Everest Discovery LLC, a leading national litigation support and eDiscovery provider, today announced the company is sponsoring the NAMWOLF 2022 Annual Meeting taking place September 18-21 in Chicago.
Everest Discovery founder and president Sue Pellegrino has been volunteering at Camp Achieve for the past 15 years, and the company has also participated as a corporate sponsor.
Everest Discovery will support Justice for Change grant recipients in their use of RelativityOne
August 30, 2022
Everest Discovery LLC, a leading national litigation support and eDiscovery provider, today announced its designation as a Hosting Partner with Relativity’s Justice for Change program. This partnership will enable Everest Discovery to provide hosting, administrative and project management support to grant recipient organizations in their use of RelativityOne.
Through the program, organizations without a RelativityOne license or litigation support experience will be paired with a Relativity service provider or law firm to offer the software or support needed. As a RelativityOne certified partner since 2019, Everest is participating in the program and offering project management support to organizations in the program.
“When we learned of this program, we were thrilled to participate and offer our services and expertise to help make legal services more accessible to those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to have that support,” states Sue Pellegrino, owner and president of Everest Discovery. “Our team has assisted with two cases already, and we look forward to whatever additional support we can provide to make the legal system more available to all.”
Relativity’s Justice for Change program focuses on increasing access to justice by providing free use of its cloud-based eDiscovery product RelativityOne to organizations tackling legal cases and academic and policy research related to racial and social justice. Specifically, Justice for Change has allocated 100TB of RelativityOne data to be used on pro bono projects led by customers or nonprofit organizations. Through the Justice for Change hosting partnership, Everest Discovery is committed to the continuous pursuit of justice through great pro bono work and building important connections.
“It is the expertise and generosity of our partners that enable us to make this great program possible,” says Johnathan Hill, community engagement lead at Relativity. “We’re thrilled to welcome Everest Discovery into the Justice for Change community and look forward to the impact they have supporting a nonprofit organization as they pursue a more just world.”
“As a nonprofit organization that works to protect and advocate for children who have been abused or exposed to interpersonal violence or coercive control, we were thrilled to learn of the Justice for Change program. It gives our legal team access to technology, expertise and resources we wouldn’t otherwise have, and we are thankful for the organizations that have all partnered to offer these services to this underserved community,” states Eileen King, founder and executive director of Child Justice, Inc.
Organizations, including current Relativity customers, doing legal work on behalf of racial justice that would benefit from software to help them organize and search documents and build out a case narrative can apply for free use of the cloud-based eDiscovery product RelativityOne. To learn more, visit: https://www.relativity.com/company/giving-back/justice-for-change/. To learn more about Everest Discovery LLC, please visit www.everestdiscovery.com.
About Everest Discovery LLC
Everest Discovery is a leading litigation support and eDiscovery provider serving legal departments, law firms and government agencies nationwide. Our core focus on solutions, service and security enables us to provide actionable insights that transform workflows, reduce risk and generate significant cost savings for our client base. We comprehensively address our clients’ business problems by incorporating best-of-breed technologies, knowledge-based services and a consultative approach. Everest is proud to be ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified, a WBENC-Certified Women’s Business Enterprise and a GSA contract holder with SBA-WOSB (Women-Owned Small Business) certification.
About Relativity
Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product RelativityOne manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. The AI-powered communication surveillance product, Relativity Trace proactively detects regulatory misconduct like insider trading, collusion and other non-compliant behavior. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 199 of the Am Law 200. Relativity has been named one of Chicago’s Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for 10 consecutive years. Please contact Relativity at sales@relativity.com or visit http://www.relativity.com for more information.
In this blog, we shed light on some of the most commonly used workflows for review of chat/conversation data preserved with Cellebrite UFED or collected through Cellebrite Cloud.
Everest Discovery LLC, a leading national litigation support and eDiscovery provider, today announces Jim Corcoran has joined the company as vice president of sales. Corcoran brings 27 years of consultation expertise for law firms and corporate legal departments.
Philadelphia, PA—July 25, 2022—Everest Discovery LLC, a leading national
litigation support and eDiscovery provider, today announces the company has promoted Josh Williams to associate director of eDiscovery at the company.
Williams has been with the company since 2017 and has served as one of the company’s main subject matter experts on Relativity. As a senior project manager, he was instrumental in providing clients with his expertise and knowledge on the hundreds of cases he has supported. His experience is wide-ranging and includes eDiscovery, data processing, analytics, review workflows, production and case strategy management.
“Everest Discovery is a great organization with a fantastic team,” states Williams. “This new role will allow me to provide support to our client base while continuing to develop new processes and procedures to transform workflows, test and implement new solution offerings and work alongside our project management team to maintain operational effectiveness.”
“Josh is a tremendous asset to our team, and this promotion is very well deserved,” states Sue Pellegrino, president and owner of Everest Discovery. “His constant thinking outside the box and willingness to go the extra mile for each and every client are so valued. We look forward to the leadership he will provide to others at the company in this new role.”
To learn more about Everest Discovery LLC, please visit www.everestdiscovery.com.
About Everest Discovery LLC
Everest Discovery is a leading litigation support and eDiscovery provider serving legal departments, law firms and government agencies nationwide. Our core focus on solutions, service and security enables us to provide actionable insights that transform workflows, reduce risk and generate significant cost savings for our client base. We comprehensively address our clients’ business problems by incorporating best-of-breed technologies, knowledge-based services and a consultative approach. Everest is proud to be ISO 27001 certified, a certified WBENC Women’s Business Enterprise, a WOSB (Women-Owned Small Business) certified via the SBA and a GSA contractor.
Every year, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, provider of one of the most respected certifications for women-owned businesses, holds its national conference bringing together thousands of women business owners and their teams, supplier diversity professionals and procurement and senior executive representatives from the Fortune 1000 and federal government to create opportunities for women entrepreneurs across the country.
The WBENC National Conference is the largest event of its kind for women business owners. This year’s conference, celebrating the event’s 25th anniversary, took place at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on June 6-9. Everest Discovery was happy to have two of our own attend this year – Sue Pellegrino, president and chief financial officer, and John Trickey, director of sales.
The event was an incredible opportunity for Sue and John to connect in person with other women-owned businesses and their teams and watch demos to learn about their products and services. Everest belongs to WBENC East, and the conference gave us the chance to network with people in our own backyard and meet with our regional partner organization members. Most of the companies Sue and John connected with had their head of supplier diversity and procurement buyers in attendance.
Through the course of three jam-packed days, Sue and John got to interact with representatives of over 300 women-owned businesses. The Meet & Greet was a great opportunity to network and connect with other corporate members in an open but structured format – almost like speed dating for businesses. The various receptions were another chance for networking, as well as offering plenty of fun, food, and libations.
A highlight of the conference was the informative seminars and speakers. One that stood out was a fireside chat with federal government representatives about small business procurement. The session explained how the SBA and GSA have increased their support for small businesses with new leadership and resources for accessing the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contracting Program. The fireside chat also explored the ways Women Impacting Public Policy is advocating for change for women on Capitol Hill, with a theme of getting involved and sharing your voice. Attendees left with plenty of tips and guidance for working with the federal government.
Another informative session, entitled “Positioned to Thrive,” focused on evaluating your business and strategies for growth and protection. The panel discussed the importance of knowing the value of your business, as well as the things that are driving or limiting that value. Among the big messages was the need to have owner life insurance as part of your business continuity plan so that you know how your business will survive when you’re no longer there to run it.
Several trends emerged as takeaways from the conference. First, companies are seeking a greater buy-in from their legal departments to implement diverse purchasing initiatives. Second, many companies are not only trying to get their legal departments to support diverse companies, but also to allocate their spend through strategic sourcing to realize cost savings. Finally, legal spend is emerging as an area for great overall cost reduction if traditional purchasing procedures are utilized.
The entire event was very well organized, with its own devoted app that provided the schedule of events, bios for speakers and exhibitors and a place to take notes. Shuttles took attendees to the convention center, as well as to an enjoyable night at the Atlanta Aquarium, featuring the beluga whales exhibit, karaoke and a fun, relaxed time for everyone who attended. If you’re thinking of joining WBENC in the future, we recommend comfortable shoes!
Everest Discovery is proud to be a WBENC-certified Women’s Small Business Enterprise and an SBA-certified Women-Owned Small Business. To learn more about how Everest can support your organization’s eDiscovery and litigation support operations through actionable insights that will transform your workflows, reduce risk and generate significant cost savings, contact us today.
By Mihir Mistry and Sue Pellegrino
In a world where cybersecurity is a critical, ongoing concern, law firms need to be doing everything they can to protect the vast amounts of sensitive and confidential information they possess. We’ve already seen major law firms fall victim to the devastating security breaches at the hands of sophisticated hackers.
Now is the time for law firms to show their commitment to keeping their client data secure. The International Organization for Standardization currently develops and publishes the most highly respected international security standards and offers certification for law firms that want to demonstrate their commitment to security. ISO certification is a time-intensive process, but one that is worth it for the peace of mind and competitive advantage it offers.
An ISO certification is a signal to your clients and others in the industry that you’re serious about security and dedicated to creating the safest environment for the data you handle. The relevant certification standard for law firms is ISO 27001, pertaining to Information security management.
As cybersecurity concerns continue to increase, more and more of your clients will be looking at ISO certification as a key measure in evaluating outside counsel hiring decisions. Therefore, ISO certification is not just a valuable component of security, it’s also increasingly a requirement for maintaining a competitive advantage in a tight legal market.
Obtaining your ISO certification is a process that typically takes nine months to a year. In that time, Zaviant will guide you through the following six steps to ensure that the process goes smoothly.
The first step is to develop your organizational content. This starts with a current state analysis, where you assess everything in your security environment – including your people, process and technology. The goal is to get a realistic picture of how secure you are now and where you can stand to make improvements.
After you know where you stand, you need to establish a clear plan for where you need to get in order to be ready for certification. This includes defining the scope of your activities and creating a Statement of Applicability that makes clear how you’ll treat any risks you’ve perceived in your security, including the processes, systems and stakeholders involved. It’s critical to have your leadership on board if your plan is to succeed.
A few months of your certification process will involve implementing the measures and procedures necessary to meet ISO 27001 standards. This includes developing a clear security manual for your firm, training your workforce on that manual and reviewing their activities. You’ll also be implementing a vulnerability and penetration testing program designed to internally spot and exploit any security vulnerabilities that still exist, which mimics formal vulnerability and penetration testing that will be later performed as part of the ISO 27001 certification process.
After you’ve implemented and reviewed your new security measures, it’s time to truly put them to the test. ISO 27001 is designed to certify that your firm’s information security management system is effective for your firm’s purposes and potential risks. Therefore, you need to conduct an official ISMS review to make sure your objectives remain appropriate and that you’re meeting them. We conduct this review by monitoring and analyzing key KPIs in a sophisticated metrics dashboard.
The final step before you turn things over to an external auditor is to conduct a strict internal audit to confirm that you’re properly following your new policies and procedures and that you have an organizationwide understanding of the ramifications for failing to do so. If anything fails your audit, now is the time to take care of any leftover remediation steps.
The last step is to undergo an official audit led by an external auditor. The Stage 1 Audit reviews your management system documentation, and auditors will evaluate your security conditions, KPIs, processes, procedures and more. If you pass Stage 1, the Stage 2 Audit evaluates whether your processes are in compliance with your management systems. If errors are found, you’ll have a chance to correct them. Once you successfully pass the Stage 2 Audit, you’ll obtain ISO certification.
Showing a serious commitment to security, and specifically obtaining ISO certification, is critical to remaining competitive in today’s legal market.
Check out an article from the May 2022 issue of Cybersecurity Law & Strategy on this topic – The Importance of ISO Certification for Law Firms.
About the Authors:
Mihir Mistry is the vice president of security and operations at Zaviant Consulting, a leader in cybersecurity, data privacy and compliance consulting.
Sue Pellegrino is the owner, president and CFO of Everest Discovery, a leading national litigation support and eDiscovery provider.
Technology has irrevocably ingrained itself in the world of discovery. If you’re like most litigants, you probably engage in more eDiscovery than paper discovery these days.
The reality, though, is that paper isn’t going away anytime soon, if ever. That means you need a discovery partner that has full capabilities to handle both electronic and paper files under one roof. This way, you can be confident that you’re always meeting your discovery obligations in the most cost-effective, efficient and secure way possible.
From our personal lives to our work lives, there’s no question that we’ve seen paper gradually give way to electronic documents, email, payment apps and other technologies. The same is true of discovery. While eDiscovery was once a novel new area in litigation, today it’s the norm.
As a result of this shrinking amount of paper, many discovery vendors have stopped handling paper altogether, choosing instead to focus solely on eDiscovery. The problem with this approach, though, is that the world isn’t as “paperless” as many people like to think.
Paper is still prevalent in the business world, even if it might be at smaller volumes than it once was. You’d be hard-pressed to find a case today that doesn’t involve some paper discovery files. Whether it’s because even the most technologically advanced companies still have file cabinets on-site for certain kinds of documents, some people still just prefer to work on paper, current litigations can involve older matters when paper was the norm or any number of other reasons, paper is still critical. In all these instances, these paper files need to be scanned in and hosted on an eDiscovery platform to fully meet your discovery obligations.
So what happens when an eDiscovery-only company must deal with paper? There’s only one solution: outsourcing.
No matter how efficient an eDiscovery vendor is, if it no longer has the scanning, copying and other capabilities necessary to handle paper discovery, it will need to work with another vendor – like Everest – that does.
At Everest Discovery, our core services today revolve around technology and litigation support, including eDiscovery, but our roots are in paper discovery. Because of this, we are able to offer both options to our clients and have the expertise and knowledge for insight and guidance on what’s best for specific cases.
Everest Discovery began handling paper discovery at the company’s inception in 2005, and we didn’t stop our paper offering when others did. As a result, we serve as a partner to many of the largest eDiscovery vendors which no longer have these capabilities in-house. We take care of collecting the paper files, scanning them (whether in our facilities or on-site), returning the files and then delivering the new electronic versions to be hosted in an eDiscovery platform of the clients choosing.
In 2018, Tom Pellegrino joined Everest as CEO, seeking to guide the company with his perspectives on management, sales and business development in the litigation support world. He brought with him over 30 years of litigation support experience across many facets of the legal industry.
Prior to joining Everest, Tom was co-owner of Copy Secure from 2001 to 2015 which established itself as a leading paper discovery vendor in the Philadelphia region and grew very quickly in an incredibly competitive industry. In 2015, Copy Secure had become so successful that it attracted the attention of a prominent global eDiscovery company, leading to an acquisition later that year. Tom stayed on after the acquisition as general manager and director of business development and headed up the paper discovery division for the entire region.
His expertise, along with others at Everest, has made the company thrive in all aspects of discovery.
In addition, we offer several other traditional, paper-based services, including oversize printing and preparing trial binders. Because we understand that paper in the legal industry isn’t fully going away anytime soon, we’re committed to continuing to handle paper – just as we did when we opened our doors.
Everest Discovery continues to handle both paper and electronic discovery under one roof. With something as important as meeting discovery obligations on the line, you want the most efficient, secure and streamlined approach. Everest understands your critical discovery needs and is truly a one-stop discovery shop.
Contact us today to learn more about how Everest Discovery can help with all your discovery and litigation support needs.
An article by Sue Pellegrino, The Importance of ISO Certification for Law Firms, was published in the May 2022 issue of Cybersecurity Law & Strategy. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, check it out! Read below for the full article:
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Cybersecurity is one of the most critical issues in the business world today. Security breaches continue to grab headlines, and law firms have not been spared from the relentless efforts of hackers. Due to the massive amounts of sensitive and confidential data that law firms have in their possession, it is important to have the right security measures in place to thwart such breaches and remain successful in today’s busy, data-driven legal market.
The International Organization for Standardization develops and publishes widely recognized global security standards and offers security certification for businesses in nearly all sectors, including the law. ISO certification is not just a critical way to ensure your firm’s security; it’s increasingly important for any firm that wants to maintain a competitive advantage in today’s legal market.
Deciding to get your ISO certification is a move that demonstrates an undeniable commitment to security. It shows your clients and others in the industry that you’re serious about making sure you have the most secure atmosphere for the data you handle. It’s also a sign that you’re willing to take the necessary measures to have robust systems and security policies and procedures in place and also that you’ve implemented companywide training on them.
Getting certified is a time-intensive process – typically taking nine months to a year if you’re focused and committed. The first step is assessing your current atmosphere, data, systems and protocols to determine how secure you currently are and where there might be loopholes in your security that you’ve missed. It’s a good idea to work with a consultant from the beginning of the certification process, because outside eyes typically have a better ability to see the realities of your current security posture.
Once you have determined your current posture and the issues you might want to address, it’s critical to get your leadership on board. Your C-suite and partners will be crucial to successfully rolling your new security initiatives out to the rest of the firm. Next comes the meat of the work, where you plan and then implement your new security policies and procedures and train your workforce, ideally again with the help of your consultant, who will then rigorously test the measures you’ve implemented to ensure that they work and are achieving your desired results.
Testing is crucial, because it’s the only way to know that you’re properly following your policies and procedures and all your users understand the ramifications if they don’t adhere to necessary security steps. If anything fails during your internal testing, now is the time to go back and fix it.
The goal is to have everything in line before you’re formally audited to receive your ISO certification. If the ISO auditor does find either minor or major infractions – which is common – you must implement a corrective action plan. Only when you prove that you’ve corrected the infractions can you finally obtain ISO certification. The relevant certification standard for law firms is ISO 27001, pertaining to information security management, and your consultant can guide you through all the certification requirements for that particular standard in minute detail.
Given the financial and time commitments involved in obtaining ISO certification, many firms might question whether it’s truly worth it. The short answer? It is. As a company that has gone through the rigorous work of becoming ISO certified, we can definitively say that it’s an important, and even crucial, step for law firms to be taking now.
For starters, as cybersecurity continues to be front and center in the legal industry and its importance only increases year to year, law firms will eventually have no choice but to be certified. If they haven’t already, your corporate clients will be highly stressing security and demanding that you show a concrete commitment to it. In fact, many companies are now using security as a key measure in evaluating outside counsel while making hiring decisions.
“The value of ISO 27001 certification for a law firm cannot be overstated,” explains John C. Brooks, chief information officer at Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP in Wilmington, Delaware. “The policies, processes and procedures help the firm, and our clients, to ensure the security of the data managed. ISO provides numerous benefits in terms of the ability to respond to security questionnaires from our clients, and it inspires confidence in the firm’s commitment to information security, which is a competitive advantage.”
Of course, ISO certification is not the only way to show a commitment to security, but it’s widely recognized across industries as the standard. When potential clients are analyzing your security, it’s a specific factor that they’re likely to look for. They want to know that their data will be safe with you because you not only have the necessary internal controls, but those internal controls have been rigorously tested and audited by today’s gold standard security organization.
Therefore, making sure your security is buttoned up is crucial to the success of your business and a major factor in maintaining a competitive advantage. As the security landscape continues to evolve, certification will only become even more important.
Cybersecurity is one of the biggest trends in law and business today, and it won’t be going away anytime soon. The time to start the ISO certification process is now, so you can show your commitment to not just your own data and processes, but those of your clients. Increased security measures are no longer a luxury; they’re a necessity for everything from your IT function to achieving your business development goals.
About the Author:
Sue Pellegrino is the owner and president of Everest Discovery, a leading national litigation support and eDiscovery provider, and ISO 27001 certified company.
Reprinted with permission from the May 2022 edition of the Cybersecurity Law & Strategy © 2022 ALM Global Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited, contact 877-257-3382 or reprints@alm.com.
Check out the recent blog post on this topic – The Six Steps Law Firms Need to Take to Become ISO Certified.
