Legal Commentary

Among the famous "couples" of legal technology (no, not THAT kind of partners, no Brangelinas!) are Minnesota consultants George Socha and Tom Gelbmann ? who have been monitoring electronic data discovery vendors since 2003. They conduct exhaustive research, publish an summary of the results every August in Law Technology News, and make drill-down information available to subscribers.

  Through 2008, their LTN report included both analysis and detailed charts, ranking vendors both for overall achievement, and comparing vendors within specific areas (e.g., identification, preservation, collection, etc.).

But in 2009, the pair (who also run the Electronic Discovery Reference Model www.edrm.net) decided to end the tradition of ranking, because, ironically, it had become way too successful. Instead of doing appropriate due diligence, firms and individuals would simply rely on the Soc-mann rankings ? which chilled the two consultants, because doing so defeated the whole purpose of their research: to help folks evaluate vendors, not just grab a list. They talked about the decision in this Law Technology Now podcast.

This week, Socha (far right) and Gelbmann (near right) have gone high tech, launching Apersee, a web-based tool designed to help firms and individuals make educated decisions about which vendors to approach. The tool works with most browsers (without any plug-ins or additional software), and is compatible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7+, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome (but iffy with IE6, fixes in progress).

"Apersee comes from the French word aperçu (pronounced a-p?r-?sü), meaning an immediate understanding or insight," they explain on the product's website (www.apersee.com). "That's exactly what we want you to find here. With minimal time and effort, the Apersee Selection Engine can give you insight into the e-discovery products and providers who can address your unique needs and priorities."

The search engine "draws heavily" from both EDRM and the survey material. Users "choose the criteria that matter the most to them, assign priorities to those criteria, evaluate the results, and modify searches until a decision is made." The system is customizable and flexible, and there is no cost to consumers to use Apersee.

Vendors "can tailor their listing to fit their specific offerings and include as much or as little information as desired, including adding videos, images, links or specialty areas," says Soc-Mann. Like most directory services, basic information about a vendor is provided for free, but vendors will pay fees via "per-view" pricing for enhanced listings, Socha told LTN.