Last week, I was fortunate to attend my very first Ipro Innovations Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. The conference spans over 2.5 days at Talking Stick Resort, and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the industry – whether you are a service provider, eDiscovery engineer, legal professional, or in IT or management, there is something for everyone at this event!

Our first day started in the afternoon with the “Welcome to Innovations” opening remarks. As you may know, there were some big changes at Ipro last year. They received a substantial investment from ParkerGale Capital in April, and a couple months later acquired InData, the creator of TrialDirector. They have since greatly expanded their engineering team and doubled their development staff. All of this to say, that they have been working very hard on the release of Case Director 360.

Case Director 360 is the first integrated product that can be used to manage every phase of litigation from the start of discovery through to trial. Ipro’s goal was to create a dynamic dashboard that allows users to move through the different stages of the EDRM, with the fewest steps and applications. It is a desktop-based platform which integrates EclipseSE, TrialDirector, and several other modules including case management, processing and case story.

But, what really got me excited was the introduction of ADD Review. As a long term user of Eclipse, this is the latest model set to replace Ipro’s existing web hosted platform, and Ipro has made improving the reviewer, searching and case administration experience their primary focus. Those of you familiar with Eclipse probably recognize some of these following pain points: 1) inability to use Eclipse in anything other than Internet Explorer, 2) having to download the Viewer every session, and 3) the ridiculous number of clicks it takes to actually view a document (13 clicks to be exact!). Besides fixing these sore spots, some additional changes we can expect includes:

• Giving the document more prime real estate on the review interface;
• “Sticky zoom” (meaning the level of magnification is the same when navigating between documents);
• Split view for side-by-side document comparisons;
• Ability to mass tag within the relationships pane; and
• Ability to assign specific coding forms to batches.

Ipro has hinted that ADD Review will release in the early 4^th quarter.

During the conference, I sat in on several presentations – including some that weren't directly related to Ipro’s products.

With the GDPR deadline imminent (May 25, 2018), I found myself sitting in the Cross-Border Conflicts session presented under the Sedona Conference track. It’s a hot topic, full of complexities, and for a GDPR newbie like me, I was intrigued by the “right to erasure”, formerly known as the “right to be forgotten”. Article 17 of the GDPR entitles individuals the ability to request data controllers to erase their personal data, cease further dissemination of their data and potentially have third parties halt processing of their data. When a valid request is made, the data controller must then comply without undue delay and at no cost to the requesting party. If companies don’t comply, they could be assessed up to 4% of annual global revenues or €20 million (Yikes!). If this piqued your interest and you’d like to learn some more, you can find resource materials from the Sedona Conference here: https://thesedonaconference.org/IPRO_2018 

Apart from great networking events that took place at the end of each day, Ipro made sure to make an impression on attendees by having captivating keynote speakers to amp us up. A highlight was Afterburner, presented on the last day by former US Air Force fighter pilots who help corporations and teams achieve performance excellence by sharing the skills they use in the cockpit and in Special Forces regimes. They gave us the basic framework that helps combat inefficiencies in shared planning and allows for “flawless execution” in any situation:

1. PLAN

State your mission objective, identify threats and resources, and develop a course of action with individual accountability.

2. BRIEF

Restate the mission objective and ensure all team members are clear on their responsibilities. Confirm alignment around plans and clarify remaining questions.

3. EXECUTE

Depending on your mission, there are several methods to improve execution including: execution rhythms, checklists, cross-checks, task shedding and mutual support.

4. DEBRIEF

Proper debriefing is essential to developing a culture of learning and for continuous improvement. These should be nameless and rankless. At the end of the day, it’s not who’s right, but what’s right.

My experience at Innovations will be fondly remembered – from the informative sessions and engaging round table discussions, to the interactive games and awesome prizes (big and small), to the wonderful networking events and motivating keynote speakers. I sincerely hope that my first time attendance will not be my last!

Commonwealth Legal offers Ipro as a direct install at your firm or as a managed services solution. For more information on the solution, contact us today.