How-to: Legal Tech Trends by Dennis Kennedy

Dennis Kennedy, an information technology lawyer and legal technologist, has written his predictions for legal technology during this potential economic recession. From LLRX.com, his Eight Legal Technology Trends for 2008 – Good Times, Bad Times or Hard Times in Legal Tech? mentions the always sensible though dreaded word "audit" more than once. Luckily, he also mentions more intriguing ideas, such as exploring audio and video and collaborative software.

1. Making Better Use of What You Already Own.
2. Lawyers Win Round 1 in the E-discovery Battle... by a Wide Margin.
3. Security Begins to Matter... Really.
4. The Death Throes for Email?
5. Going Mobile.
6. Opening Audio and Video Channels.
7. Dancing with a Recession.
8. Smart Ways to Work Together – Collaboration Tools.

Mastering e-Discovery: Advising Clients and Negotiating with Opponents

This program to be presented by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy during April in Chicago and July in New York grabbed my attention because recently I've been reading the entries at the Law.com Legal Technology column. The authors and topics are varied enough to provide good coverage on the rapidly changing area of technology - including e-discovery. My perusal revealed subjects as diverse as a discussion of the attributes of various forms of documents requested during e-discovery to Why You Must Have A Security Breach Response Plan to Rick Georges' light-hearted discussion of the tech items he "loves" this Valentine season.
You may find this is another useful tool in your e-discovery/technology arsenal.

E-discovery continued

Legal researchers have an excellent resource available from Sabrina Pacifici with her online journal, LLRX.com and her daily web log, beSpacific. A recent post to LLRX.com was about ways for attorneys to keep abreast of developments in e-discovery called Keeping Current with E-discovery Law. The author recommends attorneys research the law of their jurisdiction (the Wyoming Judicial Branch has a link on their homepage to access Court rules), he suggests they subscribe to a newsletter (check out the Lexis newsletters available) and consider attending a CLE program on the subject.

More...E-Discovery is here to stay

I promised to keep you up to date on E-discovery, so here's a little something for your toolbox:

The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) Conference of Chief Justices prepared and made available online their Guidelines for State Trial Courts Regarding Discovery of Electronically-Stored Information . Quoting from the overview: "These Guidelines are intended to help reduce this uncertainty in state court litigation by assisting trial court judges faced by a dispute over e-discovery in identifying the issues and determining the decision-making factors to be applied."

Although these were prepared with trial court judges in mind, they could be used as a guide by opposing counsel in cases where e-discovery was expected to be a significant factor.

E-discovery is here to stay

“The awful truth about E-Discovery is that it's here to stay, yet most practitioners aren't ready for it.” Carolyn Southerland, Baker Botts LLP

Amendments to the Federal Rules of Procedure regarding electronic documents are due to take effect on Dec. 1st. Below are the links I found as I searched for enlightenment:

• Are you wondering why lawyers aren’t doing more electronic discovery? Perhaps this discussion by Dennis Kennedy, Evan Schaeffer and Tom Mighell will answer some of your questions.
• Want to know what to suggest to your clients who may need to change their business practices to comply with the newly enacted rules? See this list of five ways to help, written by C. Thomas Kruse and Matthew W. Caligur.
• A good source for legal issues, news and best practices is Electronic Discovery Law from the Document Analysis Technology Group at Preston Gates & Ellis .
• Applied Discovery from Lexis offers two complimentary subscription services on the topic of e-discovery. One provides case summaries and the other is a quarterly newsletter.

Wyoming may not be ready to adopt the e-discovery rules but these links will help keep you informed about the progress across the nation.