e-Discovery: Of Old Dogs & New Tricks
Christy Burke at Law-com has an interesting article concerning electronic discovery, computer forensics and what being ahead of the curve can mean for law firms both large and small. Burke spoke with Tom O'Connor of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Legal Electronic Document Institute, regarding the risk of ignoring e-discovery:
"Lawyers cannot afford to ignore the importance of electronic discovery and computer forensics anymore," he warns. "Those who do are bordering on malpractice, especially for cases which involve any digital data component."
Although a small handful of attorneys have accepted the challenge and have chosen to educate themselves on the technology, Ball says the number of such e-discovery lawyers is tiny.
"We can hold our conventions in a phone booth, so we can make only the tiniest dent in solving the problem," he says.
He adds, however, that this is changing -- that he's seeing more lawyers embrace their responsibility to master e-discovery obligations, and to understand the forensics piece, too.
As I've alluded to previously, electronic document creation and retention presents considerable challenges to the contemporary litigator. Cases that, in the past, may have involved hundreds of paper documents now may involve thousands of electronic documents. And thousands of paper documents may easily become tens or hundreds of thousands of electronic documents. In short, the ease with which documents can now be created, shared and stored has rendered the discovery process correspondingly more difficult. That, however, is not an argument against the use of electronic documents but an argument in favor of retaining litigation counsel with the experience and resources to handle the electronic discovery process.
Burke concludes with some advice to practitioners:
Computer forensics is still a young science that's being shaped by the electronic-discovery rules as they continue to evolve and change. This expanding industry simultaneously presents huge opportunities and great responsibility. Lawyers who choose to face the importance of e-discovery and computer forensics sooner rather than later will have a distinct advantage over those who prefer to ignore them or to underestimate their impact.
As you might suspect, I agree without reservation. Read the whole article; it is worth the time.
