A legal odyssey: attorneys navigating discovery technology
Richmond partner and Electronic Discovery & Data Management team co-chair Robert Angle, Atlanta of counsel and Electronic Discovery & Data Management co-chair Alison Grounds, and Atlanta associate Erin Graham had their article “ Hal and me: Accepting technology’s imperfections” printed August 22 in the National Law Journal.
The article takes a look at the ever-increasing amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) that is being used in today’s litigation processes and how one must accept that the process to sort, store, code and use this information is imperfect. The authors contend that attorneys must find “practical ways to handle the problems that come from these expanding volumes of data, coupled with smaller budgets and courts’ increasing expectations.”
“The best way to manage these imperfections is to admit they exist, take reasonable steps to reduce them and protect clients against them by seeking agreements that protect against the inevitable errors that will occur when managing huge volumes of ESI for production in litigation,” said Angle, Grounds and Graham. “Maybe Hal 9000 will save us all from ourselves, but chances are the issues associated with filtering down impossibly large amounts of data to digestible, relevant nuggets will require humility, cooperation and patience.”