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Monday, April 06, 2015

San Diego FEA Student Scholarship application - DEADLINE 4/10/2015

SAN DIEGO EDUCATION FUND

SUPERINTENDENT’S TEACH SAN DIEGO SCHOLARSHIP

FUTURE EDUCATOR SCHOLARSHIP

Application Information

Purpose of the Future Educator/Superintendent’s Teach San Diego Scholarship Program:

The San Diego Unified School District plans to hire teachers representing the diversity of the students in the District. Many bright students who show promise as prospective teachers cannot afford the expense of attending institutions of higher education. The purpose of the scholarship program is to recruit and provide incentives to attract promising high school students to the teaching profession.

Scholarship recipients who successfully complete degree and credential requirements will be given priority consideration for employment with the district dependent upon district need at the time of certification.

Minimum Requirements

To be eligible applicant must:

· Commit to teach in the San Diego Unified School District for at least three years

· Graduate from a school in the San Diego Unified School District in the spring of 2015

· Be a United States citizen or have permanent residency status

· Attend college in San Diego County.

· Demonstrate financial need.

· Pursue a college course of study leading to a teaching credential

· Remain in contact with the San Diego Education Fund throughout college and for three years after receiving credential

· Provide information for the San Diego Education Fund to maintain a data base regarding its scholarship recipients

· Participate in two SDEF scholar activities during the year, if selected as a recipient

Criteria for Selection

Selection will be based on your high school record, your application, recommendations, demonstrated community service or leadership skills, participation in extracurricular activities, and/or work experience. Financial need and membership in high school Future Educators Clubs will also be considerations. Following a review of application materials, a panel of representatives from the San Diego Education Fund will interview finalists.

Funding Level

Funding for recipients attending a local community college is $1,000 per year. Funding for recipients attending a four-year university is $2,000 per year. Scholarships are renewable each year up to five years based on good academic standing and approved course of study.

For more information, you may call Mary Castleberry at (858) 752-9771
or by email at marycberry@sbcglobal.net

Application Material

Included in this packet you will find the following:

¨ Scholarship Application Form Please complete this form (type or print legibly).

¨ Application Essay Form Complete the essay using your own words.

¨ Two reference forms. At least one reference must be from a teacher or your school principal. The other reference may include a teacher, an employer, a religious leader, etc. Parents or family members are not acceptable references. Distribute one form to each of your two chosen references and ask them to return the completed reference to you in a sealed envelope with their signature on the flap. Include these two references in your application packet

¨ Application Checklist: Before submitting your application, use the checklist to ensure you have completed all the necessary paperwork. You do not need to include the checklist.

You must also include:

¨ Financial Need Evidence A copy of your completed FAFSA, including the section that shows family income must be attached.

¨ Your official high school transcript

¨ A wallet size head photo

Deadline for Receiving Application Materials

Application materials must be received no later than 5 p.m., Monday, March 23, 2015.

Please note: The review committee will consider only applications received by the deadline. Delay in mail service is not an acceptable excuse for lateness

Time Line for Selection

Notification to applicants will be made after April 10, 2015.

Scholarship Application

2015-2016 School Year

Please type or print legibly

Name:________________________________________________________________________

First Middle Last

Male/Female:______________________ Birthdate:____________________________________

FEA Club Member ___yes ___no

FEA Club Member position(s) held_________________________________________________

Ethnicity (Optional):_____________________________________________________________

High School:___________________________________Weighted grade 10-12 GPA:________

Home Address:_________________________________________________________________

City_________________________________________________Zip Code__________________

Home Phone#___________________________ Cell Phone #____________________________

E-mail Address_________________________________________________________________

High School Counselor: Name________________________________Telephone____________

Local college or university you plan to attend:_________________________________________

Have you been accepted?____________________What is you intended major?_____________

Number of family members living at home:______ Attending college:_____________________

Total family income:

____Under $20,000 _____$20,000-$35,000 ____$35,000-$50,000

____$50,000-$65,000 _____Over $65,000

Parents’ Education Level – Please check one for each parent that shows highest level of education obtained.

Mother: High School Diploma or Less___ Two Year College Degree___Four Year College Degree or Higher___

Father: High School Diploma or Less___ Two Year College Degree___Four Year College Degree or Higher___

At which grade level are you interested in teaching?

Elementary (K-6)____Middle (6-8)____Senior High (10-12) ____Undecided ____

If you checked middle or senior high, which subject(s) are you interested in teaching?

______________________________________________________________________________

List any community service activities in which you have participated (e.g., working for a charity organization, church or other volunteer work):

______________________________________________________________________________

List extracurricular activities you have been involved in and indicate your role (e.g., class treasurer, member of the Science Club, cheerleading, sports, clubs (other than FEA), etc.)

______________________________________________________________________________

List any work experience below:

Name of Dates of Hours

Employer Employment per Week

______________________________________________________________________________

Is there something we should know about you that is not revealed in the preceding questions?

______________________________________________________________________________

My signature below certifies that all information on this application is true to the best of my knowledge. I intend to pursue a course of study leading to a teaching credential in a college or university in San Diego County. Upon completion of my college and credential program, I will seek employment with the San Diego Unified School District. I agree to a possible selection interview, and if selected, I am willing to participate in news-related publicity. I agree to keep in contact with the San Diego Education Fund for three years after receiving my teaching credential.

Signature of applicant_______________________________________Date_______________

Signature of Parent of Guardian:_______________________________Date______________

Return this form along with your essay, copy of your FAFSA, references, and transcript by 5:00 p.m Monday, March 23, 2015 to:

Attn: Mary Castleberry

Eugene Brucker Education Center, Room 3251

4100 Normal Street

San Diego, CA 92103-2682

APPLICATION ESSAY

Name: _______________________________________________________ Date: ___________

In the space below (or as an attachment), please provide an essay that describes why you would like to become a teacher and how receiving a scholarship would bring you closer to achieving this goal. The essay should provide evidence of a passion for serving youth in the community, and include a description of a teacher who inspired you.

SCHOLARSHIP REFERENCE FORM

The person whose name appears below has applied for a scholarship to begin studies toward a teaching credential and has listed your name as a reference. Please complete the information below and return this form in a sealed envelope to the student who requested this reference.

Applicant’s Name:______________________________________________________________

Your relationship to applicant: _____________________________________________________

How long have you known applicant? _______________________________________________

Signature: _______________________________________________ Date: ________________

In two or three short paragraphs, please indicate why or why not the applicant deserves a scholarship award to become a teacher. Your observations should be focused on those qualities possessed (or not) by the applicant necessary to be a potential educator: desire to teach, leadership, warmth, ability to communicate effectively, persistence, dedication, intellectual curiosity, and academic achievement.

Overall recommendation (please check one):

____Excellent potential ____Good potential ____Fair potential

SCHOLARSHIP REFERENCE FORM

Applicant’s Name:______________________________________________________________

Your relationship to applicant: ____________________________________________________

How long have you known applicant? ______________________________________________

Signature: _______________________________________________ Date: ________________

Overall recommendation (please check one):

____Excellent potential ____Good potential ____Fair potential

FUTURE EDUCATOR/SUPERINTENDENT’S SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM CHECKLIST

Use this checklist to be sure you have completed all parts of the application process.

In your completed application packet, did you include?

¨ Scholarship Application form

¨ Application Essay

¨ Financial Aid Evidence (FAFSA, including the section that shows family income)

¨ Two references

¨ Official copy of your high school transcript

¨ Wallet size head shot photo

Send application packet to:

Mary Castleberry

Eugene Brucker Education Center, Room 3251

4100 Normal Street

San Diego, CA 92103-2682

Due by 5 p.m., Monday, March 23, 2015

Sunday, February 08, 2015

Q+A with Lani Guinier

Interview by Tamar Lewin

Lani Guinier, the first tenured woman of color at Harvard Law School, went through a trial by fire in 1993, when President Bill Clinton withdrew her nomination for assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Negative publicity about her political and academic views had made her a polarizing figure. Conservatives called her "the quota queen," though her essays, published in "The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy," make it clear she opposed quotas and was seeking voting systems that would promote representation not just of the majority but also of a greater range of groups.

Her new book, "The Tyranny of Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America," returns to the theme of inclusion, making the case that college admissions has become a "testocracy" in which standardized test scores are seen as the most important measure of merit, and character counts for little. She argues for a rethinking of merit that would better reflect the values of a democratic society.

Q: Is there anything you find encouraging in what's been happening in higher education?

A: There have been some very interesting peer-learning developments. When Uri Treisman was at Berkeley - he's now at the University of Texas - he saw that African-American students were not doing as well in his calculus class as Asian-Americans, and he was concerned.

He hired people to follow the students with a camera for several months, to witness how they were studying. The assumption among his colleagues followed the well-known stereotypes, that the black students were not as well prepared and not spending as much time on their homework. But he found something different, that they studied in their dorm rooms by themselves, while the Chinese-Americans studied together, talking about their calculus problems while they cooked and ate their meals.

Many of the African-Americans had adopted isolation as a strategy for coping with their environment. Professor Treisman started a program to help them mirror what the Chinese students were doing. He invited them to lunch, and when they talked through calculus problems, he discovered that, in some ways, they were better at teaching each other calculus than he was. They could give more useful examples to map out how to solve a problem.

Working together, their grades improved dramatically.

At Harvard, in the context of physics and women, Eric Mazur had the same experience when he had his students work through questions together instead of listening to him lecture. Because of those results, a lot of professors have changed how they teach, to have less lecture time and more peer learning.

New York Times, 2/8/2015

The Mentor Act - you can help pass this bill

Stay out of the court system by helping young men stay out of the court system. Studies have shown that children with positive male role models are less likely to commit a crime. Boys are eleven times as likely to go to prison as girls.

This bill establishes mentorship as legal excusal from jury duty and aims to reduce the number of young men committing crimes, cases tried, and jurors needed.

Show your support by visiting TheMentorAct.org
-or- print this page and mail it to your state Assemblymember.

MLK Education Grant - March 16th deadline (San Diego)

Since 1998 the MLK Choir has given out 81 Educational Grants totaling over $159,000.

At our scholarship concert on June 8th, 2014 we awarded educational grants to 4 talented students pursuing artistic majors.

http://mlkccsd.org/photos/2014recipients_tn.jpg

June 8, 2014 - Sunday 4:00pm
Sixteenth Annual Educational Grants Awards Ceremony
College Avenue Baptist Church

MLKCCSD is proud to support our local, budding artists in the San Diego community.

Grant Application Deadline - March 16th

We are looking for High School artists with flair (and grit and determination). If you sing, dance, play an instrument, paint, sculpt, film, act, write stories or plays, or pursue any other form of artistic expression, we'd like to know. Apply today!

How to Qualify

You must be a Graduating High School Senior
You must have a GPA of 2.75 or higher
You must be a Resident of San Diego County, and a US citizen
You must intend to pursue your art by attending a university, accredited four-year college, community college, conservatory, or art school in the next school year.

How to Apply

Download our 2015 Educational Grant Application (pdf, requires Acrobat Reader 3.0 or higher).
Print it out and follow the directions.

Fill out the application form completely,
Sign both pages of the application,
Write a short essay (500 words) about yourself,
Get two recommendation letters,
Have your school send us a certified copy of your school transcript.

Send the completed application no later than March 16th, 2015, to:

MLKCCSD
Educational Grant Committee
P.O. Box 5445
San Diego, CA 92165

Call us at (619) 447-2823 if you have any questions, or send email to mlkccsdgrants@gmail.com.

Some Advice

Read through the application first. For those parts of the application that involve other people (transcript, references, etc.), ask for their help right away. Don't wait until the last minute.
Filling out this application is going to take some work. But chances are that it would take less time than a summer job and it could be more rewarding!
Be creative, show us what you can do, and have fun! If you need help, please contact us.

Friday, February 06, 2015

Is your cell phone secure ?

Good advice from attorney Jeffrey Steinbrecher on improving your phone’s security:

“First, turn off all services you are not currently using – they provide avenues of attack. Second, never use an open or public Wi-Fi. It’s like having unprotected sex with a stranger. Sure, it might be OK a few times, but you will eventually get hurt. Third, use encryption. Store all sensitive files securely. Use two-factor authentication – e.g., a password and fingerprint scanner, or better, an iris scanner. Fourth, take care of devices and don’t let them out of your sight. With hardware encryption, keep devices off. In sleep mode, an attacker could recover data from your RAM.”

http://www.lawtechnologynews.com/id=1202714033973/Lawyer-Hacker-Now-Helps-Secure-Smartphones-?slreturn=20150106231007

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

General William Tecumseh Sherman failure in California - Spring 1856

Excerpt from Fierce Patriot – The Tangles Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman,

by Robert L. O’Connell

The spring of 1856 found Sherman a public figure of sorts: acting as chairman of a committee boosting a national wagon route from Missouri to California, speaking at the dedication of a twenty-two-mile railroad heading east, and accepting a commission as major general of the California militia. In the last instance, his timing couldn't have been worse, since it put him on a collision course with the very hand that fed him: the city's business community.

Like most things here, politics in San Francisco were extreme, and extremely corrupt-speculation, extortion, rigged bids, and stuffed ballot boxes were key instruments of municipal government. Public reaction was spasmodic, what historian Lee Kennett terms "a kind of spontaneous combustion of extra-legality," manifested in the so-called committees of vigilance. This first took place in 1851, when such a committee temporarily displaced city government, hanged a few purported malefactors, and then withdrew. The business community prided itself on the episode-their version of cleaning up city hall-and they were ready to do it again should the occasion arise.

It did, just as Sherman took command of the militia. A member of the board of supervisors, James Casey, had openly gunned down a political opponent and then turned himself over to the sheriff, a trusted associate, thereby galvanizing the elite to go vigilante. A throng of armed men surrounded the jail holding Casey, protected by a nervous and greatly outnumbered posse, virtually a cinematic archetype. Sherman, in his military capacity, inspected the jail, promptly declared it indefensible, and left, only to watch helplessly with the governor and mayor from the roof of the International Hotel as Casey and another suspect were removed by a crowd of twenty-five hundred men several days later, their fate a quick and public hanging.

Sherman wasn't sorry to see Casey go, but he was determined to support Governor John Neely Johnson's efforts to checkmate the vigilantes. On June 1, he and the governor met with General John Wool and Commodore David Farragut, the senior U.S. military representative, in nearby Benicia, asking for muskets and a ship to land them i11 San Francisco. Farragut promised only a naval demonstration (which he delivered), but they thought they had a deal with Wool to supply the guns.

On this basis, two days later Johnson declared a state of insurrection in San Francisco and ordered Sherman to call out the militia. At this point, things didn't simply unravel, they dissolved. Sherman suffered the indignity of learning from a bank customer that General Wool had no intention of delivering the proffered weapons. Meanwhile, the governor's proclamation had produced precious little in the way of volunteers, "the fizzle-call of General (?) Sherman," one local paper called it. In less than a week, Sherman resigned his commission as general without arms or an army; but retaining his sardonic sense of humor, he recommended Halleck as his replacement.

Along with pretty much everybody else in authority, Sherman found himself in the crosshairs of the press, publicly lampooned as "a Mighty Man of War taken from the desk of a counting house." For the first time in his life, he felt the sting of journalistic ridicule, and it revealed a very thin skin. "I conceived a terrible mistrust of the press in California," he wrote long after. While Sherman was actually handled much less roughly than others, he remembered that the papers "poured out their abuse of me." He would continue to read newspapers compulsively, but now it was with an anger seething and growing until seeing his name in print became virtually synonymous with seeing red.

It has been suggested - and Sherman's own words can be used to support the view - that his retreat in the face of the vigilantes was politically transformative and imprinted a kind of nightmarish fear or grassroots democracy gone wild and one that was at the root of his fury over secession. The impact was apparent, but not the whole story. Sherman was far too gregarious and egalitarian in the way he treated people to become a pure authoritarian. He liked much that democracy had created and feared just its logical conclusion, which he believed he had seen in California and again in the Confederacy.

More significant, perhaps, for his fate as a strategist was a trait he first exhibited here in the face of overwhelming odds: He knew when to quit and cut his losses. This is a much-overlooked military capacity: in the heat of the moment to retain sufficient objectivity to recognize the prospect of sure defeat and then to summon the self-control to reverse course and withdraw. For some-Grant, for instance-this proved impossible. But Sherman's military career was studded with such moments, epiphanies of defeat, and they were emblematic of his eventual success. He came to realize that in war there would be good days and bad days, but the ultimate objective must always remain paramount.

The remainder of Sherman's stay in California also turned out to be about cutting his losses. Boomtown's bubble had burst, the easy river of gold was long gone, and the economy was only scraping along. Lucas decided to shut down his bank's San Francisco branch, and Sherman handled the closing in an orderly and responsible fashion. A new branch was being opened in New York, and Lucas would put Sherman in charge.

Sherman departed in a dark state, with many regrets. Halleck persisted; he did not. The dream of big money in the Golden State had hardly panned out. And then there had been the vigilantes. In his mind, at least, the whole interlude had been a litany of failure; but in spite of everything, he liked California and wanted to stay. He had held his own in a tough environment and continued to impress capable and powerful people. His skills as a banker were sufficient for Turner and Lucas to send him on to the real financial big leagues. Meanwhile, his strategic skill set was gradually, silently, growing, his capacious mind filling with useful knowledge and experience. He would need it all. He was headed for even worse times.

Fierce Patriot – The Tangles Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, by Robert L. O’Connell. Random House, NY, 2014. ISBN 978-1-4000-6972-9. Excerpt from pages 49-52.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

LTC4 Pushes for Core Competencies in Legal

“While feature-based training leaves it to the user to figure out how to apply a feature to real-life work, workflow-based scenarios teach the most efficient use of the feature as part of realistic workflows. This quickly helps the user transition from learning a skill to applying it. Because of its context-sensitivity, this approach also helps users — at all levels — easily apply what they have learned to their job function. Some core competency scenarios may even be approved for continuing legal education credit (depending on the state), making training even more appealing for attorneys.”

“LTC4's subject matters including Legal Documents; Document and Email Management; Collaborating with Others; Time and Billing; Security Awareness; Presentations, among other topics. Three areas are being developed, addressing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996; e-discovery and new business intake.”

http://www.ltc4.org/page-1820034

Thursday, January 15, 2015

"The Talking Cure"

"To those who argued that Providence Talks embodied cultural imperialism, staff members responded that, on the contrary, they were "empowering" parents with knowledge. Andrea Riquetti, the Providence Talks director, told me, "It really is our responsibility to let families know what it takes to succeed in the culture they live in. Which may not necessarily be the same as the culture they have. But it's their choice whether they decide to. It's not a case of our saying, 'You have to do this.'" Riquetti grew up in Quito, Ecuador, came to America at the age of seventeen, and worked for many years as a kindergarten teacher in Providence schools. In Latino culture, she said, "the school is seen as being in charge of teaching children their letters and all that, while parents are in charge of discipline making sure they listen and they're good and they sit still. Parents don't tend, overall, to give children a lot of choices and options. It's kind of like 'I rule the roost so that you can behave and learn at school."' The Providence Talks approach "is a little more like 'No, your child and what they have to say is really important.' And having them feel really good about themselves as opposed to passive about their learning is important, because that's what's going to help them succeed in this culture."

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/12/talking-cure

Thursday, January 08, 2015

Reminder to file 990-N to IRS

If you are an administrator for a recognized 501c3 non-profit organization and if that non-profit organization fiscal year ended on Dec 31st - you need to file Form 990 or 990-N within 90 days with the IRS. You can complete and file form 990-N electronically at http://epostcard.form990.org/

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Using Analytics to Clean Out the ESI Garage

by Robert D. Brownstone and Gabriela P. Baron

As time passes and we acquire more "stuff," it gets harder to winnow down our possessions. Who longs to spend the weekend cleaning the garage? It's easier to keep piling up things up, with no discipline for storage or removal. Thus, many a garage keeps getting fuller and more chaotic until two distinct problems emerge: difficulty finding a particular object and increased risk of hidden hazards.

The same issues pervade the electronic information management (EIM) environment. The overwhelming volume of data generated daily leads to a similar approach to electronically stored information (ESI) for organizations of all shapes and sizes. Especially as companies grow, they are lulled into the sense that it is easier and better to focus on the urgent matters at hand and let the emails, electronic files and database contents keep stacking up.

But there are many risks inherent in saving all ESI forever. Potentially harmful content resides all over the place, whether it's a "smoking gun" message, or something written and kept so long that it becomes susceptible to misinterpretation when taken out of context years later.

Within an organization that has a save-everything policy, there likely are redundant copies of information, resulting in sourcing and paying for extra storage space. These costs are multiplied by the "rule of three," by which all live data is backed up in at least two places. Moreover, the search for particular information becomes a near impossible and expensive chore. Additionally, more personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive confidential data (i.e., intellectual property and trade secrets) stored at more locations means big risks.

The ESI garage model is the information governance (JG) strategy upon which organizations have traditionally relied. Even when an IT department is tasked with the responsibility of managing the data, this strategy falls flat. The primary reason: IT focuses on what it does best, maintaining access to data rather than extracting the most value from data.

The notion of IG is vague, and no panacea but organizations need to start somewhere. An IG initiative should entail the use of advanced analytics and intelligent automated assessments of big data sets to cull out irrelevant data, keep relevant data, and identify PII, intellectual property and other sensitive data that must be kept and segmented in order to ensure data security and privacy.

Savvy C-suites are adopting sound IG policies to not only promote efficiency when locating information, but to facilitate greater compliance with electronic discovery, data security and privacy legal compliance. IG can help contend, for example, with thorny international legal issues in cross-border data transfers day-to-day, as well as in e-discovery. Furthermore, as corporations look toward the next generation of technology and archiving systems, a solid JG program make moving data from one system to another and retrieving it easier.

Companies implementing effective JG will also benefit from enhanced visibility of corporate data, enabling the use of more in-depth analytics and the discovery of valuable insights and trends to maximize the value of retained data. If data is a crystallization of a moment in time, then IG is the storyteller, piecing together facts and information into a narrative.

Even more significant, IG enables multiple cost savings. In proactive mode, JG-savvy organizations experience lower storage costs for live and backed-up data. In reactive mode - for example, addressing a lawsuit - they will see reduced e-discovery costs. Indeed, because IG and e-discovery have parallel workflows (finding relevant data is always the first step), JG-strong corporations will be in a stronger litigation posture.

WHERE TO BEGIN

Embarking on an JG program is daunting for any organization. In a packed garage, one would start by manually reviewing and organizing what's been tucked away, shelf by shelf, until the space is neat and tidy. With ESI, the concept is similar. Cull through the data in discrete chunks until all of it has been reviewed, and a system is in place for future storage. By tackling small portions at a time, organizations will see results and a return on investment.

A careful, considered approach is key when starting to parse organizational data via this "data remediation" process. As a first step, Legal and Compliance should ensure the organization's IG policies and procedures are sound. Some organizations may need to start by designing and implementing a corporate governance framework, while others will need to update their existing records retention policies and procedures.

This first step is critical from a risk and compliance standpoint because it can guard against future spoliation allegations. The organization's data deletion project must be defensible, meaning it has memorialized reasons for the data destruction, covering what, why, how, by whom and when the ESI was destroyed.

Defensible deletion involves careful consideration of what ESI the organization intends to exercise its discretion to retain or purge, bearing in mind the nuances and contents of ESL Different file types are used for different job functions. In addition, Legal should ensure retention of ESI that may be subject to a litigation hold or relevant to issues in litigation or government inquiries.

Once the process is clearly defined and memorialized, there are two approaches for data remediation. The first approach is akin to damming a stream. With this approach, the organization must adopt a disciplined plan for newly generated data and information. The second approach is akin to cleaning a swamp. With that approach, companies must cull through existing data troves and purge the excess.

Interestingly, some organizations find the latter approach the easier to implement because most already have at least some applicable e-discovery tools in place. These work to automatically classify ESI using specified criteria, such as date and keywords.

THE RIGHT TOOLS

Using the right tools is essential for maximizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Some e-discovery analytics can be applied to IG simply by being deployed upstream in the process. Those analytical tools, usually used for making sense of large data sets in incident-response scenarios, include:

• De-duplication: identifying exact copies or similar versions of documents and messages.

• Concept analysis: clustering of e-documents, messages, etc. under substantive topics chosen/created by software.

• Email redundancy: separating last message from each string.

• Relationship analysis: graphically depicting who knows/communicates with whom.

Another key e-discovery analytical tool is artificial intelligence-based, technology-assisted review, often called "predictive coding," which uses statistical modeling and machine learning. The technology underpinning predictive coding software functions like spam filters and targeted advertising. Predictive coding leverages machine learning and human review of samples in an iterative process, until the team is comfortable with the system's decision-making.

In e-discovery, that person-plus-machine process parses relevant from irrelevant documents. In IG, that same process can parse to-be-retained from to-be-deleted documents.

Lawyers and records managers should stay abreast of ESI technologies. Pertinent innovative technologies are evolving from the e-discovery and enterprise content management fields. Savvy e-discovery providers will incorporate ECM technology into their existing review and analysis tools to help organizations save money by tackling ESI for both IG and e-discovery.

DEPLOYMENT: STARTING THE CLEANUP

A data remediation program can begin anywhere the organization prefers. Tools can be deployed as part of a legacy data clean-up project, a litigation hold tracking system, a data loss prevention initiative, a big data analytics project or an enterprise-wide archiving migration plan.

Many organizations prefer to start by tackling unstructured data (i.e., email or instant messaging), because it is riskier than structured data (i.e. database-stored). Individuals often feel freer to express themselves in informal, unstructured environments, and unstructured ESI is more difficult to parse than already automatically-classified information.

No matter where the process begins, cull through the ESI first, then move data to new locations after remediation. Before you get to the details of deployment, vet any e-discovery or ECM platform for sufficient scalability to your IG initiative.

Ensure that IG becomes part of the corporate culture. Employees need to be aware of the corporation's records retention and information-management policies just as they are mindful of corporate expectations regarding HR practices, regulatory compliance or confidentiality requirements. Like violations in those areas, amassing large ESI volumes companywide can have a very high ultimate price.

Training on IG should teach managers and staff to rethink how they use data, so that they keep only what is required or needed, and no more. Individuals should be guided by the Legal and Compliance specialists as well as e-discovery specialists conversant in defensible deletion. Training contemporaneous with regime change also provides an opportunity to emphasize the importance of litigation holds.

Once IG becomes embedded in the fabric of corporate culture, organizations will reap the rewards from a cost-savings, risk-mitigation and business-value perspective. While cleaning up decades of ESI is daunting, it only becomes more so as more data is stuffed into the company storage bin. The time to start the clean-up is now.

Authors

Robert D. Brownstone is Technology and E-discovery Counsel, Litigation, and co-chair of the Electronic Information Management group at Silicon-Valley headquartered Fenwick & West LLP. He advises clients on a wide range of legal and IT issues. He has also taught e-discovery law and process as adjunct professor at a number of universities, and in 2015 will teach the course at the Brooklyn and University of San Francisco schools of law.

rbrownstone@fenwick.com

Gabriela P. Baron is the Senior Vice President of Xerox Litigation Services (XLS). She has assisted clients with regulatory investigations, major class actions, employment matters and commercial cases filed in federal and state courts.

Gabriela.Baron@xls.xerox.com

Today’s General Counsel, Nov 2014, 22.

Developments In Mobile Device Electronic Discovery

Developments In Mobile Device Electronic Discovery

by Michael Weil And Mark Michels

Legal counsel and their supporting forensic teams face vexing challenges when it comes to preserving and collecting mobile device data. Smartphones and tablets frequently contain unique data that must be preserved, collected, processed, reviewed and produced in litigation just like any other form of electronically stored information.

Mobile device data is often critical for internal and regulatory investigations, as well. Unlike personal computer data that can often be collected remotely with relatively little impact on custodians, mobile device data collection usually requires separating custodians from their phones, sometimes for a very long time. Fortunately, there have been some important breakthroughs that may allow for remote, over-the-air, data collection from mobile devices, permitting a more efficient and less disruptive process.

It is not uncommon for a litigation matter or investigation to involve a large number of custodians, sometimes into the hundreds. In general, computer forensics professionals can gain access to the mobile device ESI only by physically connecting specialized forensic collection tools directly to the smartphone or tablet. This is unlike personal computer or server data collection, where they can remotely access hard drive files, or export email from a server for preservation, collection, processing and hosting.

Since physical access to the mobile device is the only way to collect email, text messages and other ESI, the custodian must part with the phone, causing serious "separation anxiety," and loss of a business tool and a personal lifeline. In some cases, companies have found that they must immediately issue new phones to custodians.

Mobile device management (MDM) systems allow IT teams to provision devices, maintain some level of security, and otherwise track mobile devices over-the air. Some MDMs also enable recording of SMS messages, not other text messaging applications. MDMs cannot access all of the files on the device because the mobile device operating system's security scheme does not allow remote level of access to some critical data. For example, mobile devices may hold SMS messages that have not been logged, third party text messages and other application data that cannot be accessed remotely through the MDMs.

There is some cause for hope, however. At the 2014 Barcelona World Mobile Congress there were a few companies that showcased some remote collection concepts. Furthermore, through some of our R&D efforts we have completed a proof-of-concept that demonstrated viable over-the-air remote data collection for most of the data on a smartphone.

While these remote-collection developments are encouraging, it will take some time for the operating system owners and the forensic tool developers to create protocols for complete remote over-the air mobile device data collection. Until they do, counsel and their forensic team will need to contend with in-person device collections or cumbersome mobile device backups.

Authors

Michael Weil is a Chicago-based director for Deloitte Discovery in Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, where he leads the Computer and Cyber Forensics Market Offering. He has 16 years of computer forensic examination experience, including criminal, civil, and national security matters.

miweil@deloitte.com

Mark Michels is a San Jose-based director for Deloitte Discovery in Deloitte Transactions & Business Analytics LLP. He has 15 years of experience managing corporate discovery issues as well as 8 years of experience in patent litigation, pre-merger reviews and internal investigations.

mmichels@deloitte.com

Today's General Counsel, Nov 2014, p34.