It seems a bit unfair to describe Dean Gonsowski as a “veteran”, as Law Technology News does in an article headed E-Discovery Veteran Leaves Symantec for Recommind. I qualified as a lawyer 15 years before Dean did, so if he is a “veteran”, I wonder what term would be applied to me.

Veteran or not, Dean has been in the eDiscovery market for longer than most. He was eDiscovery counsel at Clearwell when I first met him, and Symantec‘s acquisition of Clearwell brought him into the wider and deeper world of Information Governance. eDiscovery is a vital part of IG, but only a part.

Dean Gonsowski built a good team of legally-qualified writers on eDiscovery. With his own eloquent articles complemented by those of Philip Favro, Matthew Nelson and Allison Walton, Symantec has a team which produces original and generally objective comment on a wide range of eDiscovery issues which, whilst clearly having a marketing purpose, make a valuable contribution to serious discussion around the subject, engaging with others on Twitter as well as writing articles

Symantec – Clearwell is not the only player to have realised that informed and original comment is a valuable adjunct to the routine but necessary marketing materials of convention.  Recommind is, like Symantec, one of the few who appreciates that social media interaction is a necessary supplement to its articles, and that Twitter is wasted if you use it only to advertise that you have written an article.

The model practitioner of this was Howard Sklar, whose articles on compliance and regulatory matters caught my eye before I realised that he was at a provider. Howard has now left Recommind to join the Compliance Investigations team at JP Morgan Chase. As is clear from the LTN article, Dean Gonsowski’s focus is on information governance and in Recommind’s plans for that and for Big Data. I hope he will find time to keep writing about it.

Dean Gonsowski joins Recommind as Associate General Counsel and Head of Customer Engagement. The press release announcing the move is here.