ACC Annual Meeting 2013: EU Data Privacy and the Godmother of E-Discovery

John Blumenschein

I’m on a plane flying back from this year’s ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, which, as usual, delivered four days’ worth of excellent sessions and food for thought. The hottest topic by far was data privacy, especially in light of the NSA revelations this week.

Globalization and Data Privacy

Almost all of the panel sessions that I attended [e.g., on social media, government investigations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)] touched on the topic of privacy in one way or another. The primary driving force behind this topic’s heat factor, however, is the increasingly global nature of business today.

Georgetown Law’s eDiscovery Training Academy – Supported by Guidance Software – Wins 2012 Award for Professional Excellence

Patrick Burke

Michael Arkfeld and Mark Sidoti at the 2012 Georgetown Law eDiscovery Training Academy.
Georgetown University Law Center’s “eDiscovery Training Academy” – supported for the past two years by Guidance Software – has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 Award of Professional Excellence by the Association for Continuing Legal Education. Kudos to Georgetown Law’s Assistant Dean Lawrence Center and his phenomenal staff for this achievement recognizing the uniqueness of the Academy.

I can’t say enough about this year’s Georgetown Law E-Discovery Training Academy, held this past June 3-8, 2012. My prior blog on this year’s event focused on the masterful technical training of Craig Ball, with an assist from Guidance Software’s David Neal. And it’s always tempting to write about the inspiring presentations by US Magistrate Judges John Facciola and Paul Grimm, or the great presentations by Maura Grossman of Wachtel Lipton and Tom O’Connor of the Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center. But I’d like to focus on two fantastic faculty who give a flavor of the caliber of the week-long training: Michael Arkfeld and Mark Sidoti.

Georgetown Law’s eDiscovery Training Academy Kicks Off Second Annual Program

Patrick Burke

Yesterday was Day One of the Georgetown Law School’s acclaimed eDiscovery Training Academy, and it’s off to a fantastic start. Over fifty attendees are beginning their week-long boot camp on e-discovery law and technology, and feeling very fortunate to be at perhaps the best e-discovery training program in the world.

Today was largely devoted to the basic technical challenges of e-discovery, led by the acclaimed technology lawyer Craig Ball. Ball guided the class through the challenges of search and collection, including fundamentals of retrieval of digital evidence, keywords, context search and predictive coding. Assisting him was Guidance Software’s veteran trainer David Neal, who took the class through some points to watch out for when planning a search and collection. This is Neal’s second year on the faculty.

Guidance Software is proud to be a supporter for the second year in a row of this unique program, the faculty of which includes US Magistrate Judges John Facciola and Paul Grimm, Michael Arkfeld and Mark Sidoti, among others. Guidance has donated its EnCase® software for use not only by the instructors but the attendees as well, who all come prepared to do e-discovery exercises using their own laptops. The Academy received rave reviews last year and, judging by Day One of Year Two, the raves will continue. If you are looking for a comprehensive training in e-discovery, this is the place to be.

2012 Legal Tech EDI Dinner - The Social Side of E-Discovery

Patrick Burke

Yes, Legal Tech New York 2012 is all about innovation, expertise, and, at times, competition. But one of the nicest aspects of the e-discovery industry is that it has maintained a culture that encourages a sense of camaraderie and, frankly, a sense of humor. Case in point – the E-Discovery Institute’s (http://www.ediscoveryinstitute.org/) annual dinner at Legal Tech, held this year at Lidia Bastianich’s famed Becco on Restaurant Row in NYC. The event was kicked off by an in-person greeting from Lidia Bastianich herself – who declared “Tonight, no e-discovery!” Of course neither delicious food nor wine could keep this voluble group from talking a bunch of shop.

The E-Discovery Institute – brainchild of Patrick Oot and Anne Kershaw – is a non-profit research and educational organization dedicated to identification of effective legal technologies and processes and teaching lawyers and judges about their use. No wonder so many judges were among the revelers: US Magistrate Judges Andrew Peck, David Waxse, Frank Maas, and Jay Francis. Look one way and you find yourself talking to some of the very best law firm practitioners including John Rosenthal of Winston Strawn, Amor Esteban of Shook Hardy, Anthony Diana of Mayer Brown, Maura Grossman of Wachtel Lipton and Jay Brudz of Williams Mullen as well as e-discovery gurus such as Ashish Prasad, George Rudoy and Chris Dale. Turn another way and you’re meeting many of the very best in-house e-discovery practitioners including Anthony Knappen of Chevron (co-author of an excellent white paper on Data Breach & Cybersecurity distributed at the dinner), Christian Zeunert of Swiss Re, Glenn O’Brien of Liberty Mutual, Farrah Pepper of GE, Andrew Drake of Nationwide, Dawson Horn of Tyco and Jennifer Hamilton of John Deere and two score others.

Congratulations to the E-Discovery Institute on bringing together such an esteemed collection of e-discovery thought leaders for an evening of camaraderie and good cheer.