One can certainly debate which are the most important e-discovery cases of the last year (as Ralph Losey does so eloquently on his blog, or as Kroll has done by listing its most important case list. However, there can be no debate that 2008 was an important year for e-discovery jurisprudence. The themes of the year can be summed up as "competence," "cooperation" and "concept searching". What will the new year bring? There are nearly as many prognostications about 2009 as there are bloggers. Mary Mack at Fios has listed her twenty predictions in her Sound Evidence blog. Sonya Sigler of Caphora shares her insights, as well. Other predictions abound throught the blogs.
My own prediction, modest though it may be, is that there will be increased emphasis on the initial meet and confer stage of the e-discovery process, with courts insisting that lawyers (who have the competence to know what they are doing) truly cooperate to reach agreement on the myriad issues that need to be discussed and agreed upon at that early stage. We might even see court intervention at this early stage, ordering the parties (who can't otherwise agree) to meet in the presence of a discovery master (or perhaps discovery mediator) to work their way through the issues.
Time will tell. It is an annual year-end ritual to see how the prognosticators fared during the year. Tune back in in 2010 to see what really happens during the year.
Update 1/9/09: Yet another review of the year just concluded is found at Law.Com setting forth yet another view on the top cases of the year. No surprise that Magistrates Grimm and Faciola seem to be at the top of everybody's lists.
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