Extract from Exterro’s article “Am I Ready to Bring Document Review In-House?”

A Strategic Blueprint for Smarter Legal Outcomes

In-house legal teams are navigating a demanding environment: litigation, internal investigations, and regulatory requirements are expanding rapidly, while budgets are under more scrutiny than ever. It is no longer enough to simply manage the status quo or outsource every challenge to external partners. To achieve demonstrable savings on legal budgets, document review is the primary lever for change, accounting for approximately 75% of all e-discovery costs.

The move toward in-house eDiscovery is already well underway. Recent surveys have shown that over 70% of large companies reporting over $1 billion in revenue either have or plan to purchase document review technology. However, bringing document review in-house involves more than just purchasing a new software license; it requires a fundamental shift toward working smarter—making the work of eDiscovery faster, leaner, and more defensible by mastering people, processes, and technology.

If you are evaluating whether your organization is ready to take this step, use this pragmatic blueprint to assess your internal readiness across three critical pillars.

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Extract from Justin Smith’s article “How London & Naor P.C. Leveraged Everlaw to Deliver Big Results with a Small Team”

In the high-stakes world of civil litigation and white-collar defense, there is a long-standing myth that big results require big headcounts. The prevailing wisdom suggests that to manage terabytes of data or navigate complex litigation, a firm must deploy an army of associates. But for London & Naor P.C., a boutique powerhouse based in Oakland, California, the goal isn’t to be the biggest—it’s to be the smartest.

Specializing in civil litigation, internal investigations, and white-collar defense, the firm serves a diverse client base that spans individuals, companies, and public entities. Their attorneys have decades of combined experience in government and private practice, and draw upon their know-how and technology to deliver high-quality legal services.

Shareholder and co-founder Ellen London brings an unusual combination of big‑organization and small‑firm experience to the practice, having spent roughly a decade as a civil‑side federal prosecutor in Manhattan and San Francisco before moving into private practice.

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Intelligent legal solution platform helps the world’s most successful and innovative legal teams to deliver superior value to clients with greater efficiency and flexibility.

London, 9 March 2026 – Today, leading legal software and services provider Opus 2 announced that the company’s AI-enabled intelligent legal solution platform, which underpins its award-winning litigation and arbitration offerings, is available to law firms who want to extend the software’s value beyond use cases for commercial disputes.

Combining structured data worksheets, online collaboration portals, data-driven dashboards, and other tools—including AI and integrations—legal professionals can quickly design solutions using Opus 2’s platform to help win new business, improve client relationships, and simplify workflows. Examples include workspaces, trackers, hubs, playbooks, toolkits, checklists, and more for matters, clients, deals, and engagements in areas like client collaboration and legal service delivery, in addition to commercial disputes.

“Showing clients exactly how your firm can deliver more value and manage matters better using technology gives you a distinct advantage. Innovation isn’t just a tool, it’s a differentiator,” said Greg Blackman, CEO of Opus 2. “Our most innovative customers have already proven the value of our platform, demonstrating what’s possible when you combine modern, adaptable software capabilities with creative, collaborative legal professionals.”

Opus 2’s platform is the foundation of well-established solutions that have helped legal professionals manage, collaborate on, and prepare for complex, high-stakes cases for almost two decades—and are continually put to the test in thousands of proceedings annually.

In addition to leveraging prebuilt, AI-enabled case management, case preparation, and case strategy capabilities from those solutions, legal teams can use the adaptable software building blocks that Opus 2’s platform provides to solve other challenges across the firm.

“Close customer relationships have driven our platform initiative forward—from providing invaluable feedback and insights to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Beau Wysong, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Opus 2. “Rooted in true partnership, law firms who invest in the Opus 2 platform not only get access to award-winning technology, they’re able to influence the next generation of legal innovation.”

How firms are innovating with the Opus 2 intelligent legal solutions platform

Leading firms like Dorsey & Whitney, Norton Rose Fulbright, and BakerHostetler are a few of the partners that have been instrumental in helping Opus 2 shape its platform’s flexibility, capability, and extensibility.

Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney, an international law firm that has received numerous national rankings for excellence in the legal industry, is an outstanding model of an innovation-driven organization that uses tools like Opus 2 to help earn new business and increase revenue outside of litigation.

Case in point, Dorsey’s M&A team was working with an existing client who needed a deal room and the client was looking at several options. Rather than send over a static data sheet, the team presented a live demo of the AI-enabled Dorsey Virtual Data Room solution built with Opus 2’s platform. The impact was immediate.

Caroline Sweeney, Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at Dorsey & Whitney, described the interaction, saying, “We showed them the AI functionality, and right there on the phone the client said, ‘OK, we’re going to use you guys.’ This was a clear opportunity to support their team and deliver immediate value.”

Norton Rose Fulbright

Similarly, internationally acclaimed Norton Rose Fulbright has had significant success leveraging the platform’s AI. After using it to accelerate the analysis of expert reports and transcripts for a particular matter, the firm’s innovation team received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the quality of the AI from all stakeholders. That type of success—using Opus 2’s platform to deliver innovation to external and internal clients—started with the very first project.

In addition to regularly using Opus 2’s AI capabilities, Norton Rose Fulbright has further integrated the platform to support enhanced client collaboration. “We partnered with Opus 2 to deliver a customized client portal that centralizes critical case materials, an events calendar, and visual insights across active and closed matters,” said Christy Bentz, Chief Client Value and Innovation Officer at Norton Rose Fulbright. “The solution exceeded client expectations—driving a request for a second portal—and further strengthened the firm’s ability to deliver high‑impact, client‑centric innovation.”

BakerHostetler

As Senior Director of Litigation Services at BakerHostetler, James Bekier is also focused on leveraging new ideas and technologies to find creative, adaptable solutions that drive clear ROI for the firm. While Opus 2’s platform helps him accomplish that across their 400-lawyer-strong Litigation Practice Group, the firm also has used Opus 2 to design repeatable, valuable legal services offerings that drive business for other groups.

For Bekier, the platform’s impact goes beyond efficiency. It adapts to the complexity of high stakes matters while enabling scalable innovation across the firm, which is widely recognised for its forward-thinking approach.

“The true value of Opus 2 lies in its versatility,” says Bekier. “It provides the creative ‘elbow room’ required for complex matters, offering a level of sophisticated flexibility that enables us to build bespoke workflows and drive efficiencies that other tools simply cannot match.”

About Opus 2

Since 2008, Opus 2 has developed award-winning solutions trusted by the most successful law firms. Used in thousands of proceedings around the world, Opus 2 transforms how lawyers and other legal professionals work by eliminating inefficiencies and connecting them with the adaptable, collaborative software they need to work smarter and more effectively together. The company also delivers the essential technology and expertise needed to conduct dispute resolution proceedings in the most modern, seamless, and secure way possible. For more information, visit the Opus 2 website. 

SOURCE: OPUS 2

Extract from Reveal’s article “eDiscovery Symbiotes: AI Bonding with Discovery Management Software”

AI tools that integrate natively with eDiscovery platforms form what the industry is beginning to call eDiscovery symbiotes, unified systems where AI and the hosting environment continuously reinforce each other. This bond optimizes how platforms process, analyze, and surface data, cutting manual intervention and accelerating every phase of discovery. When the integration is seamless, that performance compounds across the entire matter lifecycle.

Legal teams processing millions of documents under tight deadlines have little patience for tools that require constant babysitting. When AI and its host platform operate as separate systems, someone always absorbs the cost, in wasted hours, degraded accuracy, or ballooning review budgets. Pull those walls down, and everything changes.

This article breaks down how seamless AI integrations create the conditions for symbiotic eDiscovery performance, and why the hosting environment is the ecosystem that makes or breaks the bond.

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Extract from Casey Custardo’s article “Litigation Strategy Moves at the Speed of Insight”

You’ve seen the subject line before: “Complaint Filed” or “Emergency Motion” or “IG Inquiry – Immediate Response Requested.”

It’s the end of the day. You were about to leave. But now you know you’re not going to make it to your kid’s soccer game.

By the next morning, leadership will want to understand what this means for the agency. What’s the exposure? Who was involved? What does the record actually say? How serious is this?

The answers are in the data, as they always are. But uncovering and organizing them isn’t always straightforward.

In fact, the data that stands between you and clarity feels endless. Years of communications across custodians, policy drafts that evolved over time (creating numerous versions of every document, every time), text threads layered with context that doesn’t immediately translate on the page, attachments referencing earlier drafts, side conversations, and decisions taking shape across long email threads.

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Unfavorable contract terms are causing creators to lose control over their faces, voices and likenesses—making identity protection a key legal issue.

And it’s time to recognize digital identity as property, and to educate courts about synthetic media.

This was the main message of Texas attorney Michelle O’Neil’s South by Southwest conference presentation: “Who Owns Me? Legal War Over Identity in the Creator Economy.”

“Your identity is your most valuable asset, but also your greatest vulnerability as a creator,” O’Neil said, emphasizing both its worth and the risks involved.

The law is not equipped to protect creators’ identities, including faces, voices, names and likenesses, especially in the context of cloning by artificial intelligence, O’Neil said.

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When AI does the work, law firms will sell what was always most valuable—and finally name it.

Legal analyst Jordan Furlong, saw it coming. In a recent piece on AI-centric law firms, Furlong discusses “displacement, not replacement.” Lawyers won’t disappear, but they’re “going to switch seats,” he writes. AI will become “the productivity engine of legal work,” while lawyers focus on “building human relationships, expressing human empathy, performing human advocacy, and exercising human judgment.”

He’s right. But he stops short of answering the key question: What exactly are clients buying in this new world? If AI drafts the documents, conducts the research, and flags the issues— and if a new breed of legal professional verifies the output – then what’s the actual product senior lawyers are selling?

I think I know. It’s been hiding in plain sight for years.

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OpenAI urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday to uphold the dismissal of copyright infringement claims two media outlets brought alleging the tech company unlawfully lifted information from their news articles in training its artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.

A three-judge panel drilled down on whether Raw Story Media and AlterNet Media had standing to bring claims under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which prohibits distributing works from which copyrighted information “has been removed or altered.”

The news websites contend OpenAI used “text extractor” algorithms to strip the copyright management information, or CMI, from their articles and make new copies. In creating those copies without the headline or author’s name, OpenAI caused the outlets a concrete copyright infringement injury.

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Most e-discovery professionals I talk to have a working understanding of cross-border data transfer issues: GDPR, blocking statutes, the usual suspects. Far fewer have India on their radar. That’s about to change.

On November 25, 2025, the Madras High Court’s Division Bench handed down a ruling in Softgel Healthcare Private Limited v. Pfizer Inc. that refused to execute Letters Rogatory issued out of a U.S. federal court in Delaware. Pfizer had been trying to collect manufacturing records (batch data, X-ray diffraction results, stability protocols) from an Indian company that supplied the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) at the center of a Hatch-Waxman patent litigation. The Indian court said no. And not on narrow procedural grounds. The bench went article by article through the Hague Evidence Convention and found independent reasons to refuse under four separate provisions.

That alone would be worth paying attention to. But what happened next raised the stakes further: India’s Supreme Court took up the appeal, directed the Union of India to join as a party, and signaled it intends to “settle the law” on how Indian courts handle foreign discovery requests. This is no longer a one-off decision. It’s a case that could reshape the entire framework.

A Quick Primer for the Non-Pharma Crowd

For those who don’t live in pharmaceutical patent litigation, here’s the short version. Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, when a generic drug company files an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) with the FDA, the patent holder can sue for infringement in U.S. federal court. These cases are big, document-intensive, and, more and more often, international.

In the Pfizer matter, the underlying litigation sits in the District of Delaware (Pfizer Inc. v. Dexcel Pharma Technologies). Pfizer holds U.S. patents on tafamidis, the active ingredient in its cardiac drugs Vyndaqel and Vyndamax. Cipla and Zenara Pharma filed ANDAs to market generic versions. Pfizer’s theory was that these companies sourced their API from two Indian manufacturers: Softgel Healthcare in Chennai and Teena Biolabs in Hyderabad. Neither Indian company was named in the Delaware suit. So, Pfizer went through the Hague Convention’s Letters Rogatory process, which, in plain terms, is a formal request from the Delaware court asking Indian courts to help collect evidence.

Same Request, Opposite Results

Here’s where it gets interesting. Pfizer filed parallel Letters Rogatory in two different Indian courts and got completely different results.

The Telangana High Court handled the Teena Biolabs request the way most practitioners would have expected. It appointed a chemist as Local Commissioner, established a Confidentiality Club, ordered in-camera proceedings, and let the process move forward. This was the template that had worked in Indian courts for years, in Bombay, Delhi, and Telangana, going back at least a decade.

The Madras High Court took a different view entirely. A single judge had initially followed the Telangana approach and appointed a Local Commissioner. On appeal, the Division Bench reversed. The bench didn’t just find a procedural defect. It conducted what I can only describe as a systematic teardown of Pfizer’s request across multiple provisions of the Hague Convention.

Four Grounds, Four Different Problems

Under Article 3 of the Hague Convention, the court found Pfizer’s document requests too broad. Phrases like “all documents and electronically stored information” relating to manufacturing and testing didn’t meet the Convention’s specificity requirements. Anyone who has drafted a Rule 34 request in U.S. litigation will recognize that language and will now need to understand that it simply does not translate to the Hague framework as interpreted by this court.

Under Article 11, the bench recognized Softgel’s right as a non-party to decline production. Softgel was a witness, not a litigant, and Indian law gives non-party witnesses protections that the bench was not willing to override.

Article 12(b) is where it gets really consequential. The court noted that Pfizer’s Indian patent application for the same drug had been refused by the Indian Patent Office. The bench reasoned from that refusal: why should an Indian court compel an Indian company to hand over proprietary manufacturing data to enforce a patent that India itself declined to grant? The court held that doing so would prejudice India’s sovereignty. This is, as far as I’m aware, without direct precedent. The status of a domestic patent application being treated as a dispositive factor in whether a foreign discovery request gets executed is a new development, and one that changes the calculus for any innovator whose Indian patent portfolio is less than airtight.

Under Article 23, the bench held that Pfizer’s requests amounted to prohibited pre-trial discovery under India’s qualified declaration. India filed this declaration when it ratified the Hague Convention in 2007, but no Indian appellate court had previously applied it with this force in a pharmaceutical case. That changed here.

What’s Happening at the Supreme Court

Pfizer appealed. On January 29, 2026, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant heard the matter. The court issued notice to Softgel but pointedly said this was “not because we are convinced” by Pfizer’s arguments. Rather, the court wanted to settle the legal position on Letters Rogatory once and for all.

Two things stood out from the hearing. First, the court directed the Union of India to be made a party. That’s unusual. It signals the court views this as a matter of national policy, not just a dispute between a U.S. pharmaceutical company and an Indian manufacturer. Second, the bench raised the question of reciprocity head-on: would American courts show the same cooperative spirit if an Indian company needed evidence from the United States?

No stay was granted. No interim relief. Pfizer pointed to its April 27, 2026, trial date in Delaware, but the court didn’t appear moved by the urgency. As of late February, no further hearing date has been reported.

Why E-Discovery Professionals Should Care

India is the world’s largest exporter of generic pharmaceuticals. The manufacturing ecosystem there is enormous: over 1,500 API plants, 75-plus FDA-approved facilities, and contract testing labs spread across Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Pune. All of that is deeply woven into global drug supply chains. In any Hatch-Waxman case where the generic product originates in India, the critical electronically stored information (ESI) probably sits there too. Batch records, bioequivalence studies, analytical testing data, stability protocols. Much of it held by entities that are not parties to the U.S. litigation.

If the Supreme Court upholds or even just narrows the Madras ruling without overturning its core reasoning, the standard Hague Convention route for collecting that evidence becomes much harder to rely on. India is not alone in restricting discovery under the Convention, either. Twenty-eight countries maintain blanket reservations against pre-trial discovery. The UK requires a direct link to specific proceedings. Germany excludes non-party document requests. France layers its Hague restrictions on top of a criminal blocking statute. What sets the Softgel ruling apart is the Article 12(b) sovereignty analysis tied to local patent validity. That particular move, connecting the fate of a domestic patent application to whether a foreign court’s discovery request gets executed, breaks new ground.

Some Practical Notes

A few things worth thinking through if your work touches this space.

Exhaust U.S.-based discovery first. If the ANDA filer has a U.S. subsidiary, start with Rule 34. If parent and subsidiary companies share quality management systems, databases, or reporting lines, U.S. courts are generally willing to compel production from the domestic entity regardless of what’s happening in Indian courts. Don’t treat this as a fallback. Treat it as the primary route.

If you do pursue Letters Rogatory, get specific. Broad requests are dead on arrival after Softgel. You need named custodians, identified document categories tied to particular manufacturing sites, and specific test protocols. Pulling that together requires on-the-ground intelligence about India’s pharmaceutical supply chain: who actually conducted the bioequivalence studies, which facility holds the batch records, what the contractual chain looks like between the ANDA filer and its Indian contract manufacturers.

Think about voluntary collection. Where evidence sits with an independent third party, say a contract research organization or a stability testing lab, it may be possible to negotiate a consensual, supervised collection using a neutral forensic intermediary. This takes the Indian courts out of the equation entirely, though it depends on the third party’s willingness to cooperate.

And don’t overlook § 1782. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1782, if an Indian entity has a U.S. affiliate, a U.S.-based agent, or filed a Drug Master File through a U.S. representative, that touchpoint may support an application for judicially compelled discovery on American soil.

Looking Ahead

Several things are coming to a head in the next few months. The Delaware trial is set for late April. The USTR’s 2026 Special 301 Report, which reviews IP enforcement globally, is expected around the same time. That report will be the first opportunity for groups like PhRMA and the U.S. Chamber’s Global Innovation Policy Center to formally flag the Softgel ruling with the U.S. government. India has sat on the USTR Priority Watch List for years over patent enforcement issues, and a judicial barrier to evidence collection could sharpen that scrutiny.

The real event to watch, though, is the Supreme Court. If it formalizes restrictive guidelines for executing Letters Rogatory, particularly if it mandates reciprocity requirements or cements the link between Indian patent status and discovery cooperation, the effects will reach well beyond pharmaceutical cases. Any cross-border matter involving Indian entities and ESI held in India could feel the impact.

One last thing. I’ve been struck by how little Western commentary this ruling has generated. No major U.S. or international IP firm has published on it. Nothing has appeared on SSRN. The analysis has come almost entirely from Indian legal blogs and law firms. That gap between the ruling’s importance and its visibility in U.S. legal circles is itself telling. Whether it reflects a lag in awareness or a wait-and-see posture pending the Supreme Court’s final word, practitioners in this space would do well not to wait along with them.

When lawyers leverage generative artificial intelligence for legal work, client relationships may be subject to change, especially when it comes to transparency, intake and management.

On Wednesday, experts discussed how AI adoption can impact this dynamic as well as what they think the future of legal work could look like with the implementation of technology like gen AI.

Below are highlights from the third day of Legalweek 2026 in New York:

A Glimpse Into the Future

During the “Tech-Driven Legal Innovation” session, experts discussed how they think gen AI will change the legal industry several years down the line.

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