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eDiscovery Channel
Guru Articles

Hear My Story on the eDiscovery Channel

I was honored to chat with Tom O’Connor and Rachi Messing recently. They have an interview series on the eDiscovery Channel where their guests share how they got started in this industry. There are over 30 case studies on this site about people’s journeys in our industry, but this is

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Keywords
Analysis

Electronic Discovery – Keyword Searches

After electronic discovery has been “processed” and “indexed“, the legal team can then perform “keyword searches”. Although there is much debate in our industry about the proficiency and accuracy of performing keyword searches to isolate subsets of data to be reviewed and analyzed, prior to production, the legal team performs

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Success
Newbie Successes

Four Newbie Successes

In this article, I would like to introduce you to four people that I am extremely proud of. As you may be aware, getting that first opportunity in litigation support entails many variables, some of which you have no control over, but for some, you absolutely do. Sometimes it is

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electronic discovery indexing
Analysis

Electronic Discovery – Indexing

In a previous article on the topic of electronic discovery, I began the conversation about a term we use called “processing”. As I mentioned in that article, the term “processing” encompasses many steps, which can make it one of the most difficult topics to teach to newbies in litigation support.

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eDiscovery Rules By State
Resources

Resource – eDiscovery Rules for Each State

It is a good idea to get familiar with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, especially as they apply to electronic discovery. In addition, each state may have their own eDiscovery rules. Below are three resources that have aggregated state-level information with regard to electronic discovery rules. Current Listing of States

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Electronic Discovery Culling
Data Processing

Electronic Discovery – Culling

This is yet another term we toss around when discussing electronic discovery. We borrowed the term “cull” from other meanings. If you look up the definition, it will mention (1) reducing the population of a wild animal or (2) selecting from a large quantity; obtain from a variety of sources.

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Qualities of a True Team Player
Managing the Department

10 Qualities in a True Team Player

Do you consider yourself to be a “team player”? This descriptive gets tossed around a lot, especially during the interview process. But, to me, it is vital to the success of the entire team and it should not be taken lightly. I am not a fan of team members who do

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FTF-Search-and-Redact-Using-Nuance-Power-PDF
Fast Tip Friday

Fast Tip Friday – Search and Redact Using Nuance Power PDF

This fast tip demonstrates how to use Nuance Power PDF Advanced to import a search term list, perform searches across multiple PDF files, and mark all of the terms for redaction. In a previous tutorial, I demonstrated how to Search and Highlight Across Multiple PDFs Using Adobe Acrobat Pro.  

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Electronic Discovery - Time Zones
Data Processing

Electronic Discovery – Time Zone

In a previous article, I began a discussion about processing electronic discovery. One of the decisions we need to make before we begin processing electronic discovery is related to time zone. Most of the software used in our industry to perform processing will require a setting for the time zone. If all

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Reflection
Career Paths

Reflection is an Important Step in Learning

You know that expression that says “everything is not all about you”? Well, in this case, it really is all about you. As the end of the year approaches, I am near the end of another teaching semester. This is the point in the semester where I assign reflective exercises

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study certification exam
Certifications

Sean Shares Study Tips

I often receive questions about taking certifications in our industry, so I thought this article would be a good reference for the LitSuppGuru community. My friend and fellow blogger, Sean O’Shea, has agreed to let me share his article below. Sean shares what it was like to study for and

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electronic discovery esi
Data Processing

Electronic Discovery – ESI

Like many other “seasoned” litigation support professionals, I remember when businesses did not use email. By the time, email started showing up “at the office”, I was already working with litigators. So, I was helping with litigation discovery that was primarily in paper form and maybe a small portion of

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password protected ESI
Data Processing

Electronic Discovery – Password Protected Files

In a previous article on the topic of electronic discovery, I began the conversation about a term we use called “processing”. Later, I wrote a few articles about some issues that come up during the processing of electronic discovery. One was exceptions and the other was embedded objects. Another issue that

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FTF-Generate-Word-List-From-Multiple-Files
Fast Tip Friday

Fast Tip Friday – Generate Word List From Multiple Files

This fast tip demonstrates how to use a free program called TextStat to quickly and easily generate a concordance (aka word list) from multiple MS Word documents. NOTE: If you have PDF files, you could convert them to MS Word format or text format in order to use this software

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FTF-Search-and-Highlight-and-Extract-Pages
Fast Tip Friday

Fast Tip Friday – Search and Highlight and Extract Pages

This fast tip demonstrates how to use an Adobe Acrobat action to perform searches across multiple PDF files, highlight all of the terms and extract the pages that have hits highlighted. The highlight colors available to use in the javascript are listed below: color.transparent color.black color.white color.dkGray color.gray color.ltGray color.red

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FTF-Search-and-Highlight-Across-Multiple-PDFs
Fast Tip Friday

Fast Tip Friday – Search and Highlight Across Multiple PDFs

This fast tip demonstrates how to use an Adobe Acrobat action to import a search term list, perform searches across multiple PDF files, and highlight all of the terms. The highlight colors available to use in the javascript are listed below: color.transparent color.black color.white color.dkGray color.gray color.ltGray color.red color.green color.blue

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regular-expressions
Technical

Regular Expressions Not Equal to a Smile or a Frown

One of the nifty and powerful tools in our litigation support tool belt is “regular expressions.” We use regular expressions to match patterns of data that we need to search for and then perhaps manipulate in some way. A few examples of easy-to-recognize “data patterns” are social security numbers (999-99-9999) and

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Managing Clients

Dealing with a Difficult Litigation Support Client

One thing about working in litigation support, that might not be as much fun, is that we have to deal with strong personalities. For whatever reason, there are a lot of strong personalities working in the legal industry. I am not just talking about attorneys. It applies to paralegals, legal secretaries,

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Electronic Discovery - Exceptions
Data Processing

Electronic Discovery – Exceptions

In a previous article, I began a discussion about processing electronic discovery. Another step of the process is dealing with the exceptions. One result of attempting to process all of the electronic files is a list of files that were unable to be processed. We refer to these files as exceptions.

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Guru Articles

Appreciation of Significant People in My Life

Have you ever stopped to think about the significant people in your life? Do you find that you are so busy living your life, going through the daily, weekly, monthly routine of managing work and/or family expectations, that you sometimes neglect to acknowledge those significant people that have touched your heart in

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