Phrase of the week: Open-weight
In legal tech last week, misbehaving agentic AI broke through a secure sandbox during cyber testing; China released more cost-efficient, capable open-weight models; and the AI industry coalesced against early-mover proprietary closed-weight providers to support distillation—moves that will cause an explosion of IP and contract litigation. It’s boom or bust in hiring and job seeking, as organizations bulk up to meet the moment or staff down to save costs.
After AI comes quantum. Join me and two-time JD Supra Readers’ Choice winner Ralph Losey on August 6 at 1 PM ET for a conversation on “Quantum Law: AI, Quantum Computing, and the Future of Legal Judgment.”
Mary Mack, CEO and Chief Legal Technologist, EDRM.
Let’s remain united in our support for each other. For support or to assist a colleague, contact us at info@edrm.net to join our weekly Community Support Call, now in its seventh year.
On the EDRM Blog
- “Ten depositions are too few for this case…. But twenty-seven depositions is too many….”
- Why Private Copies Are the Next Privacy Risk Frontier
- Two Debatable Holdings
- Drafting RFPs for Robots to Read
- An ESI Protocol Does Not [Necessarily?] Supersede the Discovery Rules
- Confidence cools, commitment holds: full results from the 1H 2026 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey
- A Deep Dive Into the Pikesville, MD, Racist/Antisemitic Deepfake Audio
- Stop Waiting for the Bell: What Legal AI Has Reinforced Since November 6, 2023
Upcoming Webinars on the EDRM Global Webinar Channel
- 06 August 2026 | 1 PM ET – Quantum Law: AI, Quantum Computing, and the Future of Legal Judgment
- 18 August 2026 | 12 PM ET – [HaystackID® Webcast] From Breach to Legal Crisis: The Hours That Define Your Exposure
Can’t make it to a live session? Past EDRM webinars are available to watch anytime on the EDRM Global Webinar Channel.
Updates from Around the Globe
- Global Legal Tech Developments: OpenAI and Hugging Face addressed the startling rogue GenAI exploit during testing. Immediately following the breach (and after a Chinese lab released a new open-weight model), leading companies — including OpenAI — signed a letter circulated by Nvidia supporting open-weight models and the distillation training method they use, a practice Anthropic has pushed back against after alleging its models were distilled without authorization. France did ban social media for children under 15. A Florida pastor alleged OpenAI exploited his religious beliefs and delivered life-threatening medical advice. Meta settled a social media addiction bellwether trial. After eDiscovery pioneer K&L Gates cut 10% of its allied professional staff, Kirkland doubled down on AI hiring and building its own platform. ComplexDiscovery examined fear of layoffs with research on leaving and staying.
- International eDiscovery Trends: Mike Berman explored cases: a deepfake audio case that went up on appeal, ESI protocols v the Rules, and the right number of depositions. Phil Favro shared an important new AI case, Schulte v. LinkedIn, during HaystackID’s webcast, “From Hype to Workflow: Insights from Experts on the Impact of AI on eDiscovery,” with experts Aleida Gonzalez, Cristin Traylor, Esther Birnbaum, and Jim Sullivan. Craig Ball gave excellent tips on drafting Requests for Production optimized for the robots reading them. Shared Claude chats, including legal chats, were reportedly included in Google search results before being taken down. LG promised to ban apps that turn Smart TVs into “residential proxies” open to neighbors. Samsung released Gemini-powered AI glasses. Thank you to eDiscovery Today’s Doug Austin for covering Sheila Grela’s exploration of private copies as a huge privacy challenge, Mike Berman on court-ordered search terms, and ComplexDiscovery’s article on fear of layoffs. Confidence cooled, found the 1H Discovery Business Confidence Survey.
- World Events Impacting Legal Tech: Ukraine attacked an Iranian tanker in the Caspian Sea as it continued to attack Russia’s Wildberries. The Houthis and Saudi Arabia traded attacks. After intense, renewed fighting, there was a pause in the Iran war at publication time. Over 10,000 people were rushed to the hospital for heatstroke in Japan. India’s anti-corruption Gen Z Cockroach movement caused the resignation of the Indian Education minister. Britain has a new prime minister with new priorities. Russia passed a “civic death” law targeting critics in exile. The strongest earthquake in 100 years rattled the Texas Panhandle. Newsweek mapped predicted August wildfire smoke in the US Midwest and East Coast due to Canadian wildfires. Spain and France evacuated hundreds of thousands due to wildfires.
Catch our latest syndicated EDRM Global Podcast Network episodes on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, and more.
Illumination Zone Podcasts
Recent guests include:
- Episode 237 | Michael Huber, Managing Director of Legal Technology & Data Analytics, Ankura
- Episode 236 | Bobby Balachandran, Founder and CEO, Exterro
- Episode 235 | Ryan Costello, Executive Vice President of Global Advisory and Client Engagement, HaystackID
EDRM Announcements
- EDRM Invites Global Community to Shape EDRM 2.0 via Public Comment
- We’ve teamed up with our longtime Trusted Partner Exterro to survey legal professionals on AI adoption in eDiscovery. The survey is anonymous, vendor-neutral, and takes just five minutes. Share your insights here.
- EDRM has released the Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) v4.1, the first major revision since 2012. Read the full announcement here.
Weekly Community Support Call: Join us every Tuesday at 6PM Eastern on Zoom for support and camaraderie. Email info@edrm.net for an invitation to our 336th call. For mental health care, consider these professional resources.
All are welcome,
Mary and Holley
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P.S. This update was assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies as per EDRM’s GAI and LLM Policy
