The newly coined New York Legal Week 2017 (formerly Legal Tech) came to a close just over a week ago. I have lost count, but I believe this marked my 10th consecutive year in attendance. As always, the week unfolded as a reunion of sorts, a meeting of the minds, and an opportunity to put your finger on the pulse of the eDiscovery market. It was not as busy as I remember from previous years, and the exhibit floor was far less congested, but there was a general feeling of stability and maturity for the industry.

One common theme that I picked up on as I connected with colleagues and partners alike, was a desire to find an infusion of inspiration or creativity; to generate business by establishing new and different relationships. Of course, with technology always in the background at Legal Week, we were also all in pursuit of what's next... What new technology will shift the market or maybe even turn eDiscovery on its side? Is Information Governance really converging with eDiscovery as quickly as speculated? What about the Internet of Things? Has TAR and Analytics become mainstream? What should we make of Artificial Intelligence, and who is Watson exactly?

I also found other overarching themes during my week in New York: 

1. Enhanced emphasis on early case assessment strategies that others would coin as "ECA 2.0" or the "rebirth of ECA".
2. Streamlined graphical workflows and reporting to help dissect data more intuitively and harness immediate business value of information.
3. New partnership announcements, big business moving into eDiscovery, and new solutions designed to overlay and improve existing Gartner market leading technologies.
4. More emphasis on cybersecurity, privacy and cloud, and new sources of information to preserve.

Of course, you can't attend Legal Week without commenting on the swag. There was the usual collection of candy, pens and notepads, and the old faithful stress ball made a huge comeback this year. My favorite was a stress ball trophy – squeeze it to release stress, but remember you are always a champion (or at least that's how I interpreted it). There were also new ideas such as Ipro's cloud shaped cotton candy (right) and a "Popsocket" to help you get a better grip on your phone. This was somewhat counterintuitive to “mobile”, but of course I had to grab one to save my phone from being dropped at least five times a day!

As I returned to the office last week, I was full of new information, newfound relationships and an immediate desire to take everything I had seen and learned, and turn it into ways that we could drive differentiating business strategies, improve our service offerings and make the lives of our customers better. Technology innovation, big business and globalization continue to be, and are more than ever, part of the eDiscovery vernacular. eDiscovery is everywhere! Despite what we might feel in the day to day, the eDiscovery industry is shifting quickly and is well supported by a community of innovators. I'm very grateful to be in the position to hold myself as a member.

Until we meet again NYLT, I mean Legal Week…