Balancing In-House and Law Firm Resources to Optimize E-Discovery

There is often a disconnect between law departments and law firms on developing complementary, rather than competing or redundant, e-discovery capabilities. From streamlining budgeting and reporting to creating comprehensive and transparent ESI protocols, this program will offer a balanced view of how in-house teams can prove their capabilities to their outside counsel, and how their law firms can support their clients most effectively. Whether a law firm or a corporate legal department, success is the result of getting comfortable with ceding control, identifying the threshold on decision-making, regularly revisiting protocols, and addressing standard matters versus significant cases that require additional support.

In a program moderated by ACEDS global advisory board chair, Ari Kaplan, and advisory board members, Susan Jackson, Legal Counsel – Commercial, Trade & Information Governance, at Novelis Corporation, and Amy Sellars, Assistant General Counsel and Director, Discovery Center of Excellence at Cardinal Health, as well as Clinton Sanko, a shareholder and the E-Discovery and Document Review Officer at Baker Donelson, attendees will learn the:

• Optimal level of communication between clients, counsel, and their adversaries.
• Keys to understanding the client’s capabilities.
• Scoping elements that firms need to consider when creating discovery proposals.
• Importance of project management.
• Best practices for engaging the in-house e-discovery team in a collaborative discussion about how to supplement its expertise with the firm’s capabilities.
• Ways to achieve efficient management and collaboration of e-discovery.

Moderator:

Ari Kaplan is a CEDS certified attorney and legal industry analyst, is an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree, a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, and a finalist for the International Legal Technology Association’s Thought Leader of the Year award. He is the author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011) and The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development (West Academic, 2nd Ed. 2016). Kaplan serves as the principal researcher for a variety of widely distributed benchmarking reports, has been the keynote speaker for events worldwide, and is the founder of the Lawcountability® business development platform. He is also a two-time Ironman triathlon finisher.

Speakers:

Susan Jackson is Legal Counsel Commercial, Trade & Information Governance at Novelis Corporation. Jackson is a certified computer forensic examiner and has worked for the company for the past 18 years. Her focus is on corporate governance, international trade, commercial contracts, information governance and e-discovery. Among her responsibilities, she works on U.S. anti-dumping/counter-veiling duties cases, responding to government investigations. She is also responsible for both the global records retention and e-discovery programs. Jackson operates a forensic lab for all human resources and information systems cybersecurity investigations, e-discovery requests, compliance with electronic information internal policies, and international data privacy regulations. Jackson works with the FBI, Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland security on a variety of electronic crimes, cyber security incidents and insider threat programs. She is also an adjunct professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School teaching e-discovery and computer forensics, cyber security, and data privacy.

Amy Sellars is Associate General Counsel of Cardinal Health’s Discovery Center of Excellence and director of that organization. Previously, she led Walmart Legal’s Discovery Operations Group, she worked for the country’s largest midstream oil and gas company and was an associate at the law firm of Crowe & Dunlevy. Sellars focuses exclusively on electronic discovery across a large docket of litigation and investigations. She serves as Secretary for the ACEDS Ohio Chapter Board and is a Steering Committee member for The Sedona Conference’s Working Group 1 on Electronic Document Retention and Production. Sellars has taught electronic discovery and legal operations at the University of Tulsa College of Law, the University of Arkansas School of Law, and Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

Clinton Sanko, a shareholder and the Firm’s eDiscovery and document review officer, is a seasoned litigation trial lawyer who focuses his practice on bringing client value through efficient, effective and expeditious managing of the work associated with eDiscovery and document review. He has substantial experience in a variety of matters, including major antitrust investigations and class actions (mergers, wage fixing, no poaching agreements). While Clinton has been the lead lawyer on various high-stakes commercial litigation, he principally manages the critical juncture where electronically stored information intersects with legal need, whether that intersection occurs in litigation, investigations, information governance, litigation preparedness, or mergers and acquisitions. Clients turn to Clinton for advice on maintaining a proportionate approach to finding what is needed and complying with all legal obligations, while keeping costs measured and finding the case story in the documents.