A Very eDiscovery Christmas Carol - Part 3

When last we left our wayward eDiscovery Scrooge, he lay weeping and drifting off to slumber after visiting the horrors of Manual Doc review of days long gone. And onward through the horrors of legacy tech fueled nightmares of present-day eDiscovery. What does the future hold for our protagonist?

The Ghost of eDiscovery Yet to Come

No Sleep came for eDiscovery Scrooge this evening because the Phantom already slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, eDiscovery Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

Clad only in a black shroud, the specter was hidden all but its bony outstretched hand as it reached toward the trembling eDiscovery scrooge.

I am in the presence of the Ghost of eDiscovery Yet To Come?” said eDiscovery Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not but pointed onward with its hand.

“You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Scrooge pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

The two landed softly upon the lobby is his beloved MS LAW overhearing the chattering of a small group of associates waiting for the elevator.

“No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”

“When did he die?” inquired another.

“Last night, I believe. I thought he’d never die.”

“God knows,” said the first, with a yawn.

“I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,” observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose.

The Ghost whirled eDiscovery Scrooge to the dank windowless basement of Document Review Purgatory. The once stoic Reviewers gathered round, one unplugging the on-prem servers. Another Unplugging and trashing a monitor that had seen the spinning wheel of death so often it was burned in permanently.

“Never again will I chill and bill” chimed in the first reviewer as he reached to unplug the full rack of blinking machines.

“Aye,” chimed the one trashing the spinning wheel of death “no more will I spend days and weeks looking at fantasy football selections or birthday invites. No more will I manually redact!” As he reached for yet another LCD screen that bore the burned in image of that incessant wheel of death.

“If he wanted to us happily working,” pursued the woman, “why wasn’t he innovating in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had new eDiscovery workflows to prevent his Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself and the wheel spun on”

eDiscovery Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror, as his believe doc review center was dismantled. In the scanty light afforded by the flickering and long overdue for a change florescent light, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater.

“If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death,” said Scrooge quite agonized, “show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!”

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, a single associate his own nephew at that sat by the dim light of his desk lamp leaning in transfixed by the dynamic images on his monitor. A wheel of concepts, a map of communication, and dashboards galore kept him rapt... and dare I say smiling.

“Specter,” said Scrooge, “something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?”

Again, with the flourish of his dark foreboding robe, the apparition transported the now weeping eDiscovery Scrooge to a lone gravesite, overgrown and hidden from view.

As Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, eDiscovery Scrooge.

With a gasp he set back, weeping silently.

“Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

“Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this journey. Why show me this if I am past all hope!”

Tears wetting his cheeks Scrooge plead on, “I will honor eDiscovery in my heart, and try to keep innovating all the year. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

The pleading man scrabbled forth and grabbed the specters bony hand for but a moment before the hooded figure collapsed in upon itself leaving nothing but swirling dust behind.

eDiscovery that COULD be

As the light of morning roused the once bitter eDiscovery Scrooge felt filled with glee.

Leaping from his bed the old man exclaimed, “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future of eDiscovery and innovate and embrace AI!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “eDiscovery innovation be praised for this!

sprinting through his own chambers in little more than bedclothes, the still weeping man exclaimed there is my banker’s box of old reports, and laughing he boyishly banged on his keyboard with a laugh.

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

As he dressed in all his holiday finest, eDiscovery Scrooge quickly jotted text message to his software and AI reps, “I have found the budget and want to see your best and biggest AI, My team deserves to rediscover the joy of eDiscovery on today of all days! But take today to spend with your family first!”

At just nine on the day after eDiscovery-Mas, eDiscovery Scrooge arrived at his beloved MS LAW, Glad to see the halls mostly bare.

Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first and catch his weary Sr. Associate Bob Cratchit coming late this! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

Poor Bob was frazzled and was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with keyboard, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock.

“Hallo!” growled eDiscovery Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?”

“I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”

“You are?” repeated eDiscovery Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.”

“It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.”

“Unacceptable” bellowed the now standing Scrooge as poor Bob cowered further in his dark tank. “Unacceptable that you are working today and at such a pittance with tech that is so slow.”

“A merry eDiscovery-Mas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with a genuine earnestness, clapping him on the back. “A merrier one, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I will buy the Legal AI you have asked for and move to the cloud. Relinquish eyes on every document and replace the billable hour with AFA’s” he continued.

eDiscovery Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; he ensured that neither eDiscovery Scrooge nor the case teams obliged to support it went to an early grave. And brought laughter and mirth where once stood only endless clicking, review and paper cuts.

eDiscovery Scrooge did not again see the Spirits but heeded their guidance throughout his life.

Noting often, “eDiscovery bless us, everyone!”