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An E-Discovery 'Cooperation Proclamation'
This may come as a shock to some lawyers: Discovery is not intended to be a process that drives up costs and increases delays. But if cost, delay and contention came to characterize the process before the advent of electronic discovery, the digital age has only thrown fuel on the fire. Hoping to restore at least some degree of sanity to pretrial practice, The Sedona Conference will hold a "virtual press conference" tomorrow at noon Eastern time to launch a multi-year, multi-pronged effort to promote greater cooperation in e-discovery. During the conference, it will release its Cooperation Proclamation -- the document that outlines its call for action -- and publish a list of federal and state judges who have signed on to its principles.
The proclamation is the first salvo in a national drive by the The Sedona Conference "to promote open and
forthright information sharing, dialogue (internal and external), training, and the development of
practical tools to facilitate cooperative, collaborative, transparent discovery." It calls for "a paradigm shift for the discovery process" that will occur in three stages:
- Awareness. Promoting awareness of the need for and advantages of cooperation.
- Commitment. Articulating the changes needed to achieve cooperation.
- Tools. Creating tools to train and support legal professionals in techniques of cooperation, collaboration and transparency.
"This project is not utopian," the proclamation says, "rather, it is a tailored effort to effectuate the mandate of court rules calling for a 'just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action' and the fundamental ethical principles governing our profession." You can find more about The Cooperation Proclamation at a special section of The Sedona Conference's Web site.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 6, 2008 at 01:34 PM | Permalink
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