Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Our Test Drive of MEETandCONFER.com
January 12, 2012
It astonishes us that so many lawyers still think of the Meet and Confer as ONE meeting and not as a process. We were therefore pleased to see a new tool called MEETandCONFER.com and to have a tour of the product with Scott Devens. Here's a write-up I got from Scott, followed by a couple of comments from John and I.
Although following the 2006 revisions to Rule 26-f of the FRCP Meet and Confer meetings were mandated to be conducted with all litigation, to date, clear definition of the required content and process for meet and confer meetings has not been readily available. MEETandCONFER.COM was developed to fill this void.
MEETandCONFER.COM is a patent-pending e-discovery software platform that provides a programmed approach to guide attorneys, their clients, and opposing parties through the required “meet and confer” process. The use of the MEETandCONFER.COM system provides consistency, defensibility and cost-effectiveness to the handling of this crucial aspect of the e-discovery process. MEETandCONFER.COM simplifies the “meet and confer” process by defining, structuring, and confirming all of the e-discovery steps that are required to cost-effectively comply with the legal requirements mandated by Rule 26(f) of the FRCP, as well as similar state court rules.
The MEETandCONFER.COM software contains integrated video conferencing capabilities, which when combined with its proprietary negotiation system, encourages cooperation between all of the parties involved in the process. A new “Budget Projector” module is in the process of being incorporated into the MEETandCONFER.COM software and will be introduced later this month. This Budget Projector will allow the parties to obtain a snapshot of the total costs that will be associated with their ESI requests during the meet and confer. This functionality will add an valuable component to the meet and confer process because it will allow the parties to assess the proportionality of their projected ediscovery costs with the value of the damages that are being sought. The final step of the MEETandCONFER.COM process is the automated generation of a Report to Court based upon all of the details that have been agreed to (or disagreed with) during the meet and confer process.
As is so often the case, actually doing the demo with Scott is the way to go to fully understand the product. We like the access controls, the ease of navigation and methodolgies available for effective collaboration. The only thing that bothered us about MEETandCONFER is that the data is encrypted to and from the dedicated servers, but not in storage. And you know how John and I harp over encryption.
That aside, we were very happy with the product and it has a very reasonable cost of $149 per month. The company is currently offering a free one month trial of the software – well worth taking a look.
Thanks for showing us around Scott!
Listen to the Podcast
