National Ediscovery Leadership Institute - NELI

🚨 New Episode Alert | NeLI Pod Season 2, Episode 8 is LIVE! 🚨

We're back with another powerful conversation on the National eDiscovery Leadership Institute Podcast, and this one does not disappoint!

Daniel Gold, Esq. and Brandon Mack sat down with Mike Gaudet at J.S. Held LLC to dig deep into the intersection of law, technology, and eDiscovery leadership.

1️⃣ Real Talk on the Challenges Nobody Else Is Saying Out Loud
Mike gets candid about the real friction points in eDiscovery today; the kind of honest industry dialogue that makes NeLI Pod different from every other legal tech show.

2️⃣ Technology Alone Won't Save You - People and Process Still Win
One of the most powerful themes in this episode: the best tech implementations fail without the right people and workflows behind them. Mike breaks down what separates organizations that get it right from those that don't.

3️⃣ The Future of eDiscovery Leadership Is Being Redefined
Mike brings a seasoned perspective on how the role of the eDiscovery professional is evolving, from reactive technician to strategic business advisor. If you're building a career in this space, this conversation will challenge how you see your own trajectory.

Plus, a huge thank you to our sponsor, JS Held, a global consulting firm delivering expertise across many disciplines. We're grateful for their continued support of NeLI and the broader eDiscovery and legal tech community. 🙏

Want to be a sponsor of NeLI? Head over to https://lnkd.in/gyUD3BAC!

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gN2Uk39g
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gffrJGea
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gdNNiaUE

Most practitioners know that active learning works. Far fewer understand why it works, and that gap matters more than the field admits.

Dr. Jeremy Pickens has spent his career closing that gap. As one of the architects of continuous active learning in e-discovery, his research shaped the review platforms that legal teams rely on every day. If you have ever run a CAL-based review, you have benefited from his work, whether you knew his name or not.

In this episode of the NeLI Pod, Daniel Gold, Esq. and Brandon Mack sit down with Jeremy, now Managing Director of Applied Science at Elevate, for a conversation that goes well past the surface.

This is not a vendor demo dressed up as a podcast. It is a scientist explaining, in plain terms, what actually happens inside these systems and why the decisions made at the feature extraction layer matter as much as the algorithm itself.

A few things worth your time from this conversation:
1️⃣ The cold-start problem in TAR is largely solved. One coded document is enough to begin learning. Seed set obsession is a relic of an earlier era.
2️⃣ Tokenization, stemming, and sub-word representations are not implementation details. They determine whether a model can recognize meaning across a noisy document set.
3️⃣ Vendor checklists are the wrong evaluation tool. The right question is how well the system performs on your data, not which techniques it claims to use.
4️⃣ Model updates that recalculate rankings every two minutes have been shown to improve precision by up to 20 percent. Frequency matters.

👏 "You don't know what you don't know. The machine can look globally across the entire collection to find what you have never seen before."

Daniel has known Jeremy since their time together at Catalyst, before OpenText's acquisition. Getting him on the NeLI Pod was not just a booking. It was a privilege.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gA73g_Xa
Apple: https://lnkd.in/gFmga99K
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gMct73Zs

New episode of the National eDiscovery Leadership Institute NeLI Pod podcast is live!

Season 2, Episode 6 features Amy Ambroson Reid, Director of Litigation Solutions & Go-To-Market at UnitedLex, sitting down with Daniel Gold, Esq. and Brandon Mack to talk about where e-discovery actually stands right now, not where vendors say it's going.

Amy has spent more than a decade at UnitedLex, working on some of the largest and most complex MDLs in the country. She brings a perspective that is equal parts legal, operational, and business-minded, and that combination shows up throughout this conversation.

A few things worth pulling out:

👉 The volume mindset is fading. As Amy puts it, "It's no longer a badge of honor to say you had 500 people working on a case." Modern discovery is about getting to the right documents faster and building workflows that are evidence-driven from the start.

👉 Culture is not a soft topic in high-stakes litigation. Trust, transparency, and shared values between service providers, law firms, and corporate clients are what keep complex matters on track when the pressure is highest.

👉 And on AI: "It's all still a people-process-tech equation. AI isn't a magic button solution for everything." That kind of candor is rare, and it's exactly what the NeLI community needs to hear.

The episode also covers playbook design, attorney buy-in for CAL and AI workflows, data reuse challenges, the realities of corporate IT for modernization, and why UnitedLex continues to invest in NeLI as a sponsor!

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube.
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/egBfKqS7
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/eiRFPEb9
▶️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eMqiUFXS

We brought Steve Davis back to the National eDiscovery Leadership Institute NeLI Pod podcast ... and he delivered!

Steve is VP of Forensics & Investigations at Purpose Legal (a wonderful sponsor of the NeLI conference!), and when we had him on last season, the response was strong enough that we had to have him back. In this episode, we went deeper into what is actually keeping forensic investigators up at night.

A few things Steve said that stuck with our hosts, Daniel Gold, Esq. & Brandon Mack:
1️⃣ Deletion: it used to be that if someone deleted a file, you had real options to recover it. Slack space carving, header/footer reconstruction on spinning drives. That world is fading fast. Solid-state drives, double-deletion, and ephemeral messaging apps have changed the calculus. Steve was blunt about it: if someone has flushed twice, in many cases, the data is just gone. That matters enormously for how investigators plan their work from day one.

2️⃣ Data complexity: We are way past the era of "corporate email is the treasure trove." Structured databases, JSON output from collaboration platforms, third-party chat apps, geolocational data, and SQLite on mobile devices. The data types are now as much of a challenge as the volume. And none of it plays nicely with standard downstream review platforms.

3️⃣ AI in forensics: This was genuinely surprising. Steve has been skeptical of the impact of generative AI on forensic work. He changed his position on this episode. He now sees real potential in using AI to cross-reference artifacts during migration and exfiltration investigations, collapsing what used to take days of analyst time into a far more manageable process. Not giving you answers, he said, but surfacing the right questions.

4️⃣ Gen AI as evidence: prompts, outputs, and source code from large language model platforms. Steve broke down all three as distinct categories of collectible data, and explained why, with the right credentials and permissions, this is not actually a heavy lift. That is a conversation the legal community needs to be having right now.

Steve takes genuinely complex subject matter and communicates it in a way that lands for everyone in the room.

👇 Hit the link in the first comment! 👇

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AI in law is no longer a choice. It is a requirement for survival.

Many people ignore the core truth. Using AI without a framework for confidentiality and trustworthiness is a gamble with your career.

In the latest NeLI Pod podcast, hosts Daniel Gold & Brandon Mack spoke with John Benson about his work in digital forensics. He shared a practical and defensible roadmap for the future of legal tech.

We discussed:
1️⃣ The two essential tests for any AI tool.
2️⃣ Evaluating risk effectively.
3️⃣ The reason the human-in-the-loop remains irreplaceable.
This conversation provides a new way to think about the next decade of work.

📺 WATCH THE FULL EPISODE ON YOUTUBE NOW: https://www.youtube.com/
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2pVF3IVaKaEDTr19iFUAVx?si=8a000210524f492a
🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/neli-pod/id1750535625
🔗 NeLI Website: https://ediscoveryleadership.org/

In Season 2, Episode 2 of National eDiscovery Leadership Institute's "NeLI Pod" podcast, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Magistrate Judge Young Kim walks us through how he weighs discovery disputes when the parties can't agree, why 502(d) orders remain underused, and what happens when a producing party claims burden without showing receipts.

Here's 5 things that made got the attention of Daniel Gold, Esq. & Brandon Mack:

1️⃣ When asked whether Gen AI prompts might replace document requests under Rule 34, Judge Kim didn't flinch. He sees a future where both sides agree on the prompts, run the process, and live with the results.
2️⃣ Motions to compel become disputes over prompt scope, not document counts.
3️⃣ On threading emails to save review time: the default rule wins unless you can show me why deviation is justified. Convenience is not a reason. Cost might be, but only if you quantify it.
4️⃣ Burden requires specificity. One attorney submitted a declaration from the employee responsible for locating documents, detailing each step and timing herself finding a single record. That kind of showing moves the needle. "Overly burdensome" without evidence does not.
5️⃣ Discovery on discovery remains rare, but it happens. When a deponent reveals that work communications lived on a personal phone or a messaging app that never made it into the production, the door opens.

The litigation system is a truth-seeking process. Sometimes we forget that, Judge Kim said. Sometimes we treat it as a way to get our favored evidence.

His opinions on TAR, production organization, and proportionality have shaped how practitioners across the country approach electronic discovery.

This episode is worth your time.
NEW: Now you can **watch** NeLI Pod on YouTube *and* Spotify!!
📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/f1q9bm4UBBc
🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/neli-pod/id1750535625
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6dK0xlBRKB4XPV9cGnqZWb?si=TocD9xkRSqmkwe9eBZIvhQ

Learn more about The National eDiscovery Leadership Institute at https://ediscoveryleadership.org!

We just dropped the first episode of Season 2 of the NeLI Pod!

Robert Keeling, Partner at Redgrave LLP and a speaker at the NeLI conference, joined us to talk about , , and the future of .

One line we keep coming back to: "It's not magic. It's math." Complicated math, but still math. And math responds to how skilled the person using it is.

Robert wrote "Humans Against the Machines" five years ago, arguing that human judgment in document review wasn't going anywhere. We wanted to know if generative AI had changed his thinking.

His answer: evolved, not shifted.

👉 A few things stuck with us:
1️⃣ The outward/inward distinction. Robert draws a line between using AI to cull documents from production (outward-facing, needs rigorous validation) and using it to build your case internally (where qualitative checks are often enough). That framing is practical. I suspect it will spread.

2️⃣ Prompts as work product. He didn't hedge. In his view, prompts reflect counsel's mental impressions about the case. Classic opinion work product. But he also warned the plaintiffs' bar: be careful what you wish for. Push for prompt discovery, and you'll slow down adoption of tools that would otherwise get you better productions faster.

3️⃣ Privilege logging is ready. After two and a half years of iteration, Robert believes Gen AI can handle privilege log entries now. Not as a magic button, but as a tool that, with refinement, gets you there. The main weakness: tools still struggle with family relationships and work product compilations.

4️⃣ Deepfakes are coming, and we're not ready. The rules process can't keep pace. Robert expects family law and employment cases to be the proving ground, just as they were for social media authentication a decade ago.

🔗 The full episode is live now! Link in comments. 👇

🎙️ The NeLI Pod podcast returns for Season 2 - coming soon!

Missed out on the conversations that are reshaping eDiscovery leadership? Now's your chance to catch up! Relive Season 1, where legal minds and technologists went beyond the headlines— and get ready for a new season of bold ideas, personal stories, and actionable leadership insights.

👇 Catch up here before Season 2 drops:
🍏 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/neli-pod/id1750535625
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/06R7eyuM2ABUxvWBVjZwEQ?si=d7e81885fa644aea
🌐 NeLI Website: https://ediscoveryleadership.org/index.php/nelipod

📊 Top 5 Insights from NeLI 2025:

1. BYOD & mobile data collection remain high-risk
2. Meet & Confer battles increasingly center on AI
3. Judges see both sides of spoliation & sanctions
4. Ethics in AI is no game (but a game show helps)
5. Privacy laws are rewriting the discovery playbook

What were your top insights from the conference this year? Let us know in the comments below!

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Day One of NeLI 2025 opened with a packed house and a Mock Client Interview that tackled BYOD, AI, and modern attachments head-on. We’re proud to host real-world conversations with real-world impact.

If you were in attendance either in person or online, what was your favorite session from Day 1?

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🎉 What a week! The 11th Annual NeLI Conference was a spectacular success! The packed UMKC room, powerful sessions, and a community that keeps raising the bar for e-discovery education. Thank you to every speaker, sponsor, and attendee who attended both live and online, which made it unforgettable! More photos coming up soon!

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🚨 New NeLI Pod Episode 🚨

“I think we’re going to see significant decisions from the courts on what your obligations are in dealing with hyperlinked documents.” — Kelly Twigger, Minerva26

The latest episode of the NeLI Pod features one of the sharpest minds in eDiscovery: Kelly Twigger, CEO of Minerva26 (formerly eDiscovery Assistant), practicing attorney, and the force behind the ESI Practical Guides and Case of the Week series.

In this conversation, Kelly doesn’t hold back—offering deep insights on:
🔗 The technical and evidentiary implications of hyperlinked documents
🤖 Legal risks posed by GenAI hallucinations
💬 Challenges and case law around ephemeral data
🔮 Her predictions on 2025–2026 eDiscovery trends

If you’re in legal tech, litigation, compliance, or just trying to keep pace with the rapid evolution of data in the legal space—this episode is a must-listen.

🎧 Listen now on your favorite podcast platform or at:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3QBn6hrE2Yc10B0lDTH7Io?si=lDRnL4c2Quaj6zK5IhbzEw
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/neli-pod/id1750535625?i=1000705394351
NeLI Website: https://ediscoveryleadership.org/index.php/nelipod

**Don't forget to register for the NeLI Conference on September 11-12!**

https://ediscoveryleadership.org/