Relativity Fest 2021 included a ton of great sessions and there's no way anyone was able to see them all.
As with previous years, we recommend that you make the time for the sessions in your preferred track per Relativity's guidance. Then, to “Make It Like You Like It,” add in the recommendations from our team and let us know what you think!
First, we want to extend a congratulations to all the Innovation Award Winners and participants! The entire Milyli team admires your passion as leaders in the Relativity space.
And now Milyli's five –okay, technically seven– "Must-See" sessions for on-demand post-Relativity Fest viewing!
Steve Ankenbrandt, CEO, Co-Founder, and veteran Fest-session host, recommends:
"As John said in this session, Relativity Server 'continues to mature and remains a fully supported product that enables our customers to streamline ediscovery, innovate, and deliver great results.' The stability and now simplified maintenance for a server-based instance are real advantages for certain Relativity customers.
The sections of the presentation dedicated to explaining the next steps for Aero UI and ongoing enhancement opportunities give me the impression that the next 12 months will offer a lot of opportunities for server users. I also really liked that they called out how their developers have focused their updates on the needs of litigation support, reviewers, and developers – great stuff!"
Jed Cassinelli, Co-Founder and attender of Fest-before-Fest-was-Fest, recommends:
"I know I'm supposed to pick one session, but I enjoyed two in particular this year – both focusing on what drives a lot of what we're all doing day in and day out in the legal space.
First, as always, the Judicial Panel was great. It was fascinating to hear how COVID has impacted (both bad and good!) the panel's day-to-day work. A critical sentiment I took from the session was the importance of focusing all parties on cooperation, flexibility, and mutual understanding, and how that philosophy benefits almost any situation – most humorously illustrated in Judge Matthewman's "Neosporin Doctrine of Discovery.
The other session I really enjoyed centered on the impact and implications of the GDPR and similar laws. Besides thoroughly addressing an ever-growing list of legislation, the session covered nuances between the laws stemming from the forces driving them
– from focusing on personal privacy to protecting against abuses - all while trying to find the right pragmatic balance. And to cap it off, they touched on the new EU regulations around AI and how those will be the source of many more discussions to come!"
Laura Moon, Software Developer and First-time Fest attendee recommends:
"In this session, Relativity and Microsoft security experts discussed the latest security topics. In the sphere of timely topics, they touched on President Biden's recent executive order and the role the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
may play in standardizing and spurring the adoption of security measures. Quite a bit of the session also covered 'zero-trust' security architecture, which assumes that anything built could be compromised. Looking ahead, the panelists wrapped up by discussing some of the immense benefits of using cloud-based tools. It's in that space where software providers like Relativity and Microsoft can own securing work and ease the users' burden.
I’d also encourage people to catch Accelerate Results by Streamlining Your Data's Path from A to B – as it focused on data preservation and collection concerns. Relativity has some great options to simplify an organization's responsibilities in these areas and the panel provided some great insight into Relativity's Legal Hold, Collect, and Migrate tools."
Next, you have a Four-time Fest attendee, Barrett Newell, Senior Marketing Manager's recommendation:
"I’m going to second the GDPR session Jed mentioned as a must-see. In addition to covering the nuances that drive legislation, it was very interesting to hear the panel’s thoughts on the differences between the EU and Silicon Valley, the emergence of CCPA, and how moving forward, regulatory legislation will be most likely a less EU-driven conversation and a more globally expansive and inclusive one.
I also recommend you grab some time for the Third Annual FTI-Relativity General Counsel Survey. Ari Kaplan had some great conversations this year with GCs about what's really impacting their day-to-day. There's so much effecting them from supply chain concerns to 'the war for talent,' that speaking strictly to their security needs just isn't going to be enough to connect meaningfully."
And last, but certainly not least, we have our 5th –technically 7th– recommendation!
Jacob Malliet, Tech Lead and 2019 Fest Speaker + Returning Recap Contributor, recommends:
"Attending the Dev Summit really excited me about the improvements coming for the Relativity application development process. In particular, once it’s launched, the "Relativity Test Framework" will make it significantly easier for developers like myself to verify Blackout and our other products will behave correctly on the Relativity platform. In addition, the Log Extractor tool coming to Relativity One will also make it easier than ever for our customers and our Customer Advocacy team to help diagnose errors within Relativity One environments. I highly recommend this session for anyone who develops or has an interest in developing applications on Relativity!"
