1000 computers at the bottom of the ocean...?

[lawnchairboy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?ref=technology

 

seems like it would relate more to paralegal and research type folks in the law...

[bmurphypdx]

Those quoted have something to sell and their snake oil is obviously the answer. Consider MS Word and the IBM Selectric. That advancement did not reduce the number of lawyers, it simply allowed lawyers to do more.

 

Lynch's quote re the reduction of the number of lawyers is nonsense. Having practiced law for twenty+ years, I can tell you that while the mega-firms get mega-press, they represent only a small fraction of of this country's legal work. 95% of cases (probably more) deal with less than a hundred to maybe five hundred pages of documents. e-discovery is nifty but really not a game changer.

[Mike]

I work in an criminal investigative agency where it's not unusual to receive document productions running into millions of pages and terabytes of data. We're pretty leading edge in our use of technology, and I haven't seen software that does what these folks claim, at least not to the point where it's a viable substitute when individuals' freedom is potentially at stake.

 

Lots of keyword searching. Lots of information "mining." These things can help narrow the field, but it ultimately comes down to human beings slogging through the documents. The piecing together of evidence in complex criminal cases is just beyond the capability of any computer program, though these things can be helpful to eliminate vast amounts of irrelevant documents.