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Greg is going to LVNx this week and will have The Geek in Review stickers to hand out. So if you’re in Chicago at LVNx, be on the lookout and prepared to answer our Crystal Ball Question!
Continue Reading The Data Diva and Two Geeks Talk Data Privacy – Debbie Reynolds (TGIR Ep. 174)
[Ed. Note: This week marks The Geek in Review’s 4th Anniversary. We thank you all for listening, subscribing, and telling your colleagues about what you hear. We’d love to hear more from you on what your favorite episodes are or what topics you’d like us to cover. Tweet us at @gebauerm and @glambert with your thoughts. Thank You Listeners!! – GL/MG]
We all know the saying “High Risk, High Reward.” But when it comes to data security, Peter Baumann, CEO and co founder of ActiveNav, we derive the value of the data because we just can’t get through the risk. There are three things always facing businesses whenever there is data involved, and that is the protection of the business’s reputation, the costs involved in non-compliance, and then the exponential growth of data within the organization. We are so focused on reacting to these three variables, that we simply cannot do anything on the value of the data itself.
Peter talks with us about the number of existing patchwork of regulations around the world, and how it makes it too difficult for business and organizations to comply. And while most experts suggested that regulations like GDPR would only govern those with businesses or people in Europe, it’s become the de facto compliance bar for privacy and data security for many businesses. He suggests that the US Government needs to step in an set a clear regulatory path around data privacy and security so that businesses know what the rules are, and the legal industry can better advise their clients on what steps they need to take to be compliant.
We dive deep in this episode and talk about what is structured and data. And how the existence of “dark data” within a business is what brings the highest risk of all. While doing data assessments on Terabytes and even Petabytes of data is extremely expensive, data breaches are even more expensive. The goal in Peter’s mind is to get to “zero dark data” so that you can stop worrying completely on the risks, and start understanding the value within your data.
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
For many of us, what we think of when we hear “American Lawyer Media”, we think of lots of print newspapers, magazines, The American Lawyer, and the AmLaw 100/200 lists. Bill Carter, CEO of the newly re-branded ALM, sees the tremendous value of the data that ALM collects much more than just the news articles it produces. When Carter took over the reins at ALM in 2012, he evaluated the company like a consultant, and determined that the best path forward was through consolidation of titles through the evolution of law.com; moving away from individual subscriptions to an enterprise model, and; focus on the wealth of data compiled by ALM and find ways to leverage that data as the path forward for the company. We have an amazing look into what ALM is doing these days and a peek at what Bill Carter would like to do in the near future.
This week’s Crystal Ball answer comes to us from Ken Crutchfield of Wolters Kluwer. Ken is monitoring all of the exciting legal technologies that are springing out of the AI explosion and who will be the winners, and who will be the losers as things shake out.
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Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 157 – ALM’s Bill Carter – It’s All About the Data
Sarah Sutherland from CanLII joins us this week to talk about her new book, Legal Data and Information in Practice: How Data and the Law Interact. We have a fun and informative discussion about how the legal industry, ranging from courts, firms, law schools and start-ups are leveraging data within their organizations and how new technologies are allowing us to do amazing things with data that we could only dream about a few short years ago. While many of us in the law understand the messiness of the data we produce and collect, however Sutherland points out that there are many industries where the data is messy, and they are using that data to increase the value of the services they provide.
That being said, there are still a number of ways in which we create and collect data that need improvement to support current and potential uses. Leveraging data in better ways helps the legal industry across the spectrum. Whether that is the large law firms assisting global corporations, or helping individuals with access to justice needs. Sutherland’s hope is that a legal industry that has better structure data results in better outcomes for everyone needing legal services. Sarah recently wrote about a hypothetical law firm where she quantified the value of improved information and data.
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A recent leak of confidential court records in California from Tyler Technologies, Inc.’s Odyssey Case Management System is having a wider affect that the court initially thought. It turned out that third party data collection also gained access to the information, including attorney disciplinary records and juvenile records. In addition, no one is really certain if the leak was limited to just the California courts.
Lex Machina and LexisNexis recently released their latest Law Firms Activity Report, which surveys the most active law firms in federal district court.
You know what we are missing? Another Law School in Florida! Enter The Jacksonville University College of Law to become Florida’s twelfth law school in the state.
You know what else we have been missing? Legal Explainer TikToks. But now we have them thanks to Harvard Law Spouses, Maclen Stanley and Ashleigh Ruggles, both 2018 Harvard law grads, They published a book last summer called The Law Says What?: Stuff You Didn’t Know About the Law (but Really Should!), and a TikTok page spun off of the book. Perhaps we need a Geek in Review TikTok page?? Or, perhaps not!!
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 149 – Sarah Sutherland on How Data and the Law Interact
The conversation about [community] policing… really needs to get to where we recognize that we’re in this together. That there’s very little separation between the men and women wearing a police uniform, and the people that they are working with.” – Wayne Harris
What we are really trying to do is give voice to individuals in their communities and create a way for local leaders, for police leaders, for anyone, really, to be able to understand what a community needs. And then let’s focus on creating and providing those needs for that community. That’s what’s going to create thriving communities in the end and, frankly, reduce the need for law enforcement to solve every single problem that we have.” – Ama Romaine
Our fellow geek, Casey Flaherty talks about his recent blog post series with Chad Main of the Technically Legal Podcast.