Is 'E-Discovery Day' Really A Thing?

A celebration across the country of the hard-working people who frequently toil behind the scenes to help make the legal process work.

For most people who do not work in the legal business, the words “information governance” or “e-discovery” have little or no meaning. If you’ve ever tried to explain these phrases to non-legal family or friends, you know exactly what I mean.

But the good folks at Exterro, Inc., makers of the e-discovery and project management platform, together with a great group of hosting and supporting organizations, are intent on changing this unfamiliarity.

Enter E-Discovery Day.

E-Discovery Day has emerged as a day-long, industry-wide celebration of the critical role that e-discovery professionals and the e-discovery process play in the legal industry. This year’s celebration takes place on Tuesday, December 4th, and will feature at least a dozen separate webcasts from well-known e-discovery experts and in-person educational and networking events across the U.S. in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles. There will be CLE credit opportunities for lawyers, white papers from experts, and live webinars and conversations on social media with top e-discovery practitioners and pundits.

Last year, more than 2,000 people took part in the festivities and the hashtag #eDiscoveryDay reached over 683,000 people on Twitter. This year, the goal is to exceed these numbers.

Four years ago, the idea of an E-Discovery Day struck me as sort of odd. I mean, who outside of the legal business is even remotely concerned about this? And it raises the question whether e-discovery is a topic worthy of having its own “day.” Typically, a “day” like this is reserved for major holidays, religious celebrations, or historical super heroes. Is any person or event in the e-discovery industry, or the legal industry in general, worthy of such attention? And dedicating an entire day to it? Is this even a thing?

It is definitely a thing. And why not? There are clearly champions in e-discovery and throughout the legal business who are worth celebrating. I frankly cannot think of an industry that has more evangelists and ambassadors (of course I’m biased in this regard), and as I think about it, the list of people is long and their roles varied. So much so, I don’t have room here to list them all or their thought-leading accomplishments. Suffice it to say that those in the know — from corporate legal operations to law firm partners and executives in service provider organizations — realize the incredible value and contributions of e-discovery professionals every day. E-Discovery Day is simply a day to celebrate all of their collective and individual accomplishments.

Sponsored

The supporting organizations for E-Discovery Day (full disclosure: my company is one of them) represent the media, educational institutions, professional trade associations, law firms, service providers, and local venues hosting events. Here’s the current list (and it’s still growing):

  • Above the Law
  • Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS)
  • Actiance
  • Baylor Executive LL.M. Litigation Management
  • Bloomberg Law
  • Brighttalk
  • Cleveland Marshall Law School
  • Complex Discovery
  • eDPM Advisory Services
  • EDRM at Duke Law School
  • Epiq
  • Exterro
  • FTI Consulting
  • GC News
  • Georgetown Law CLE
  • Haystack
  • ILTA
  • Legal IT Professionals
  • Morae Global
  • NightOwl Discovery
  • Pinhawk
  • Reed Smith
  • RVM
  • Stout
  • Today’s General Counsel
  • University of Florida Levin College of Law
  • Yerra Solutions

Thanks to the good people at Exterro for coordinating the events on E-Discovery Day and thanks to all the sponsors, hosts, speakers, and participants for your contributions, not just to E-Discovery Day but to the industry and practice as a whole.

Details on current E-Discovery Day events, including topics, speakers, and registration information can be found on e-discoveryday.com. Organizations interested in hosting their own webcasts and/or events should visit the website for instructions on getting their event listed for free. For individuals looking to stay up to date on all the activities for E-Discovery Day, they can sign up for the E-Discovery Day newsletter, and organizations looking to support E-Discovery Day can reach out to Mike Hamilton, Director of E-Discovery Programs at michael.hamilton@exterro.com.


Sponsored

Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on twitter @edpmadvisory.