Tech Tip: Get your iPhone Back

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in General Technology Posts

≈ 6 Comments

lock-screen“Will the person who left their cell phone at the security checkpoint please retrieve it?”  People constantly leave their phones behind at security checkpoints, washrooms, checkout counters and charge stations.  Too, the little buggers slip out of pockets and purses.  More than three million phones are lost in the U.S. every year, and less than one-in-ten lost phones finds its way home.  Saturday night, I found an iPhone on the floor at a big party in the Faubourg Marigny in New Orleans.  I located the owner by asking everyone in sight if they’d lost a phone, and when I found her, the owner didn’t know she’d dropped it.

There are high tech tools to find lost phones like the Find My iPhone app or Tile locators; but, these only work for owners and require a second connected device.  What do the persons who find your phone or the Lost & Found staff do to quickly locate you, often before you realize your phone’s gone?  You don’t have an ID tag with contact data on your phone, right?

I do something that’s so darn simple, it’s a wonder it’s not already an option on every iPhone: I embed my name and email address in the lock screen photo (i.e., the wallpaper image that appears when you press the sleep/wake button, even when the phone is locked).  Now, any announcement over the P.A. includes my name, and I’ve furnished a secure way for good samaritans to contact me to arrange return.  It’s also an easy means to supply emergency contact information, should the good samaritan find you dropped alongside your phone.

There are plenty of ways to add text to your lock screen image–I’ve used the drawing tools in PowerPoint–but the simplest is to use the image editing tools right on your iPhone.  Here’s how (in iOS 10.1.1):

  1. Select an image to serve as your lockscreen wallpaper.  Use one with not-too-busy space for text (like the clouds in mine).  The text location shouldn’t conflict with the date and time text.  You may prefer to use a picture of yourself to make it easier to find you and prove it’s your phone.
  2. Duplicate the image so as not to alter your original.  Do this by selecting Share (box with the up arrow) and Duplicate.
  3. Working with the duplicate image, choose Edit from the toolbar (abacus-like slider), then choose More (circle with three dots).  Select Markup (toolbox icon) and finally choose the Text option (uppercase “T” in a box).
  4. A text box will appear in the center of your image.  You can resize it by dragging the blue dots or reposition it by dragging the box.  You can change the font face, font size, text color and alignment from the menu bar.
  5. Type your information.  Be sensible, e.g., don’t include your home address, and don’t use your mobile number (duh). Click Done (upper right corner).
  6. To make the edited image your lockscreen wallpaper, go to Settings>Wallpaper>Choose a New Wallpaper.  In All Photos, navigate to the annotated image you just created and select it (tap). Move and scale the image as suits you, then select Set from the menu and choose Set Lock Screen.  You’re done!

Happy E-Discovery Day!

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in E-Discovery

≈ 2 Comments

e-discovery-day-2016As I stow the turkey platter and box up the pilgrim décor, I’m reminded that it’s time once more to celebrate E-Discovery Day, TODAY, Thursday, December 1.  No doubt, you’re saying, “So SOON?!?!  I still haven’t retrieved those E-Discovery Day 2015 balloons that got loose in the atrium, and who’s going to eat all that E-Discovery Day Kringle taking up space in the office freezer?” (Special-ordered from Racine in the traditional e-discovery flavor, Cinnamon, TIFF and Tears™).

I know.  Already?  We don’t even have new Federal rules this time!  Judges are still exercising discretion when meting out sanctions for spoliation, and proportionality is back on top, though no one knew it was gone!

But, as the E-Discovery industry has thoughtfully fashioned a holiday to fill the tedious weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza, let’s warm the wassail, join hands and lift our voices in celebration for those few cherished hours that are E-Discovery Day.  Remember: there’s still time to shop for the perfect E-Discovery Day gift, and as a tip, Ralph “Gimpy” Losey has a new $100 book of reprinted blog posts, perfect for the e-discoverer on your list still stymied by the web browser.  (Get well soon, Ralph!)

Let me invite you to begin your fun-filled E-Discovery Day at the non-intuitive time of 11:15 am eastern/8:15 am pacific TODAY, Thursday, December 1, 2016, by listening to a panel comprised of Robert Cruz, Tara Jones, Zach Warren and Yours Truly discussing Mainstream News & E-Discovery: What You Should Be Watching Out for in 2017. Per our hosts Actiance and Exterro, we will be recapping “what news events you should be tracking and proactively advising your legal team on to ensure you’re prepared to take on new e-discovery risks in 2017.”

In truth, we will be talking about a plenitude of topics that pop into our heads, including how e-discovery in 2017 will not even slightly resemble e-discovery in 2016.  Thanks to automation, TAR 42.0, automobile telematics, deeply-buried ABA commentary and easy-to-apply proportionality standards, you won’t even have to show up at work anymore.  Instead, you’ll just tell Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Hey Google, “Get me the non-privileged e-stuff,” and it will be done in seconds for a pittance.  But, sadly, if you miss our webcast (and the hours of fine programming that follow), don’t be surprised if e-discovery in 2017 looks to you, the uninitiated, just exactly like e-discovery in 2016.

Later today [4PM EST / 3PM CST / 1PM PST], I’m doing another webcast, this one for Nuix, entitled, The Tipping Point of New Technology in Discovery.  The topic grows out of an essay posted here on October 19, 2016 wherein I addressed proportionality considerations when weighing the cost and accuracy of automated transcription and translation tools in e-discovery.  Put simply, for inexpensive technologies that displace manual processes, how inaccurate can such technologies be before the savings won’t defray failure?  I’ll be speaking from New Orleans, and the discussion will be led from Sydney by Nuix’ Angela Bunting.  I’m joined on the panel by Judge Xavier Rodriguez (USDC WDTX) in San Antonio and Scott Cohen of Winston & Strawn in New York.  This promises to be a lively talk!  Please stop by.

There’s a lot of really good content coming your way for free TODAY. Don’t miss it.

Happy E-Discovery Day to You and Yours!

Introduction to Discovery in U.S. Civil Litigation

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Computer Forensics, E-Discovery

≈ 5 Comments

tools of discoveryI am fortunate to teach electronic discovery and digital evidence in many venues. There’s the semester-long, 3 credit course at the University of Texas School of Law each Fall, the weeklong Training Academy offered to all comers each June at Georgetown Law School (as part of a splendid faculty) and the 50-70 speeches a year that keep me idling at airports. Next month, I’m adding a sixteen week, eight-session online evening program through the District of  Columbia Bar, immodestly titled “Prime Time with Craig Ball.”

All of these entail accompanying written material, so there is a lot of research and writing for the various courses and presentations.  Some of my students aren’t lawyers or are law students with the barest theoretical understanding of discovery.  I’ve found it’s never safe to assume that students know the mechanisms of last-century civil discovery, let alone those of modern e-discovery.  Accordingly, I penned the following short introduction to discovery in U.S. civil litigation and offer it here in case you need something like it, especially if you’re also teaching this stuff.  [It’s copyrighted, but feel free to use it with attribution].

Though I have never known a time without discovery, I found it interesting to reflect on the fact that civil discovery is only about 20 years older than I am; Discovery is nearly a Baby Boomer!  On a scale of jurisprudential evolution, we’re both young punks.  Need some perspective?  The FRCP are exactly the same age as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, former Attorney General Janet Reno and Prof. Alan Dershowitz.  Continue reading →

“Alexa. Preserve ESI.”

13 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Computer Forensics, E-Discovery

≈ 17 Comments

alexa-bunny slippersIt’s said that the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.  True enough. A benefit of adulthood is that, if you’re lucky, you can splurge on stuff you dreamed of as a child.  For me, a boyish passion was remote sensing and control.  When you’re small and powerless, you feel bigger and empowered to monitor and control things from afar, even if “afar” is just a few feet away. So, before I began fooling with phones and multi frequency switching systems as an adolescent, I was a grade schooler stringing, first real string, then wires and finally transmitters and receivers to turn things on and off and monitor my little world.

Most of these I built, some I bought (or, more accurately, I received as gifts from my indulgent parents).  I vividly remember the Sonuswitch from the venerable  Hammacher Schlemmer‎ store on East 57th Street in Manhattan, a boxy black and gold brick that turned on lights with two hand claps or by jingling keys.

The ’60s were a Golden Age for the electronics tinkerer.  Radio Shack then sold aisle-after-aisle of bright red Science Fair electronics kits and thousands of discrete components (what transistors, resistors, and capacitors are called to distinguish them from integrated circuits or “chips”).  In 1967, I’d venture down to Canal Street and cruise blocks of surplus electronic outlets selling “space age” government surplus componentry or drool over the wares at the long gone Lafayette Radio Electronics and Heathkit stores on West 45th Street.  Lafayette is where I got an FM transmitter that allowed me to broadcast to a vacant corner of the FM dial and the Big Ear, a giant orange parabolic microphone that promised the ability to listen to distant whispered conversations.

I’ve tread memory lane with a purpose: to talk about the latest manifestation of my childhood longings for remote monitoring and control and what they signal with respect to e-discovery.  Today, we are entering a Golden Age of remote sensing and control for the masses.  Internet-enabled cameras monitor my home, and lights and door locks answer to apps on my iPhone.  My lightbulbs talk to the network and adjust brightness and hue on command.  My thermostat let’s me tweak energy usage from aloft when I’ve forgotten to do it before heading to the airport.

And the most exciting development in my nerd’s paradise is the ability to control much of it by speaking to the new woman in my life, Alexa, the e-persona of my Amazon Echo and Dot devices.

I have my buddy Ernie the Attorney Svenson to thank for introducing me to Alexa.  In Ernie’s lovely Uptown New Orleans home, Alexa’s sleek, black cylinder holds a prominent place in the living room.  From the first moment Alexa and I spoke, I  knew I had to have her. And have her, I did.  I’ve had her in my bedroom, my bathroom, kitchen and living room, in my places in Austin and New Orleans.  Oh, Alexa, is there anything you won’t do for me? Continue reading →

Databases in Discovery

01 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Computer Forensics, E-Discovery

≈ 11 Comments

ludditeguidetodatabasesFive years ago, I wrote The Luddite Litigator’s Guide to Databases in E-Discovery to accompany a lecture on the subject at the 2010 Georgetown Advanced E-Discovery Institute.  When I went looking for source material for the article, I was struck by how little there was.  Databases hold most of what we seek in discovery; yet, no one had written anything practical about discovering structured data.  My Luddite Litigator’s Guide was a start, but far from a comprehensive treatment as it lacked the takeaway lawyers crave most: exemplar language and forms.

The curse of legal writing is that we are less prone to create than emulate.  We borrow language from forms as though it were enchanted incantations.  In fact, there are precious few magic words that must appear in pleadings and discovery requests, a point made often and expertly by Bryan Garner, whose thoughtful work I commend to you as a path to better legal writing.

I loathe the practice of law from forms, but I bow to its power.  If we hope to get lawyers to use more efficient and precise prose in their discovery requests, we can’t just harangue them to do it; we’ve “got to put the hay down where the goats can get it.” To that end, here is some language to consider when seeking information about databases and when serving notice of the deposition of  corporate designees (e.g., per Rule 30(b)(6) in Federal civil practice): Continue reading →

Is Transformation Possible?

01 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Computer Forensics, E-Discovery, General Technology Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Ernie the AttorneyMost of us want transformation without change.  We want to be healthier, so long as it doesn’t require diet or exercise.  We want more time for family, friends and community, but not if it means passing up new business or earning less. We crave new and better, but feel safer in our comfort zones.

True transformation requires change: change of practice, of pace, of place and of attitude. Change is occasionally exciting, frequently enriching, and change is always easier when we pursue and embrace it than when it’s shoved down our throats.

Change travels fast; transformation creeps.

Except, in the legal technology arena, change takes years, and transformation decades; that is, save for the fortunate few able to reinvent themselves by rejecting the notion that one is ever “too busy to learn to be more efficient.”  One such different drummer and visionary is Ernest Svenson of New Orleans (pictured above).  If that mild-mannered moniker doesn’t ring any bells, perhaps you know him by his superhero name, Ernie the Attorney.

Driven by wind and water (a/k/a Hurricane Katrina), Ernie transformed from bored big firm litigator to energized, automated and in-control solo practitioner.  Ernie invested the time required to figure out how to practice efficiently, tame the paper tiger and exploit the latest techno-apps, -tools and -services.  Ernie thought things over and identified better ways to do what we do every day.  He began blogging about his successes and failures and writing books, always eager to share his wealth of knowledge with any it might help.

But, though Ernie could foster change by blogging and writing books, spawning transformation demanded a more intense and intimate sharing of skills and insights; so, Ernie created the Small Law Firm Bootcamp, a two-day event in New Orleans between Christmas and New Year’s—a time when we take stock of the year gone by and resolve to do better in the next. Continue reading →

The Right Not to Know

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Computer Forensics, E-Discovery

≈ 4 Comments

starwars_hear no evilTexasBarToday_TopTen_Badge_SmallI’m sitting outside a courtroom in Texas where I have left the proceedings rather than risk the assertion that I learned confidential information offered as testimony in open court.  Sounds crazy, I know; but when lawyers agree to protective orders and judges enter them (then order that they apply to anyone sitting in the courtroom, signatory or not), judges and lawyers tend not to consider what impact those orders have on persons not parties to the case.  Just as there must be a right to protect truly privileged information and trade secrets, there must be a corollary right not to take on the burden and risk of protecting such information when you neither seek nor require disclosure of confidential data.  We have a right not to know.

Continue reading →

Fahrvergnügen: eDiscovery in the Volkswagen Vortex

27 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in E-Discovery

≈ 8 Comments

27VOLKSWAGENjp3-articleLargeSince 2008, Volkswagen programmed vehicles sold in the U.S. to falsify government emissions tests, enabling diesel VWs to spew forty times more pollutants than the law allowed.  I don’t even have to include the lawyerly qualifier, “allegedly,” because, after years of denials, misdirection and efforts to undermine investigations, Volkswagen has fallen on its sword and admitted its intentional misconduct.  It’s a breathtaking revelation in every sense of the word, and it’s going to drive a lot of American litigation…and e-discovery.

I thought we might get a jump on the discovery issues in terms of both the usual and unique challenges that Volkswagen and its suppliers, dealers and counsel face, as well as the discovery duties of the estimated 482,000 owners of affected vehicles in the U.S., many of whom are sure to file individual actions or join class-actions seeking damages or rescission.  Let’s not forget the regulatory and Congressional investigations that will ensue, and actions by shareholders and dealers.  Before it’s over, billions of dollars will change hands, some of it in court; and because this concerns software subroutines, electronic evidence is key.  Continue reading →

Preservation and Proportionality

23 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in E-Discovery

≈ 10 Comments

ThumbonScaleI wrote this four years ago, and didn’t post it. With the Rules amendments effective in just over two months, I thought it timely:

Litigants have been ignoring e-discovery obligations with impunity for so long they’ve come to think of it as an entitlement.  Protected from predators, few have evolved.  But now that opponents and courts are waking to this failure, those who’ve failed to adapt are feeling exposed. They don’t like it, and they want protection.  They call it “proportionality.”

Proportionality sounds wholesome and virtuous, like “patriotism” or “faith;” but like those wholesome virtues, it’s sometimes the refuge of scoundrels.

The much-ballyhooed “rise in sanctions” is designed to mislead.   The solid metrics we have on spoliation sanctions prove that the risk of being sanctioned for negligent non-preservation remains miniscule (.00675% per a report from the Federal Judicial Center).  Put simply: In the United States, you are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be sanctioned for non-preservation of ESI. Continue reading →

Laying the Foundation for Effective Enterprise E-Discovery

16 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in E-Discovery

≈ 5 Comments

frankfurtWith summer holidays and busy lives, I wouldn’t expect many to notice that BIYC has been quiet for six weeks while I’ve been working for a German client and living in Frankfurt.  I don’t know what it says about me that I have fallen head-over-heels for what many regard as the dullest city in Europe; but, I confess I find Frankfurt beautiful and captivating.  I’m sad to leave her behind as I return to the States in a few days.  I can’t say much about what I’ve been doing; but, it felt like a graduate course in corporate (and European) thinking respecting electronically stored information, privacy, regulation, litigation and the challenges faced by global business in identifying, preserving and producing ESI.

For all we tout “information governance” in articles and conferences, the global reality is that functional info gov is as rare as a good hair day for Donald Trump.  Even in industries where data retention is strictly regulated and extensive—like securities trading and banking—information implicated in discovery clumps and clusters hither and yon—some encrypted, some not—on legacy systems and media, as Notes mail and Exchange mail, within archives and hundreds of specialized applications and structured databases, as voice recordings on incompatible systems and loose documents on network shares.  But, these are mere technical hurdles, small next to the challenge of complying with internal corporate and IT policy, cross-border privacy laws and the risks and costly consequences of outsourcing IT.

All of this could be managed—even efficiently and cost-effectively—were it not for the knowledge gap that exists between the lawyers who demand and direct the work and those who do the actual preservation, collection and culling. Continue reading →