The Many Faces of Mike McBride » LitigationSupport

ReadyConvert is Free Today Only

Mike McBride — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:09:50 +0000

Granted it’s only a 6 month license, but if you ever wanted to see what ReadyConvert can and can’t do when it comes to converting load files, this is a great chance to do just that!

http://www.prlog.org/11860274-free-downloads-of-readyconvert-discovery-software-available-this-friday-april-27.html

Me Elsewhere

Mike McBride — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:29:02 +0000

As I mentioned when I changed jobs, I’m not really writing about Litigation Support here anymore, because I don’t want to compete with my own company. However, I am writing on the group blog over there. My first post went up today. If you’re interested, go check it out!

Data Data Everywhere!

And The World Keeps Turning….

Mike McBride — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:28:10 +0000

Apparently, while 2011 was a year of huge changes for me, the changes just keep coming in 2012. I won’t be relocating again, but I will be switching jobs, and that is going to also impact what I’m doing on this site. I’ve accepted a Litigation Support Trainer position with AccessData. I’ll be based out of my home office, doing online training and various other projects from there, while also traveling to do onsite training, working at some of the various trade shows, etc.

I’ll also be contributing to AD’s eDiscovery Insight Blog (http://ediscoveryinsight.com/). In the interest of not competing with myself, or with the company that pays my bills, I will not be writing about the legal industry or litigation support on this site any longer, short of pointing you to things I write over there.

What does that mean for mikemcbrideonline.com? I think it goes back to being the blog it started out as all those years ago. A little tech, some geeky stuff, some personal lessons learned about careers and travel, and, of course, photography. I’ll still be sharing interesting articles in the legal and litigation support fields, here and on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, along with links to various other things I find interesting. There won’t be a complete purge of all things legal, but it certainly won’t be the main focus the way it has been for the last few years.

If you’ve been coming here for the litigation support stuff, I hope you’ll join us over on eDiscovery Insight, and I hope to be able to continue to share information and insights with you in various ways. If you’ve been following along for years and trying your best to weed through the boring legal stuff, I hope you’ll enjoy the new turn on the site. Just bear with me as I go through an adjustment period and figure out exactly what I’m doing around here.

On a personal note, I’m excited by this new opportunity. I’ll be working with a great team, at a very exciting time in the history of the Summation product line. I’ll be getting a chance to teach others, and help them understand this crazy world of eDiscovery, on a regular basis. It will certainly make for a different 2012 than I was expecting, but a very interesting one too!

Hopefully, I’ll even get a chance to meet up with some of you in my travels, or at trade shows, so stay in touch!

Careers in Ediscovery

Mike McBride — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:37:50 +0000

I know, I know, I’ve been pretty quiet around here of late. I promise that will change shortly, after some craziness settles down into a new normal. In the mean time, my friend Jared Coseglia shared a link on Twitter to the new podcast he is doing in combination with ILTA:

In these podcasts, created in collaboration with ILTA, leaders in the corporate and AmLaw 200 world discuss the evolution of their careers and share secrets to their successes. Listen to these podcasts to learn what you need to do to bolster your own career.

Could be worth checking out!

Follow The Leader

Mike McBride — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:32:27 +0000

Last year it was AccessData acquiring Summation, and now that they are releasing their new version of Summation Pro, fully integrated with the FTK backend that takes you from forensic acquisition straight through to attorney review, I guess this should come as no shock.

Guidance Software to Acquire CaseCentral

Actually, this is good news as far as I’m concerned. We need more tools that can handle ediscovery all the way through the process, and the entry into the ediscovery review game by two of the big forensic companies, with all their expertise on side of the equation is much needed. Should be interesting to watch these two continue to compete in a new arena!

LegalTech Coverage

Mike McBride — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:45:24 +0000

I have to admit, I haven’t seen much coverage from blogs or Twitter about LegalTech. Part of that is my schedule being off from a typical East Coast work day, thus missing a lot of morning twitter traffic. Part of that may also be the lack of usable wifi at the hotel, at least from what I’ve been told by those attending.

However, it appears that Lexblog has me covered in terms of gathering up a bunch of coverage and letting me flip through it in one place. Looking forward to doing just that!

Force Multipliers

Mike McBride — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:45:55 +0000

V. Mary Abraham wrote about making KM a force multiplier in your law firm on 2012 today. While I wouldn’t say that you could take this exact framework and turn Litigation Support into a force multiplier, I think there’s quite a lot in this article that does apply to making better use of your Litigation Support tools and staff within a firm.

For that matter, this serves as a nice framework for anyone looking to make sure their team is focusing on the things that really matter in 2012. It’s a good reminder to not get bogged down in putting out fires every day, but to keep your eyes on the ultimate goals on your department. Check it out and see how it applies to you!

Inefficient Management – Poor Job Descriptions

Mike McBride — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:45:06 +0000

My wife has written an interesting perspective on the huge waste of time that is created when a job description is vague and doesn’t really identify the job you might be applying for.

It struck a chord with me not only from previous job searches, but also from things I’ve seen and heard in both the technology and legal industries. (Especially in the legal technology area!) It seems all too common for there to either be “formal” job descriptions, that describe the job as it was done the last time someone in HR got on the everyone needs a formal job description bus, no matter how many years ago that was, or something thrown together at the last minute by people who have never done the job they are now advertising for.

The latter situation comes about because of a pure lack of planning. Someone resigns and everyone is caught by surprise. There’s no succession plan, no cross-training has been done, and there’s no clear immediate steps identified for replacing that person. It usually takes longer than the two weeks notice to even make any sort of decision about hiring a replacement, therefore there’s no input on what to look for from the person who has actually been doing the job.

On the other hand, the former situation comes about because there was, at one time, an attempt to develop succession plans, and identify the steps necessary to assure work continues to get done in the interim, but those plans have not been updated in years. Things change, quickly, in any technology area. New tools are brought in, roles change, staff members assume new responsibilities, etc. Dusting off the years old descriptions is not going to give you a clear understanding of the skills you are currently looking for.

In both situations, you wind up reviewing resumes and maybe even interviewing a lot of people who aren’t good fits at all for the job you currently need to fill.Wasting your time, and theirs.

If That’s Not Right, What Else Isn’t?

Mike McBride — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:05:03 +0000

I’ve talked before about the things that show up on procedural TV shows (I’m looking at you CSI) that simply aren’t possible in the real world. Think about the number of times you’ve seen a crime drama take a crappy cell phone picture, for example, and using “technology” get a crystal clear image of a license plate 200 feet behind the subject of the photo, for example? It drives me up the wall when attorneys expect those of us who work with electronic evidence to just magically be able to do something similar.

I’ve always wondered how much of what we see on television in areas that I’m not as familiar with, is completely wrong as well.

Worse yet, as someone who’s worked in technology for awhile, it’s somewhat shocking how many incorrect “facts” show up in actual news articles about technology. Articles that complain about missing features, that aren’t missing, or reviews that seem very biased written by people with a clear agenda, etc.

The other day I was listening to a hockey game and one of the announcers started talking about the schedule having “back to back visits by teams from British Columbia”, which seemed odd to me, as Vancouver is the only BC team in the NHL that I know of. Of course, I checked the team’s schedule and saw the next two games were against those great BC outposts of Edmonton and Calgary.

The point is not to poke fun at hockey announcers and technology writers, however. As I thought more about this mistake, I started to think about how many American’s probably do think those cities are in BC, or just don’t have any idea. I’ve been a hockey fan since childhood, and following the game means I probably know more about Canada than most Americans. Given that, I knew the statement being made was incorrect. But, how many areas of knowledge can I be expert enough in to make sure I’m getting “facts” from journalists? For most of us, when we hear economic, health, geopolitical, or scientific “news” reports, we don’t have the expertise to know an inaccuracy when we hear it, or the resources to fact-check the reports. The best we can hope is that someone who does know differently will point out the inaccuracies, or the misleading uses of statistics, etc.

But what if they can’t reach most of us? Are you looking for the corrections, or just taking what your favorite news sources tells you at face value?

No related posts.

Lack of Inspiration; Need New Sources

Mike McBride — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:56:09 +0000

This being the end of the year, I’ve been doing a long overdue cleanup of some of my various information sources, the first being Google Reader. After taking a look at the over 300 subscriptions I had there, and removing all of the ones who haven’t posted in 2011, and a number of ones I simply don’t care about any more, it occurs to me that a large part of why I’ve been struggling to find things to write about outside of eDiscovery and Litigation Support is due to an utter lack of good sources of information about Tech or Photography, for example.

Of course, this seems odd. The tech blogosphere is where I first learned about blogging, and where I used to find a ton of inspiration. However, I realize now that I’ve really lost touch with it. It seems the only tech news sources I’ve been following have mostly been consumed with iPhone/Android comparisons, and Google +/Facebook/Twitter comparisons. What happened to all the folks working in IT sharing their learning experiences? Where have the tech support folks gone?

So, now that my subscription list has gone from over 300, to just about 180, I’m looking for suggestions. What are your favorite blogs? What are the best sources of information about technology, photography, and yes, litigation support and legal technology, as well?

My RSS reader needs some new content!