Last week I had the honor to guest-post at Peter Vogel‘s impressive Internet, Information Technology, & e-Discovery Blog. As some readers may know, Mr. Vogel is a frequent guest-blogger here at Disputing. Check out my guest blog! E-Discovery and the Enron E-mail Dataset Research By Victoria VanBuren, October 21, 2009. The U.S. Supreme Court granting of certiorari to former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling dominated the news headlines last week. Interestingly, the Federal Energy Commission (FERC), during its investigation into Enron’s involvement in the energy crisis of 2000-01, made available to the public a large database, called the “Enron Corpus.” This dataset consists of about half a million e-mail communications from former Enron senior executives and energy traders. Enron E-mail Dataset Research Because of its size and public status, the Enron Corpus is a rare and valuable tool for experimenting on text classification methods. After FERC posted it to the web, this dataset has been the subject of research by computer science departments of several universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. The summer of 2009, the team at TREC Legal Track, an organization co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, started conducting research on the Enron Corpus with the purpose of improving large-scale search techniques. Our Research – Bayesian Text Classifier The spring of 2009, computer science students at Texas State University David Villarreal, Thomas McMillen, Andrew Minnick, and I, under the supervision of computer forensic expert Wilbon Davis utilized the Enron Corpus to train a Bayes-based algorithm to classify the Enron e-mails into relevant and irrelevant to a given legal issue. This type of algorithm is commonly used by e-mail spam filters. The Results The team hoped that this mathematical approach would achieve better accuracy levels than the ~ 20% found using Boolean keyword searching, a method employed by many lawyers. Surprisingly, the Bayesian filter found e-mails to be known relevant at averages ranging between 43% and 66%. And as expected, the irrelevant accuracy results were even higher, averages ranging between 44% and 77%. Texas State University published the Technical Report last week and it can be downloaded for free here. Technorati Tags: law, e-discovery
Continue reading...The ADR Prof Blog had recently an interesting series of posts about ADR and Bankruptcy. The posts relate to a conference hosted by the Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution at St. John’s University School of Law titled “ADR Meets Bankruptcy: Cross-Purposes or Cross-Pollination.” Good stuff…Check them out: ADR Meets Bankruptcy -Part 1 (Oct. 9, 2009) ADR Meets Bankruptcy, Part 2 – Designing Dispute Systems (Oct. 13, 2009) ADR Meets Bankruptcy, Part 3 – Enforcing Arbitration Agreements (Oct. 14, 2009) ADR Meets Bankruptcy – Final Thoughts (Oct. 19, 2009) Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law, mediation
Continue reading...by Holly Hayes The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will hold a subcommittee meeting open to the public on October 26, 2009, to provide advice regarding grant funding for two demonstration projects: Medical Liability Reform and Patient Safety Demonstration Projects (R18) and Medical Liability Reform and Patient Safety Planning Grants (R21). These demonstration projects were announced on September 9, 2009, as part of The Obama Plan. Patient Safety and Medical Liability Reform National Advisory Council (NAC) Subcommittee Meeting Register Now What: Patient Safety and Medical Liability Reform National Advisory Council (NAC) Subcommittee Meeting Date: October 26, 2009, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Where: Holiday Inn at Capitol Hill, 550 C Street, S.W., Washington DC, 20024 For more details, go to: https://www.dbconsultinggroup.net/NACsubcommittee/. Important notice: On Oct. 17, 2009, AHRQ published an early alert summarizing two Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs): Medical Liability Reform and Patient Safety Demonstration Projects (R18) and Medical Liability Reform and Patient Safety Planning Grants (R21). Go to Funding Announcements for more information. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching a new demonstration initiative to: Test models that improve patient safety and reduce preventable injuries. Foster better communication between doctors and patients. Ensure patients are compensated in a fair and timely manner; and reduce liability premiums. As part of the initiative, the Chair of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) National Advisory Council (NAC) will convene a new subcommittee with diverse representation from expert and stakeholder groups to provide advice for the program. The meeting will be open to the public with an opportunity for public comment during the meeting and through Web-based submissions. The subcommittee will take the public comments into consideration when providing advice to AHRQ on the initiative. Registration Select to register for this meeting. Current as of October 2009 Technorati Tags: Tort Reform, Healthcare President Obama, arbitration, ADR, law, mediation Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at: holly@karlbayer.com.
Continue reading...by Holly Hayes The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued an analysis of the effects of tort reform proposals on health care spending. The CBO estimates that implementing a nationwide package of tort reform proposals would result in reductions of health care spending of about 0.5 percent or about $11 billion in 2009. This figure represents a reduction of 0.2 percent from lower medical liability premiums and a 0.3 percent reduction from less utilization of health care services. CBO’s Analysis of the Effects of Proposals to Limit Costs Related to Medical Malpractice (“Tort Reform”) Today (October 9, 2009) CBO released a letter updating its analysis of the effects of proposals to limit costs related to medical malpractice (“tort reform”). Typical legislative proposals for tort reform have included caps on awards for noneconomic and punitive damages, rules allowing the introduction at trials of evidence about insurance payments and related sources of income, statutes of limitations on suits, and replacement of joint-and-several liability with a fair-share rule. Tort reform could affect costs for health care both directly and indirectly: directly, by lowering premiums for medical liability insurance; and indirectly, by reducing the use of diagnostic tests and other health care services when providers recommend those services principally to reduce their potential exposure to lawsuits. Because of mixed evidence about whether tort reform affects the utilization of health care services, past analyses by CBO have focused on the impact of tort reform on premiums for malpractice insurance. However, more recent research has provided additional evidence to suggest that lowering the cost of medical malpractice tends to reduce the use of health care services. CBO now estimates that implementing a typical package of tort reform proposals nationwide would reduce total U.S. health care spending by about 0.5 percent (about $11 billion in 2009). That figure is the sum of a direct reduction in spending of 0.2 percent from lower medical liability premiums and an additional indirect reduction of 0.3 percent from slightly less utilization of health care services. (Those estimates take into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings has already been realized.) Enacting a typical set of proposals would reduce federal budget deficits by roughly $54 billion over the next 10 years, according to estimates by CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee of Taxation. That figure includes savings of roughly $41 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, as well as an increase in tax revenues of roughly $13 billion from a reduction in private health care costs that would lead to higher taxable wages. Technorati Tags: Tort Reform, Healthcare President Obama, arbitration, ADR, law, mediation Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at: holly@karlbayer.com.
Continue reading...Disputing is published by Karl Bayer, a dispute resolution expert based in Austin, Texas. Articles published on Disputing aim to provide original insight and commentary around issues related to arbitration, mediation and the alternative dispute resolution industry.
To learn more about Karl and his team, or to schedule a mediation or arbitration with Karl’s live scheduling calendar, visit www.karlbayer.com.
Disputing is published by Karl Bayer, a dispute resolution expert based in Austin, Texas. Articles published on Disputing aim to provide original insight and commentary around issues related to arbitration, mediation and the alternative dispute resolution industry.
To learn more about Karl and his team, or to schedule a mediation or arbitration with Karl’s live scheduling calendar, visit www.karlbayer.com.