Last week, the ACEDS Ohio Chapter gathered professionals from across the eDiscovery world for “EDRM Mastery, Taking Discovery from Basics to Brilliance.” The title made a bold promise, and the program delivered by connecting the fundamentals of eDiscovery to the practical realities legal teams are managing now.
The sessions covered the familiar stages we’re all used to, but the real value came from the practical conversations about what those stages look like today. eDiscovery still depends on sound collection, processing, review, and production. That foundation hasn’t gone anywhere, nor do I expect it to. But the work has become more complicated. Data keeps growing thanks to AI, and legal teams are expected to move faster without creating a defensibility problem that requires its own cleanup crew.
Information Governance in the Age of AI
One of the strongest conversations of the day came from Andy Cosgrove, Chief Strategy Officer at TCDI, and Deb Voronkov, VP of Data Governance at JPMorgan Chase & Co. The topic focused on information governance, which has always mattered, but matters a little more when organizations start feeding data into AI tools hoping for clean, useful answers on the other side.
During this interview-styled session, Deb shared what governance looks like in a large, complex data environment. She talked about the issues many teams are trying to manage right now:
- Growing data volumes
- Unclear ownership of AI systems and outputs
- Policies that don’t always reflect how people actually work
And in the middle of all these concerns, sensitive information still needs to be protected.
One of the bigger takeaways was that AI readiness begins long before a tool is selected. Organizations need to understand:
- What data they have
- Where that data lives
- Who owns, manages, and determines whether the rules around it still make sense.
Because at the end of the day, AI is only as useful and defensible as the information it’s given. If you can’t answer the questions above, you may find yourself dealing with significantly more problems than you anticipated once GenAI enters the picture. The tech may feel futuristic, but it still comes back to clean data.
Culling, AI, and Review Workflows
Another session that caught my attention focused on how teams are combining culling and AI to make review more manageable. Proper culling techniques help teams reduce noise while keeping attention on the documents that matter most. AI is able to scale this process almost exponentially, but it can quickly get out of hand if not managed well or when using the wrong tools for the job.
I couldn’t agree more, and that’s one reason our team at the TCDI Tech Lab has spent the past three years evaluating over 70 AI-enabled technologies. It has given us a chance to really see which AI tools can handle the pressures of real-world legal workflows and perform as expected.
But no matter how good these technologies may be, keeping a human-in-the-loop approach to validate outputs is, and always will be, the most important part of the process.
Final Thoughts
As with any ACEDS event, some of the best conversations happened between sessions. Attendees shared what they are seeing in their own organizations, especially around AI adoption and the pressure to do more with less. There was a lot of interest in better workflows and faster insight, along with a healthy respect for the risk that comes with moving too quickly.
That balance is important. AI has the potential to make eDiscovery smarter and more efficient but only when it’s supported by the right process and the right people. The event was a good reminder that the basics still matter. In fact, they may matter even more now.
For a program focused on taking discovery from basics to brilliance, that felt like the right takeaway. Brilliance, as it turns out, still needs a pretty solid foundation.
Jessica Lank
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Jessica Lank works closely with law firms, corporations, and government clients to develop solutions tailored to their specific needs across the EDRM. With 8+ years in the legal industry, Jessica’s clients rely on and trust her to provide strategies that are efficient and cost effective across forensics, eDiscovery, managed document review, and litigation management support.
