On reading Judge's Grimm "FEDERAL RULE OF EVIDENCE 502: HAS IT LIVED UP TO ITS POTENTIAL?"

The first phrase sets the stage and excites the interest that will carry you through the 82-pages article, "Nothing causes litigators greater anxiety than the possibility of doing, or failing to do, something during a civil case that waives attorney–client privilege or work-product protection."

However, as a technologist, I can't resist thinking that we are simply glorifying a technical problem and making a legal problem out of it. Imagine that computer search and analysis technology were able to be as precise or more so than the humans, would the problem exist at all? -- No! Or at least, not to that degree.

It is an old adage, but before Google, say, just 15 years ago, one would say, "Cataloging of all of the world's information, and making an answer to any question, even based on key words, available to anyone in under a second? What nonsense!" Nevertheless, today we expect that as a routine. More than that, Google's Page promises a brain implant that would whisper the answers to your thoughts.

So the challenge for FreeEed is clearly stated: after (1) making it work routinely with large data sets, such as Enron's email, for massive statistical verification, and (2) putting the processing into the compute cloud, making it available from any PC or a tablet computer, (3) automate the privilege review to make it usable and useful. Being open source and not a black box, it will inspire more trust, cooperation, and verification. Being a low-cost solution, it will be useful.