major negative is Apple's refusal to enable iPad to use Flash, so streaming web video will not play. This is a serious limitation of iPad both as a business tool and an entertainment device. Some reservations about the iPad as a business tool, especially the absence of business applica- tions, have been put to rest. Many applications have already appeared — including Apple's iWork productivity suite and Citrix Receiver for iPad which allows iPad users to use applications and data on a Windows PC or server — with more to come. Another negative — that iPad can't be used as a voice over Internet phone — may also turn out to be untrue. Early reports suggest the accessory camera connector kit can also connect a telephone headset to enable Internet phone services such as Skype. Bottom line: seven out of 10. just look at the cost of acquiring the soft- ware and hardware — I wouldn't say it's a no-brainer, but the investment made a lot of business sense for us." Bell doesn't always use its end-to- end e-discovery capability. Schweizer's group assesses each case to determine which parts of the process it will do itself and which it will contract out. It partly depends on whether it will handle the case itself entirely in-house — the litigation group has three full-time lawyers and two law clerks — or give it to outside counsel, and on what in-house e-discovery capa- bilities the firm has. Bell almost always handles the initial phases itself — preservation and collec- tion of data for sure, and usually initial processing as well. It is more apt to out- source review, although it has the capabil- ity in-house. "We sometimes use our own in-house review platform, sometimes we have to outsource," says Schweizer. "It depends on the time involved, the sensi- tivity of the data, the number of reviewers available. We're flexible enough to adapt to any circumstance." Part of that flexibility comes from having established a smoothly working ntitled-9 1 5/17/10 11:01:08 AM 26 JUNE 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Untitled-1 1 12/15/09 10:32:55 AM — GB Gadget Watch