The 2022 Culler Awards have come and gone, and what a ceremony it was! Logikcull CEO Andy Wilson wore a light-up tie. At least one Logikbot donned a top hat. And of course we got to hear inspiring stories from Logikcull users who were recognized in three categories: Innovation, Excellence, and Impact.
We’re always blown away by the stories we hear from our users, and every category was stacked with deserving nominees who are using eDiscovery to push their industries forward, save resources, and protect the rights of people across the country.
Read on to learn more about all our nominees and winners! You can also watch the full recording of the awards ceremony here:
Innovation
Nominees in this category are recognized for setting new standards for discovery workflows and approaches. We love seeing the way our users utilize Logikcull’s technology in ways that are outside of the box!
Nominees
Carolyn Bragiel, Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health is a global company that handles medical products, pharma, sales, distribution, eco division, and more. They’re always growing, and employ a lot of smart, innovative people, including Carolyn! As part of their eDiscovery team, Carolyn has used Logikcull to increase the speed of document review in labor and employment matters and eliminate the need for outside vendors, saving an estimated $700,000 in 2021 alone.
Carolyn and her team have also used Logikcull in innovative ways by utilizing the platform for contract review and internal investigation data analysis. She shared a story about an attorney who was tasked with reviewing 200 contracts, which they were going to do one by one. Instead, Carolyn helped the attorney learn to use Logikcull, allowing them to get through the contract review in just 2 days!
Chad Main, Percipient
Percipient is a legal technology and services company that helps clients tackle legal operations, legal processes, compliance matters, and electronic document review. Chad founded Percipient in 2014, after a long career as a commercial litigator. Chad is a fan of Logikcull’s intuitiveness, ease of use, and redaction tool: He uses it on projects that need to be reviewed quickly and/or have heavy redaction requirements.
On top of that, they’ve been innovative in using Logikcull to extract privileged information from time sheets for wage and hour disputes, as well as for due diligence activities for mergers and acquisitions, and cybersecurity reviews and data breaches.
Deji Amusan, Syngenta
Syngenta is a global business and agricultural company with legal counsel in 90 countries, and Deji is the global eDiscovery specialist. Syngenta uses Logikcull for eDiscovery as well as data privacy and records management, but Deji’s focus is on innovating and expanding the use of Logikcull across other departments. They’re already using Logikcull for litigation, subpoenas, and internal investigations, but Deji is hoping to start using it for mergers and acquisitions, data privacy and DSARs requests, and to expand its use into some of the other areas he touches like HR and compliance.
Deji and his team are also building a repeatable Logikcull playbook that they can give to other teams so they can use the technology in their own innovative ways.
Jo Vong and Albert Lee, Plaid
Plaid is focused on democratizing — a word we love — financial services through technology. They help people connect their financial accounts to all the various financial tech apps, which helps people create amazing products that solve big problems. Plaid is also growing quickly, so Jo and Albert are handling ops at a company with over 1,200 employees including 50+ attorneys, so it’s a big job.
Prior to Logikcull they were doing everything manually, and decided they needed a one stop shop solution. After onboarding Logikcull, they found out the tool can save them literal days of work with the legal hold function alone. But Jo and Albert really started innovating when it came to using Logikcull to handle Slack data, completely changing the game for Plaid by using Logikcull to cull through the massive amounts of data Slack accumulates.
Melissa Hogan, DraftKings
If you watch football, you probably know about DraftKings, but for the uninitiated: They’re a digital sports entertainment and gaming company, creating a differentiated and dynamic consumer experience through an ecosystem of next-generation products and technologies. They have a bunch of different teams just within their legal team alone, and Melissa is the litigation paralegal but also a jack of all trades who fills in wherever she’s needed.
She’s said that bringing Logikcull in for use at DraftKings in and of itself was innovative for them. She was able to just jump right in and start using it, and trains other people at the company to use it to maximize time and cost savings!
🏆 WINNER: Kyle Kelly, Coinbase
Coinbase is the most trusted crypto currency exchange company in the world. They’re global and have a large legal team. As the Technical Program Manager, Kyle manages vendor relationships, handles internal requests, deals with IT support, legal, compliance, litigation… The list goes on.
Kyle’s Logikcull claim to fame is his story about a case where they had 8 million Slack messages to go through. Using Logikcull, they were able to reduce it down to a more manageable 32,000. But Kyle has also brought in the regulatory team to use Logikcull for A/V transcription. Instead of paying for external A/V transcription service, they’re using an available tool for a different use than originally intended. Innovation in action!
Congratulations, Kyle, and thanks for your innovative contributions to eDiscovery!
Excellence
Nominees in this category are recognized for establishing new standards of discovery and reimagining the legal practice.
Nominees
Jason Rooks, Parkway School District
Parkway is in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and is a district with 17,000 students and 4,000 staff members, and Jason is the only one who does eDiscovery for any requests or investigations regarding students or staff. IT departments in pretty much every school district are understaffed, so saving time is really important for them.
Before Logikcull, it would take Jason about 10 hours to deal with a subpoena. With Logikcull he’s reduced that to a fraction of the time. Jason took it upon himself to learn the platform and start implementing it. Now, he's trying to bring in other members of the district to use it as well to save even more time and resources for the district.
Karen Conklin, Fellows LaBriola LLP
Fellows LaBriola is a boutique firm that handles complex business litigation. As their senior paralegal, Karen supports the firm’s attorney’s in a big way. Karen told the Logikcull team that litigation is completely different to how it was when she started. They used to always have to send data out to vendors in order to process it just so they could even start reviewing it for production.
But now they can manage that entire process themselves, which is better for the clients, cuts costs, and is more secure. Everyone in their office can look in a project and review sets of documents all at once, which really promotes collaboration and increases the ways their team can work together and manage their projects.
Lauren Ruitberg, Pepperdine University
Many people have heard of Pepperdine, but what you might not know is how big they are: They have 5 schools, 8,000 students, and 1,500 employees. Every ounce of legal work comes through Lauren’s office.
Before they started using Logikcull, they were going through everything manually: Custodians were doing their own self-collections from emails, attachments, then they’d put all that data in a readable format and send it to outside counsel.
Since implementing Logikcull, Lauren has saved the university time and money, and has made their process more secure. Lauren also let us know that Logikcull has helped save her personal sanity, which we were happy to hear!
Matt Gainer, Twilio
Twilio is one of the world’s leading customer engagement platforms. They’ve got over 7,600 employees and serve more than 150 countries. And, of course, they mostly use cloud-based tools like Slack and Google Docs in their work. Until a couple of years ago, they were doing discovery in Google Vault, but they’d still have to send things to outside counsel because of lacking features. When they got a case that involved thousands of emails, Matt decided they needed an alternative.
Since implementing Logikcull, they estimate they can actually get started on a matter after data collection 75% faster than before. Matt has also saved Twilio an estimated $360,000 and 1,470 hours so far using Logikcull!
🏆 WINNER: Shawn Williams, City of Boston
Shawn is in charge of all the records requests for the City of Boston, an entity that gets more records requests than any state agency besides the state police. The City already had Logikcull in place when Shawn got there, but he jumped in feet first, learned the tech, and uses it all the time. He’s also training his staff and people he’s onboarding to use Logikcull. He can’t imagine how many hours a day he saves using it, because he’s getting constant records requests.
Shawn has effectively implemented and spread the word about Logikcull, saving time and money for the city and taxpayers. On top of all that, Shawn gives the Logikcull team valuable feedback to make the tool better, pushing us to improve. It was also Shawn’s second year in a row being nominated, so congratulations to him on the well-earned win!
Impact
Nominees in this category are recognized for using discovery approaches to make the world a better place. Every nominee had such incredible stories that we wound up with a tie between two winners!
Nominees
Katherine DeStefano, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC)
Though USOPC is a federally chartered organization, they are one of only a handful of Olympic committees that don’t receive federal funding. This means in addition to managing all their litigation, Katherine also fundraises so USOPC can send our athletes to the Olympics and Paralympics, and provide them with wraparound support for their physical and mental wellbeing.
There was no eDiscovery platform in place at USOPC when Katherine started, and she quickly realized they needed one. Now, she loves that Logikcull is a one-stop shop where they can review, tag, and do everything in one place. She also likes cutting the outside counsel spend and letting them just work in Logikcull collaboratively. Katherine’s onboarding of Logikcull has helped her team be more efficient so they can get back to the important work of supporting our Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Diane de Gramont, National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)
NCYL is a national nonprofit that represents youth across many areas such as juvenile justice, child welfare, and immigration, which is Diane’s department. They do policy work, impact litigation and class actions, and some individual representation for kids who are involved in the foster care or juvenile justice systems.
They’ve used Logikcull in some really powerful and impactful cases, including a case where they are trying to change the foster care system in California to prevent abuse and neglect that can lead to wrongful death. NCYL is making a huge impact on the foster and immigration systems, the school to prison pipeline, and access to crucial services for kids throughout the country.
Susan Kim, UnCommon Law
UnCommon Law supports people in navigating California’s parole system through trauma-informed legal representation, mental health counseling, legislative and policy advocacy, and in-prison programming led by individuals who have been through the process themselves. They do everything they can to not only get people paroled, but also to set them up for success after they’re paroled. California currently has about 35,000 people serving life sentences, two thirds of whom are Black or Brown. UnCommon law is working not only to help people navigate the complicated system, but to try and change the narrative around individuals who have been incarcerated, particularly those serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes.
Since UnCommon Law does uniquely stays with people through multiple hearings, Logikcull can help keep track of the case’s history and records to help Su and her team set their clients up for success within the parole system and beyond.
🏆 WINNER: Ernest Herrera, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
MALDEF is the country’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization. Through policy work and impact litigation, they work to protect and defend the rights of all Latinos living in the United States and the constitutional rights of all Americans.
Before Logikcull, MALDEF was doing discovery manually. As a nonprofit that routinely goes up against well-funded government agencies, it's easy to lose or be forced to settle just because of discovery costs. Ernest set out to find an affordable eDiscovery tool and landed on Logikcull. We love seeing our mission to democratize discovery in action! Ernest and his team have used Logikcull successfully in redistricting and census cases throughout the country, preventing discriminatory practices and standing up for civil rights.
Congratulations, Ernest, and thank you for your vital work!
🏆 WINNER: Sonni Waknin, UCLA Voting Rights Project (UCLA VRP)
UCLA VRP is the flagship project of UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, aimed at creating an accessible and equitable system of voting for all Americans. They fight vote dilution and vote denial, particularly at the local levels. Voting rights cases move very fast, so saving time is crucial. In addition to their legal work, UCLA VRP works with map-drawers and data scientists, teaching them methodology on how to investigate voting rights violations. And as a clinic at the UCLA law school, they’re training the next generation of attorneys to fight for the rights of voters in the U.S. Sonni actually started as one of the project’s first students before being offered a post-graduation position with them!
Sonni and her team use Logikcull to track expert witness testimony in voting rights cases, to stay quick on their feet in depositions, and to compare map drawings in redistricting cases. And if this all sounds a little familiar to our other Ernest’s work, that’s because it is: Sonni and Ernest are actually currently working together on a voting rights case, and using Logikcull to prep!
Congratulations, Sonni, and thank you for all you do to make such a positive impact!
Congratulations to all nominees and winners! We couldn't be more proud of our amazing users, and can't wait to highlight more of you next year!
