Flash: Electronic Discovery Is Burdensome
Tony Mauro at the BLT reports that Justice Breyer attended a March 20 "summit" at Georgetown Law focused on the near-exponential growth of electronically-stored records and the burden it is placing on clients (and their counsel) during discovery. As one might suspect, Breyer was far out of his technological depth and carefully limited himself to stating the obvious:
When Patrick Oot, director of electronic discovery at Verizon, said reviewing documents in a single case cost his company $4 million, Breyer grew concerned. That kind of cost, he said, is “going to drive out of the legal system a lot of people who belong there.”
The BLT also reports on panelists' suggestions for possibly reducing the burdens associated with electronic discovery. Apparently, the suggestions were along the lines of hoping for "more cooperation between opposing attorneys" and seeking "honest brokers, judicial or otherwise, to better identify what documents need to be searched." Yes. And good luck with that.
