David Snow, legal technology editor for law.com/tech, assembled a panel to discuss “Experts’ EDD Trend Watch and Product Picks.” The recorded conversation was excellent. (Easy registration required; sound takes about 30 seconds to start once controls display.)
The action in e-discovery is unprecedented. The last big change in discovery occurred some 15 years ago when the market moved from paper files and coded databases to scanning, OCR, and full-text. That transition raised difficult issues but relatively few lawyers or firms paid much attention. Today, the e-discovery story is different. With billion dollar plus judgments stemming from discovery problems, pending rule changes, and the enormous cost of processing and reviewing electronic evidence, lawyers and law firms are very much engaged.
The attention e-discovery commands is reflected in the outstanding panel law.com assembled to discuss a range of timely topics. Participants were:
-Jerone English, Litigation partner and co-chair of e-discovery committee, Pillsbury Winthop Shaw Pittman
-Ron Friedmann, President, Prism Legal Consulting, Inc.
-Jonathon Hughes, Partner, director of litigation department, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin
-Jim McKenna, Litigation Technology Manager, Morrison Foerster
-Lori Ann Wagner, Partner, Redgrave Daley Ragan & Wagner
Highlights of our discussion include:
– Challenges of comparing vendor costs
– Proposed Federal Rule changes and Sedonna Principles and implications
– The value of early EDD planning
– The degree to which law firms should rely on vendors versus do EDD work in-house
– How firms are staffing to manage e-discovery
– Selecting vendors and products
– The role of concept searching in document review
Yesterday, I summarized several ALM articles on EDD published in connection with the webinar.