E-discovery vendor revamps pricing, contract attorney work in Europe, webinars, and more

A bit of a mixed bag today:

E-discovery

Kazeon Systems has rolled out a range of pricing plans for its e-discovery products, hoping to entice customers amid lean economic times with one plan aimed at users who want to avoid big up-front costs.  A number of web sites have reported the Kazeon Systems roll-out but for a nice perspective go the PC World article which you can access by clicking here. 

 Among the points raised in the article (with some of our comments):

 — e-discovery products don’t immediately appeal to departments that must budget to buy software, such as IT or finance

—  e-discovery vendors are toiling for market share in a fragmented, burgeoning market (Legal Tech 2009 will have more than 65 e-discovery software exhibitors)

— signs of maturity are beginning to appear as organizations are starting to rationalize the e-discovery process (and we see more and more contract attorneys going in-house at corporations and e-discovery vendors)

— Forrester Research analyst Brian Hill is predicting that e-discovery adoption will increase this year as government bodies around the world enact new regulations and toughen up enforcement amid the economic downturn

Europe

Law firms may be cutting staff in the U.S. but many are ramping up in Europe.

Dewey & LeBoeuf has reportedly laid off eight associates from its Los Angeles office, the second round of cuts at the firm in as many months, while simultaneously making hires in Germany, France and Italy.   In a series of press releases it announced that its new hires had added significant firepower to its Frankfurt, Milan and Paris offices.

Dewey has always had a significant presence in Europe, with over 400 lawyers in the region and offices in seven major cities. The London office has 200 lawyers, most of them English solicitors or US-qualified lawyers.  The Paris office includes over 50 lawyers, the majority of whom are members of the Paris Bar, as well as a number of U.S. practitioners. The firm also has a significant presence in Italy (offices in Milan and Rome) and Germany (in Frankfurt), with nearly 70 professionals in each country. Warsaw, with more than 50 lawyers, is consistently the “go to” international law firm in the country.  The Brussels office combines EU and Belgium law practitioners.

Dewey has always had a large amount of document review work in both its U.S. offices and European offices, and it does a huge amount of bankruptcy and receiver work.   It has staffed these projects through agencies but has done more and more direct hires via the job boards.  It also has a sophisticated electronic review training system for its associates.

Meanwhile, Skadden has launched a European corporate investigations practice out of its London office.  For details click here.   Skadden has always a heavy user of  contract attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic.

And not to be outdone, K&L Gates has expanded in Frankfurt and Paris in addition to its expansion in North Carolina and Texas.

All of this bodes well for the ever-growing community of contract attorneys home-based in Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Paris and elsewhere in Europe.   For more information on jobs in Europe you can check our Europe page by related articles by clicking here  and to get notices about projects/jobs in Europe sign up for the Europe list here.

Webinar

For those of you who can, just a reminder that today at 10:00 AM PST/1:00 PM EST the webinar “The Life of a Gigabyte on the Frontier of Electronic Discovery” will broadcast.  You can get full information by clicking here.

LegalTech 2009

LegalTech 2009 will be in NYC from February 2nd to the 4th.   LegalTech is the big event for professionals in the legal technology community.  LegalTech 2009 features 3 days of CLE/CPD accredited sessions, and hundreds of exhibiting companies.   We are certainly not suggesting you shell out $1,000 for the actual conference seminar events but the exhibit hall is a great opportunity to check out new software, meet reps from a multitude of e-discovery companies and contractors who obviously are selling but hey … pick up a software demo disk and/or find out who you can contact for jobs.   Many of the exhibitors give out free EXHIBIT HALL ONLY access passes so it won’t cost you anything to get into the hall.  For info click here.

The Satyam Outsourcing scandal

It seems new allegations in the Satyam scandal could have major Foreign Corrupt Practices Act implications. For full coverage go to Gabes Guide which you find by clicking here.

And finally a new blog we’ve found …

…. called Mastering Electronic Evidence which you can find by clicking here.  The blog has an interesting comment on search terms and retrieving relevant documents, although so many of us know we are often verboten from using the search function on reviews.  But we thought the info would be of interest.