eDiscovery Daily Blog

Nebraska is the Twenty Eighth State to Adopt Duty of Technology Competence: eDiscovery Trends

One of my favorite legal blogs is the LawSites blog by Bob Ambrogi.  Bob is a prolific blogger who writes several posts a week, not only on his LawSites blog, but also on MediaLaw, and he co-authors Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch, and cohosts the weekly legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer.  And, he’s been doing it since 1993 (wow!).  Bob has also been keeping track of states that have adopted a duty of technology competence and he just reported that Nebraska has become the twenty eighth state to do so.

According to Bob, the Nebraska Supreme Courtadopted the amendmenton June 28, 2017.  It amends comment 6 to Nebraska Rule of Professional Conduct § 3-501.1 — the corollary to ABA Model Rule 1.1 on competence — to read as follows:

To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology, engage in continuing study and education and comply with all continuing legal education requirements to which the lawyer is subject.

The italicized phrase is the same as the language that the ABA recommended in 2012 when it approved a change to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent not only in the law and its practice, but also in technology.

While we’re up to 28 states, so far only two have apparently adopted a technology competence duty rule this year so far (Tennessee was the other state).  This after six states adopted such a rule last year and seven adopted one in 2015.  My rough graphic above has been updated to reflect the current states that have approved – still waiting for my home state of Texas to get with it.  Nonetheless, we are making progress, slowly but surely.  Thanks, Bob, for keeping track!

So, what do you think?  Are you aware of any other states that have adopted a duty of technology competence or working towards adopting one?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

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