Michael Simon - Legal technology entrepreneur, educator and evangelist

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nDash Writer Profile for Michael Simon

Headline

About Me

I have been in the Legal industry for nearly 25 years. I practiced law for almost 7 years as a trial attorney. For over 15 years I have focused on developing, marketing, and supporting products and services for legal technology, particularly eDiscovery. One of my specialties as an attorney was representing companies battling ex-employees over misuse of trade secrets and violations of employment contracts. It was through this area that I got involved in eDiscovery, in finding the documents that the ex-employees had tried to delete. And then the Internet happened (thank you Al Gore!). Instead of using technology for just my own practice I could now use it to move the profession forward. I joined a dot-com that was building an automated legal research system. I helped write and was the general editor of an award-winning book on Internet Law for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education. When the dot-com world crashed I joined Winston & Strawn’s Practice Support. I spearheaded a team that created one of the first litigation management systems. It was a huge success: we started with one case and 18 months later had over a thousand cases across all offices. eDiscovery had become an industry unto itself, and I grabbed the opportunity to join industry innovator Stratify to build out thought leadership, sales support, and consulting. When Iron Mountain purchased us, I went over to Iron Mountain Consulting to focus on electronic information management. I then became a director at HP/Autonomy (which acquired Iron Mountain’s technology assets) and Navigant, providing strategic direction, thought leadership and marketing. Along the way I have made over 100 presentations and written over a dozen articles, the latest a law journal article in the University of Richmond JOLT. I still teach, as an adjunct in at Michigan State University College of Law, helping to teach a class in eDiscovery..

Industries I Write About

Technology

Law & Politics

My Writing Samples

Blair and Maron Must Die!

The first part of a 2 part article questioning the utility of an old study used in the eDiscovery industry to create FUD with prospective customers.

Experience

Principal (and Ronin)

Legal technology projects for clients: - Managed Information Governance data remediation and privacy assessment project for Massachusetts healthcare agency involving the analysis of nearly 1 million files accumulated over 29 years - Created a new data-centric architecture for the delivery of new compliance due diligence products for global risk management consulting firm - Led a team within the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General on an eDiscovery project to recommend technology and review “taint team” (i.e., conflicted) data Market intelligence and product management projects for vendors: - Provided strategic guidance, buyer research and thought leadership on creating and positioning eDiscovery managed services offering for a growing service provider - Managed development projects for international provider of text analytics software for development and positioning of a new ECA platform for eDiscovery and investigations and application of semantic indexing technology to improve the Information Governance capability of an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) offering - Worked with eDiscovery marketplace start-up to develop market message and Go-to-Market strategy - Worked with major defense contractor to assess the market and evaluate product positioning for a “Dark Web” threat detection platform and an eDiscovery forensics and collection system Thought leadership programs for vendors: - Published articles and present in webinars for leading provider of self-services SaaS eDiscovery system - Researched and created whitepapers along with follow up webinars for an innovative new provider of a Cloud-based eDiscovery review platform - Developed and narrated educational videos for well-known eDiscovery education and certification provider Due diligence and research for venture capital, private equity and other investors in eDiscovery and Information Governance markets