Philip Favro

Privilege logging is one of the most despised elements of discovery practice. A few years ago, civil discovery expert Kevin Brady concisely summarized why courts, counsel, and clients universally detest privilege logging: Judges don’t want to hear about the disputes or do any in camera review. Partners do not want to oversee the work on the log and associates don’t want to be bothered with such mundane tasks. Clients don’t want to pay significant amounts of money for something that poses only risk and no reward.

This week, the High Court of England and Wales issued an order approving the use of predictive coding. As previously reported by Big Law Business, the order from Pyrrho Investments v. MWB Business Exchange was the first of its kind in the UK. The order has generated considerable excitement, including the usual marketing hyperbole from litigation support vendors and legal technology enthusiasts that predictive coding is now about to sweep the globe.

As I caught the Titans of Mavericks competition’s highlights from my current home along the Wasatch Front, it struck me how the challenges facing the surfers at Mavericks were analogous to those confronting organizations that are trying to catch the Information Governance (IG) wave. Like Mavericks, there are any number of treacherous difficulties – including growing data stockpiles, technological traps, and rogue employees – that can overwhelm organizations before they can ride the IG wave.

The recently enacted amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have brought a certain amount of hype to the eDiscovery world. While the amendments have been greatly anticipated for the potential impact they could have in eDiscovery, some have questioned whether the changes will have any noticeable effect on the current discovery process. Despite these doubts, courts appear to be embracing the revised rules with vigor. Indeed, as discussed in a recent article published by Bloomberg BNA publication Big Law Business, several decisions interpreting the amended rules have already been issued in the nearly two months since they became effective.