Keynote Address: Judge Shira A. Scheindlin

So instead of having lunch with Justice Sheindlin, I went into Ballroom VI to listen to what she had to say about E-discovery with everyone else.

For the record, the Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin is a judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She rendered the opinions in the well-known Zubualke.

She is THE authority on E-discovery in the USA and was joined by John Jessen of Electronic Evidence Discovery Inc.

The presentation was an introduction to the amended federal rules of civil procedures. Basically, she reviewed the amendments regarding e-discovery and commented on their application.

Overview quotes:

As she stated: "we now care about e-discovery but sooner or later, we will have to discuss about e-evidence. We will have to deal with authentificationof of the e-docs, to assert the integrity of these documents, etc."

"Should documents be managed when they are created instead of dealing with them after the fact? No doubt!!" I would add that a company who decides not to invest in documents/records management, should not be allowed to plead that retrieving, preserving, etc. the e-docs creates an undue burden.

"Nothing is perfect and parties are not entitled to perfect discovery or perfect trials."

Trust me, it was worth it! The dinner is for another day...