It wasn’t long ago that Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw Next initiative reminded me that the human element in computer-aided legal research is the key to accomplishing client goals. As with legal research, humans are the bellwethers and heavyweights in computer-aided e-discovery, despite the relentless buzz around predictive coding, technology-assisted review, and even attorney-less review — buzz that implies computers will replace humans in e-discovery tasks, from collection to review. As the Big Data for e-discovery keeps getting bigger, humans are key in managing discovery in litigation and responsible for delivering results to clients, not computers and technology.
If computers can beat chess and Jeopardy champions, then they will soon take over other aspects of our lives from driving cars, such as in Nevada, to reviewing documents in litigation. Although my reasoning is invalid, it’s important to note that Nevada opened its highways to robot (computer-driven) vehicles, not its urban areas. To date, the New York and Boston metropolitan areas have not followed Nevada’s lead because driving in unpredictable and heavy traffic is not for robots or computers alone. And like heavy traffic, complex e-discovery is not for computers alone, but they can help humans make it more efficient and cost-effective.
