Highlights from the Georgetown eDiscovery Conference

The Georgetown eDiscovery Conference opened and closed the first day of the event with the two top most popular panels of the conference. Day one of the 8^th annual Georgetown Law Advanced eDiscovery Institute event began with an opportunity to learn from those who have the ultimate decision in whether an eDiscovery practice is legally defensible; a panel of six federal judges. These judges from across the country gathered to discuss some of the most interesting cases and trends in the industry in a panel entitled “eDiscovery Case Law Update”.

These judges were: Hon. John M. Facciola from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Hon. James C. Francis from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Hon. Andrew J. Peck also from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Hon. Lee H. Rosenthal from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Hon. Shira A Scheinden from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and Hon. David Waxse from the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The Honorable Paul W. Grimm was in the Agenda as part of the panel, but was not able to participate due to a conflict.

This session was the longest slot of the two-day event due to audience feedback and significant interest. Audience members stated the panel was unique due to the large number of judges assembled together in one program, and therefore it deserved a two-hour slot.

The last panel of the day, another session very well received by the audience, was entitled “Behind the Black Box: Decoding Advanced Analytic Technology”.  As moderator Gilbert O. Greenman stated, “…to explain the black box to you, I have none other than people who can claim to have invented the black box, tested the black box, and analyzed the black box”. Panelists included Founder and CTO of Digital Reef, Steve Akers; Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Susan Dumais; Professor at the University of Maryland, Dr. Douglas W. Oard; and CTO of Recommind, Dr. Jan Puzicha.  

Concept searching, near-duplicate clustering, document clustering, predictive coding, and related analytic technologies facilitate eDiscovery, but many there are many concerns attorneys have about the ability to explain these technologies. This panel of experts peeled back the cover of these tools, and explained in simple terms how they work in practice. The panel of experts looked at both where on the EDRM the black box technology fits in, and what exactly the black box is. While introducing the panel moderator Gilbert Greenman joked, “…the slides may be the only thing this panel agrees upon.”

Digital Reef is producing a four-part video series from this panel, that will be made available here on our Blog next week. Check back to view it!