On the Mark

Larry Center and advisory board chairs Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, Kevin Brady, Robert Eisenberg and Jonathan Redgrave are making their proposed “E-discovery Training & Accreditation Academy” at GU Law Center a reality, having received a ”qualified green light” from Dean Aleinikoff. 

Following a letter to him signed by a long list of Advisory Board members, the Dean met with Larry to discuss the proposal and the way forward.

Larry Center said in an email today:

“The establishment of such a world-class training school and its administration, infrastructure, course content, instructional texts, faculty, etc. is unquestionably an ambitious and complex undertaking.

“Accordingly, the Dean has requested the presentation to him of a written plan touching upon all major aspects of the Academy. Within the next 60 days the Committee on the Academy, a sub-group of the Institute’s Advisory Board, together with our CLE team, anticipates the completion and presentation to Dean Aleinikoff of the requested plan.”

As an Advisory Board member and CLE instructor there, I can’t tell you how happy I am for this good news.

And the EDD and legal worlds should be happy about this, as well.

I’ve got about one hour to come up with a Thanksgiving blog entry, while our two-year-old “gets her nap on” before the big holiday meal. If you’re expecting e-discovery today, you should probably push away from the keyboard now. The blog entry will be about some things I’m thankful for and hopefully some of those same things or others with similar impact on your lives will come out.

In speaking with my sister Laura yesterday (she’s a real writer) we joked about the now-familiar horror of sitting down at the keyboard and hoping for divine intervention in delivering an idea or some magic words that will thrill and entertain the reader.

“I will write no column before its time” the T-shirt reads. It’s one of her favorites. I am thankful for her.

I’m thankful to be working for such a good company and to be on a team that not only makes a great product but is a company that provides a platform to write about e-discovery and encourages the occasional post which is not about e-discovery.

Thanks Ramon. Thanks David.

I’m thankful to have a such a wonderful wife and wonderful family.

I’ve known my brother almost as long as he’s known me and in the near 49 years I’ve been alive, we have never had so much as a cross word. Ever. I am thankful for you, Michael.

I am thankful for the blessing of a daughter (Reichenbach V.1), who is a true gem, and another child who is not here yet but definitely on the way! (Reichenbach V.2 release date mid-June).

I’m thankful to be in a profession so full of interesting work and blessed with so much exciting opportunity. We should all be thankful for that, I’d say.

The baby is up, the family is arriving and those fantastic food smells are making their way up to my little office. The hour has run and though it sounds corny, I’m thankful to have colleagues who actually take a couple of minutes out of their day to read this stuff.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Dan Regard, a Managing Director for LECG in Washington, DC. and head of their electronic discovery practice, breaks down the five keys of Custodial Collection: 

Awareness - of the litigation, allegation and duty to preserve 
Aptitude - ability of the custodian to comply 
Authority - resources with a level of authority (IT & Org) to do what needs to be done
Assistance - sufficient instruction for custodian to know whom to turn to for clarification and help
Accountability - most important. It speaks for itself, aka  “Skin in on the game.”

I have utilized LECG’s collection team on a high-profile matter not long ago and they were thorough, accurate and professional in a sensitive situation.  

There really is no natural segue into this next piece.  Even though tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I want to avoid the word turkey as I give you the next item.  

So it’s Holiday time again for Chadbourne’s Litigator Lawrence Savell and his Lawtunes parody efforts. While the cover proudly displays a gorgeous Rickenbacker (my near namesake guitar) I’m left laughing to the music coming from their website, lawtunes.com.  Funny lyrics and it is a parody, so I’ll make nice. Their new release is titled “Live at Blackacre”; find more information on their website. (Thanks to Monica for hipping me to this item.)

The reality of lawyers in rock, lawyers who’ve turned into rock stars  (Midnite Oil’s Peter Garrett perhaps the finest example) and then those who merely fancy themselves rock stars (aka posers) is certainly nothing new. 

I once worked with an attorney who thought so highly of himself as a rocker, he’d not shave for days around his occasional evening music gigs. I guess he thought he couldn’t pose. . . I mean play three-chord rock without stubble.

Then he’d come in the next morning still halfway hammered and significantly more insufferable than usual.

I digress.

Now, for a lawyer who actually does rock (and provide good counsel to rockers)  I give you one Michael Lee Jackson (no mask, no glove).

 Michael aka The Rock ‘n’ Roll Lawyer is another option if you feel compelled to listen to lawyers who must rock. Put it this way, he’s got chops as they say.

Here’s his myspace page for tunes and info: http://www.myspace.com/mljmlj

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

On the Mark

LONDON, Nov. 21 - Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain apologized today for a security breach that resulted in the loss of millions of Britons’ bank account details and other personal data and has raised the specter of financial fraud on a massive scale.

Security experts described it as the largest incident of its kind in Europe, though surpassed by several data leaks in the United States.

The data went astray when two computer discs from the tax authorities were lost in the mail last month. The discs contained information on 25 million people — or nearly half the British population — from families that receive a government financial benefit for children.

The information included details like names, addresses and national insurance numbers — the British equivalent of social security numbers — as well as similar information on almost every child under 16 in Britain. The discs were sent using a private parcel delivery firm, and were apparently protected by a password but were not encrypted.

 This article appeared in The New York Times and was written By ERIC PFANNER -  Published: November 22, 2007

 Read the full story here

While I’m really not quite sure why the White House objects to an order that restates its existing obligation to preserve e-mails, it seems it does.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that an order, if not obeyed, carries consequence. Legal consequence.

I am not alone in being troubled by an administration that can’t quite get it right with respect to e-mail retention — e-mails, coincidentally,  from a period of great scrutiny during the Alberto Gonzalez debacle.

In a follow-up to a story and commentary I posted last month, (see my post) I want to point out last week’s Washington Post story by Peter Baker.

(Here’s the Story)

By Peter Baker - Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge ordered the White House yesterday not to destroy any backup computer tapes of its e-mail, pending civil litigation seeking to learn more about what happened to a trove of messages missing from a 2 1/2 -year period earlier in the Bush presidency.

The Bush administration had opposed such an order, arguing that it is unnecessary because the White House administrative office already is preserving backup tapes in its possession. But U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. was not satisfied by that assurance and issued the formal order, which carries contempt penalties if violated.

Read the full story here.