My recent comments about teaching electronic discovery to lawyers seem to have touched a nerve. I’ve had a number of people get in touch with me about the questions I raised. In addition, my friend and e-discovery guru Sharon Nelson raised two other important questions about EDD in a comment, namely:
1) Will there be a shake-out between those law firms (especially among the big boys) that are well-prepared to deal with electronic evidence and those that are not?
2) Will there be an awakening by corporate clients that they need to assess their own litigation readiness with respect to e-evidence AND that of their outside counsel?
I had a great conversation today about the role of litigation support managers in all this (very, very important) and what I call the puzzling resistance of lawyers to electronic discovery.
It raised another question for you to consider, as I have been for a while, but, as yet, with no good answer. I’m surprised by the passivity of litigators, traditionally a group known for aggressiveness, when it comes to electronic discovery.
Here’s the question:
Does the passivity and reluctance we see in litigators an indication that protecting the quantity of billable hours, maintaining the status quo and staying in the comfort zone have become more important than winning cases?
I’ll raise the question for discussion, but, believe me, I’m not the only one who has raised this issue in the past year.
Lots of good questions out there on this topic. What are your favorites? Perhaps there would be some interest in doing a LexThink event that delves into these electronic discovery questions, especially one with a focus on the role litigation support managers and electronic discovery lawyers will play in the process. If that interests you, let me know – we’re working on putting together some future LexThink events.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
Learn more about electronic discovery at Dennis Kennedy’s Electronic Discovery Resources page.
Technorati tags: legal technology electronic discovery