Carmel Valley eDiscovery Retreat – Buckles Wrap-Up

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Greg Buckles. Published: 2011-08-12 15:28:11  Wrapping up my coverage of the first Carmel Valley eDiscovery Retreat, it seems strange that almost a month has flown by. Then again, we have been in serious growth mode at eDJ now that Jason Velasco has come on board. As I am working on my ILTA 2011 sessions on Predictive Coding/Remote Collection and the Cloud for Firms, it becomes clear that my sessions in Carmel have changed my expectations of audience participation and content quality for conferences. I put a lot of thought into how to prevent the two classic conference panel killers, ‘Death by Powerpoint’ and the ‘Charlie Brown Speaker’. The informal setting and intimate audience gave me the freedom to take risks that might not have flown as well in the packed, stifling rooms of LTNY.

Day Two started off with “Defining the eDiscovery Platform”. I turned over moderating duties to Kevin Stehr (LexisNexis), allowing me to weigh in on the lively debate over what actually comprised an actual ‘Platform’ for corporations, firms and providers. My main take-aways included the critical need for skilled personnel/process to support any platform, the evolution of inside/outside firewall SaaS offerings, the need for high performance hardware to manage the volume escalation and more.“Handling Emerging ESI Sources” was the final session of the day and surprisingly well attended considering the gorgeous day outside and the lure of early happy hour. It is always a joy to have Mary Pat Poteet (River Glass Inc.) on my panels. She, Tauri Schow (Shook, Hardy & Bacon) and Richard Cheng (Kivu Consulting) brought a wealth of real world war stories to the audience. We diverted into the details of mobile devices with Michael Glick (Encore) from the audience and pretty much ignored the deck. Questions mainly focused on preservation/collection methods and best practices to minimize the impact of all these new sources of ESI. The panel strongly emphasized the importance of clear corporate usage and retention policies as well as early disclosures/agreements with requesting parties.Emerging ESI Sources Final SlidesThat’s a wrap for this year. I am excited to see what Chris LaCour comes up with for next year’s retreat, which I am calling ‘LTNY Inverted 2.0’.