Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Mikki Tomlinson. Published: 2011-12-07 08:24:18Format, images and links may no longer function correctly. Another successful Executive Counsel Institute – eDiscovery for the Corporate Market event (“The Exchange”) was held in
Los Angeles December 5 and 6. I have participated in this conference multiple times in the past and, once again, was not let down. The Los Angeles meeting, lead by Browning Marean of DLA Piper and Robert Brownstone of Fenwick & West, was the last of the five held across the U.S. this year.
The round-table format sets this event apart from other conferences. The Exchange, which is a strictly “PowerPoint free” zone, is rich in content and participation. While there is an agenda and moderators for each session, the meeting is steered by participant needs. The Exchange is kicked off with an audience poll of pain points and goals for conference take-aways, all of which are included in the 1-½ day discussion. The lead moderators keep a running tally of notes throughout, which is distributed to participants after the meeting and the conversation is maintained as anonymous.
Attendees and moderators included an equal mix of outside law firm, in-house legal department and service provider/vendor representatives. Hot topics discussed included:
-Information Governance:
- What is it?
- Who are the players?
- What tools and processes are available
and/or necessary to facilitate success?
-eDiscovery as a business process:
- Requirements and benefits
- Getting started and creating a roadmap
-Preservation and legal holds
- Limiting scope – At what point are we beyond reasonable?
- Techniques for engaging clients and opponents in communication
- Preservation in-place versus preservation by collection
- Risk analysis
-Tensions between in-house counsel, outside counsel and service providers
- Diagnosis and treatment
- Roles and responsibilities
- Ethical issues
-Project management
- The importance of skilled project managers
- Roles and responsibilities
-Documentation
- What and why
- Techniques and tools
-Cost containment
- Identifying waste
- Tools and techniques to reduce costs
-“Real” ECA and risk analysis
- Early case assessment versus early data assessment
- Methods and practical application
-The cloud
- Is the cloud an inevitable destination for corporate data?
- Challenges of discovery in the cloud
- Hosted e-discovery platforms in the cloud
-Social media
- Policy
- Corporate versus personal use
- Preservation and collection
In every session the dialogue was both lively and substantive as participants pondered and debated the impacts of relevant case law and events. There were several recurring themes over the course of The Exchange. Multiple sessions included dialogue on predictive coding, which is one of the hottest topics in e-discovery today. The importance of documenting decisions and processes was also at the forefront of much of the discussion, with an entire session devoted to the topic. And, finally, data security was on everyone’s mind.
Most importantly, the entire event was highly relevant and current for anyone dealing with eDiscovery issues. I look forward
to the 2012 Exchange events.