eDiscovery Daily Blog

• October 23, 2019

As we noted yesterday and Monday, the 2019 Relativity Fest conference is going on this week, CloudNine is once again here as a Sponsor and Exhibitor and I have been covering the show for eDiscovery Daily.  So, in this last day of the show, I’ll discuss a few highlights.

This year, Relativity Fest has been October 20 through October 23 in Chicago at The Hilton Chicago (a full three weeks later than last year). If you’re in the Chicago area, you can still attend on a one-day pass for today.  As a development partner in the Relativity ecosystem, CloudNine has once again been at the conference and is there again today to provide demonstrations of our product interconnections with Relativity.

While there are sessions today, they are all breakout sessions related to Relativity products, exams and workshops.  Relativity also will have its Innovation Awards ceremony today at 11:40am CT.  Since we focus on legal education sessions here at eDiscovery Daily, we will instead discuss a few show highlights, as well as a couple of sessions that I attended and the one that I moderated.

Welcome Reception

The Welcome Reception was conducted on Sunday night from 7-9pmin the Exhibit area.  While some people were still arriving to the conference Sunday evening and Monday morning, it was still very well attended (and crowded), as illustrated by this photo by Tom O’Connor.

Judicial Panel

One of the highlights every year of Relativity Fest is the (now) annual Judicial Panel, moderated (as always) by the ubiquitous David Horrigan of Relativity.  This year’s panel did not disappoint, including: Hon. William R. Matthewman – U.S. Magistrate Judge, (S.D. Fla.); Hon. Xavier Rodriguez – U.S. District Judge, (W.D. Tex.); Hon. Tanya R. Kennedy – Justice, New York State Supreme Court, New York County; Hon. Nora Barry Fisher – Senior U.S. District Judge, (W.D. Pa.).  Here’s a picture of that panel:

The cases covered by the panel were as follows:

• Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, 2019 IL 123186 – Ill: Supreme Court 2019 (covered by us here): Case regarding biometric fingerprints and privacy rights;
• Georgia v. Public Resource.Org, Inc., 906 F. 3d 1229 – Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit 2018: Case regarding whether Georgia can copyright the annotated Official Code of Georgia;
• Bellamy v. Wal-Mart Stores, Texas, LLC, Dist. Court, WD Texas 2019: Case related to inadvertent disclosure of ESI designated as privileged and proposed sanctions against the defendant (ruled on by Judge Rodriguez himself!); and
• Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, 913 F. 3d 898 – Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2019: Case involving the American Disabilities Act and compliance of apps and websites.

As usual, the judges had interesting takes on the cases and each had a unique perspective based on their jurisdictions and experience as judges, as well as life prior to becoming a judge.

e-Discovery Disasters and How to Avoid Them: Don’t Let This Happen to You

This was the session I moderated with panelists Tom O’Connor – Director, Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center; Kelly Twigger – Principal, ESI Attorneys; Salvatore Mancuso – Vice President of Client Solutions, BlueStar Case Solutions, Inc.  Here’s a picture of our panel:

While I’ll leave it to others to comment on the quality of the session, it was well attended and all the panelists did a great job discussing the disasters and how to avoid them.  We provided some resources for more information on the disasters we covered, as well as general best practices, so here are those:

• Preparing for Litigation Before it Happens: eDiscovery Best Practices, Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven, eDiscovery Daily, Tom O’Connor, August 2018.
• Lessons to Be Learned from the Wells Fargo eDiscovery Inadvertent Disclosure: eDiscovery Best Practices, eDiscovery Daily, Doug Austin, August 25, 2017.
• The DOJ is the Latest to Learn that Redactions Aren’t as Straightforward as You Think: eDiscovery Best Practices, eDiscovery Daily, Doug Austin, September 8, 2017.
• You Know It’s Bad When The Court Decision Has A Table Of Contents, Above the Law, Mike Quartararo, September 18, 2018.
• Jones Day Apologizes for Botched Filing That Revealed Grand Jury Info, The National Law Journal, Mike Scarcella, September 13, 2019.

State of the e-Discovery Union: The Roundtable on the Industry and the Profession

Interesting concept of having a “contest” of two teams (Team “Data”: Meribeth Banaschik – Partner / Forensics & Integrity Services, Ernst & Young GmbH, Ari Kaplan – Principal, Ari Kaplan Advisors and Ryan O’Leary – Senior Research Analyst, IDC; Team “Legal”: Kelly Twigger – Principal, ESI Attorneys, Zach Warren – Editor-in-Chief, Legaltech News and Mary Mack – the new CEO of EDRM) discussing eDiscovery issues moderated by David Horrigan and “judged” by Hon. James C. Francis IV – Distinguished Lecturer, City University of New York School of Law and Hon. Andrew J. Peck – Senior Counsel, DLA Piper.  From where I was sitting, I couldn’t get a clear picture of all the panelists, so you’ll have to imagine it.

While the “contest” was somewhat quickly abandoned, the large panel had terrific takes regarding topics including technical competence, GDPR, Rosenbach v. Six Flags and biometric data tracking, and what is the worst part of eDiscovery.  Despite the large panel, there was plenty of opportunities for each to weigh in on the topics and it was a terrific session that included audience participation on that final topic as well.

Over 2,100 attendees and a lot of old friends caught up with and several new friends made!  On to RFest 2020!  Whenever that will be.  :o)

So, what do you think?  Did you attend Relativity Fest this year?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

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.