Is “Information Governance” the new “Predictive Coding”?

According to The Honourable Andrew J. Peck, United States Magistrate Judge, Southern District of New York, it is.

In the Keynote General Session Presentation at Legal Tech® New York, Judge Peck predicted (no pun intended) that information governance will replace predictive coding as the biggest trend in e-discovery in 2013.

His rationale? Most organizations retain far too much data, and most of the data retained has no business purpose. The discovery process has become  expensive, and the best way to reduce costs is to have effective information governance policies and protocols in place. In Judge Peck’s words during a subsequent interview with LXBN TV, “companies should get rid of the data with no business needs, mine the data that has business needs in ways that will improve the bottom line on the business side and reduce costs on the e-discovery side.”

This is a significant point. Reduced e-discovery costs are really a collateral benefit to effective information governance. The primary benefits are realized on the business side: significant savings of employee time, storage cost reduction, and safekeeping of personal, confidential and privileged information.

​De-throning predictive coding as the hot topic of Legal Tech will not be easy. However, there is no doubt that information governance deserves some serious attention given all of its potential benefits. Plus, think about how effective the predictive coding will be when applied to a high quality collection of business records, minus all the dupes and the junk mail. It’s the closest thing to an “easy” button we’re going to get in the e-discovery world.