Catalyst E-Discovery Search Blog
John Tredennick, CEO 
A nationally known trial lawyer and longtime litigation partner at Holland & Hart, John founded Catalyst in 2000 and is responsible for its overall direction, voice and vision.
Well before founding Catalyst, John was a pioneer in the field of legal technology. He was editor-in-chief of the multi-author, two-book series, Winning With Computers: Trial Practice in the Twenty-First Century (ABA Press 1990, 1991). Both were ABA best sellers focusing on using computers in litigation technology. At the same time, he wrote, How to Prepare for Take and Use a Deposition at Trial (James Publishing 1990), which he and his co-author continued to supplement for several years. He also wrote, Lawyer's Guide to Spreadsheets (Glasser Publishing 2000), and, Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Excel 2007 (ABA Press 2009).
John is the former chair of the ABA's Law Practice Management Section. For many years, he was editor-in-chief of the ABA's Law Practice Management magazine, a monthly publication focusing on legal technology and law office management. More recently, he founded and edited Law Practice Today, a monthly ABA webzine that focuses on legal technology and management. Over two decades, John has written scores of articles on legal technology and spoken on legal technology to audiences on four of the five continents.
Robert Ambrogi, Director of Communications
A lawyer and veteran legal journalist, Bob advises Catalyst on strategic communications and marketing matters. He is also a practicing lawyer in Massachusetts and is the former editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal, Lawyers USA and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. A fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, he also writes the blog LawSites.
Ron Tienzo, Senior Consultant
Ron Tienzo is that rare lawyer who is also fluent in technology and adept at search. As director of Search and Analytics Consulting at Catalyst, Ron draws on his unique background as both a lawyer and a software engineer. With a degree from Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver and extensive training in a range of legal software applications and programming languages, Ron provides litigation consulting to corporate law departments and law firms.
Prior to joining Catalyst, Ron was the software specialist at a full-service Los Angeles law firm. There, he was the firm's lead person on the use of technology in complex litigation matters. In addition, he was the firm's principal advisor on all software matters and was responsible for software training for all professionals and staff.
Jim Eidelman, Senior Consultant 
A veteran trial lawyer and pioneer in legal technology, Jim Eidelman is the senior consultant on Catalyst's Search and Analytics Consulting team. With more than three decades of hands-on experience providing technology advice to law firms and legal departments, he helps clients develop strategies to overcome their toughest e-discovery challenges.
After starting out as a securities litigator, Jim launched a consulting firm in 1980 dedicated to helping lawyers enhance their practices through technology. He became recognized nationwide as a speaker and writer on legal technology. The book he co-edited with John Tredennick, Winning with Computers, became an ABA bestseller. Software he developed for legal-document assembly was praised for having the ability to "think like a lawyer."
Additional Contributors
Bruce Kiefer, Vice President of Hosting Applications Division and Director of Research and Development
Bruce Kiefer directs Catalyst's Research and Development Group, helping to develop the next generation of our technology, and is vice president of our Hosting Applications Division. He has worked in IT for many years, helping to build, deploy, manage, scale and repair networks and systems that solve problems.
Before joining Catalyst, he was vice president of operations for Viawest Internet Services. During Bruce's tenure at Viawest, he built many of the internal tools, grew the network to four states, and took over product management for Viawest's managed hosting offering.
In addition to his IT expertise, Bruce has a master's degree in business administration. He joined Catalyst in 2005, where he combines his knowledge of technology and business to help drive product development and build out operations.
Read Bruce's Posts >>
Jeremy Pickens, Senior Applied Research Scientist.
Jeremy Pickens, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading search scientists and a pioneer in the field of collaborative exploratory search, a form of search in which a group of people who share a common information need actively collaborate to achieve it. Dr. Pickens has six patents pending in the field of search and information retrieval, including two for collaborative exploratory search systems.At Catalyst, Dr. Pickens researches and develops methods of using collaborative search to achieve more intelligent and precise results in e-discovery search and review. He also studies other ways to enhance search and review within the Catalyst system.
Dr. Pickens earned his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval. He conducted his post-doctoral work at King's College, London, on a joint grant with Goldsmiths University of London. As part of the OMRAS project (Online Music Recognition and Searching), he helped organize the first Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) conference in Plymouth, Mass. Before joining Catalyst, Dr. Pickens spent five years as a research scientist at FX Palo Alto Lab, where his major research themes included video search and collaborative exploratory search.
Dr. Pickens is co-author of the forthcoming book, A Taxonomy of Collaborative Information Seeking, to be published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. He was an editor of the spring 2010 special issue on collaborative information seeking of the journal Information Processing and Management. He is a frequent author and speaker on the topic.
Read Jeremy's Posts >>
Nirupama Bhatt, Search and Analytics Consultant
One of Rupa's key strengths is in analyzing and documenting our clients' e-discovery practices and then recommending techniques they can adopt to reduce costs and enhance effectiveness. In her work with clients, she helps develop and refine multi-lingual search strategies, coordinates attorney review teams for document-review projects, and recommends best practices for achieving defensible, repeatable results. She is multilingual and is currently studying Japanese.
Rupa is a member of the Denver chapter of Women in E-Discovery and is a Catalyst-certified search specialist and trainer.
Christopher Toomey, Director of Alliances and Channel Development 
Chris Toomey is a lawyer and MBA who has been immersed in e-discovery since its early beginnings. At Catalyst, he is both director of alliances and director of managed review. In this latter role, he assembles teams of experienced, licensed attorneys to manage or support review efforts for Catalyst clients, drawing on sources from around the globe to deliver the most appropriate and cost-effective resources for each case.
With more than a decade of experience in e-discovery, Chris is highly skilled at helping clients create repeatable, defensible strategies. In multiple cases, his management of discovery efforts has helped uncover critical documents early in the process, helping avoid the need for a trial. Chris is able to combine technology, legal expertise and ingenuity to help clients redirect the review process for greater efficiency and more targeted results.
Prior to joining Catalyst, Chris consulted on e-discovery strategy and attorney review services for corporations and law enforcement agencies. He managed consulting and review teams of more than 70 attorneys across multiple types of cases. Earlier, he established and managed a law firm with a base of more than 450 commercial and individual clients.
Patty Daly, Director of Marketing & Training 
Patty Daly has more than two decades of experience in litigation, first as a paralegal and then as an expert in litigation technology. Prior to joining Catalyst, she worked on large-scale litigation projects in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Albuquerque and Chicago. She managed several high-profile cases at the former Silicon Valley firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison and at Jenner & Block.
In 2000, Patty moved from paralegal work into computer science, earning her master's degree in computer science from DePaul University in Chicago. This gave her the ability to understand and tackle both the legal and technical challenges her clients face.
Today, Patty directs the Catalyst training program, working closely with clients and partners. She also coordinates Catalyst's marketing efforts worldwide.