What's Up Doc?
I came across a prognostication from Mary Mack, Corporate Technology Counsel at Fios. She offers 20 predictions re e-discovery for 2009. Some are funny and some are scary. I will be discussing several of them in future posts, but for now, they are well worth reading.
- White collar defendants will be sunk by criminal e-discovery evidence rules created by case law involving drug dealers and child pornographers.
- The financial crisis will increase the volume of e-discovery in bankruptcy courts and cause such a backlog with the magistrate judges that the use of special masters and mediators will double or triple.
- In the wake of the financial crisis, law firms, IT departments and corporate legal departments will create a surfeit of top e-discovery talent as layoff by machete takes hold.
- Credit-constrained vendors and service providers will not be able to scale on demand and will cut corners on redundancy and backup that will severely impact a client's case.
- Software as a Service will start gaining inroads due to lack of credit and a reluctance to make capital purchases.
- Laid-off financial services professionals will join review teams to troll through instant messaging.
- A major government official, board member, officer or partner will be held personally responsible for e-discovery spoliation or obstruction.
- Key cases will be used liberally: Lorraine will be used to challenge authenticity and admissibility; the Qualcomm CREDO will be issued; and Mancia, American Home Products and Qualcomm will be used to determine whether sanctions apply.
- Family law will bring e-discovery to the state level, keeping solo forensics practitioners fully engaged.
- A magistrate judge will get so frustrated he or she will write a sanctions opinion with the words "COOPERATION PROCLAMATION" in all caps.
- There will be many more law schools offering e-discovery courses for credit.
- e-Discovery providers will discover diversity and alternative billing.
- There will be a dramatic increase in international e-discovery (e-disclosure) requirements due to the financial crisis, arbitration, class actions and competition law.
- The number of practitioners sporting "Technology Counsel" titles will triple.
- The federal government will create an e-discovery response team in reaction to the recent White House archiving and SEC email issues.
- Web 2.0 will start to emerge as the next technical/legal challenge (dynamic, multi-company content).
- e-Discovery attorneys and providers will do more case-level pro bono work, supplementing educational and rule-making activities.
- SOX guidelines will be applied to the legal hold process.
- Insurance providers will get involved earlier and more visibly in the e-discovery process.
- Law firms will be sanctioned for not having their own e-discovery houses in order.
I'd certainly be interested in any predictions my readers have.
