IQPC Brussels: “Information Retention & E-Disclosure Management Europe” (held 30 September/1 October)

Last week we attended the IQPC conference “Information Retention & E-Disclosure Management Europe” which was held in Brussels September 30th and October 1st.   For a link to the program click here.  The program is one the most elite and information-packed conference on European information retention and e-disclosure management, with the experts being the “elite of the elite”. 

The event was chaired by Patrick Burke, Senior Director and Assistant General Counsel at Guidance Software.  For our “Focus” feature on Patrick click here. 

Among the subjects covered at the conference:

* The European divisions of multinational companies seem to be taking guidance from their U.S. headquarters in the area of e-disclosure; what are the practicalities and pitfalls associated with this approach

*  Data privacy, and the laws that govern data privacy and how these can conflict with e-disclosure rulings

*  New cases from a European perspective including cases from companies such as Shell, Bayer, Intel, Microsoft

*  Cross border litigation challenges and ensuring litigation readiness

*  Protecting yourself against investigation from the US or other external countries

The judges in attendance included representatives from the U.S. and across Europe and include Judge Peck from the U.S. Southern District, Master Whitaker, Senior Master of the Queen’s Bench Division, Royal Courts of Justice, and Frank Richter of the Supreme Court of Hesse, Ministry of Justice.

The panelists included our old friend Chris Dale of the e-Disclosure Information Project and Patrick Oot, Director of Electronic Discovery & Senior Counsel, Verizon.   For our “Focus” feature on Chris Dale click here.

We could not cover all of it but a few highlights from Day 1:

1.  The kick off was a judicial panel moderated by Patrick Burke.   As Chris Dale is fond of saying, Patrick is one of the relatively few in the US who “gets” the idea that, however sophisticated the US legal system may be in many respects, those who do business in a multinational context must take notice of jurisdictional differences.  For a great review of this panel we defer to Chris Dale himself who covered that in a post here.

2.   That was followed by a panel that consisted of Patrick Oot, Steve Watson of Intel Information Risk and Discovery, Denise Backhouse of Morgan Lewis and Chris Dale.  Denise presented an excellent paper titled Seeking a Balance in the Discovery Equation: Pre-Trial Disclosure/Discovery in UK and US Civil Litigation of European-Based Data.  For our “Focus” feature on Morgan Lewis and their eData team click here.

3.  Jason Robman of Recommind led a discussion on effective document collection and legal hold protocols.  In the afternoon, Patrick Oot spoke about Cutting the Cost of ESI and E-Disclosure in a Global Downturn.

4.  Debra Logan of Gartner discussed Sorting Through the Myths and Facts of Cross-Border E-Disclosure which focused at the heart of the current predicament facing most organisations today:  the ability to know what electronically stored information (ESI) is retained and the rapid growth of both regulatory supervision and litigation. In Europe, these questions are complicated by cross border issues, the most significant of which are the different approaches to compliance, disclosure and privacy in common law versus civil code jurisdictions. Where is the data, what is its value, and is there a preservation obligation, regulatory, contractual, or litigation-related attached?

5.  The day ended with a panel moderated by Chris Dale on Accelerated Electronic Document Review comprising Greg Wildisen of Epiq Systems, Vince Neicho and Senior Master Whitaker:  a software supplier, a law firm litigation support expert and a judge who between them covered every angle.

Day 2 was  just as packed.  Some highlights:

1.   The morning started with a presentation Alex Dunstan-Lee of KPMG in London which included a preview of a survey which KPMG have conducted worldwide in which corporations were asked about their own perception of their ability to handle e-discovery requests for litigation, regulation or internal purposes.   And it revealed the “usual suspects”:  there is a small number who “get it” and are on top of the issues … and an equally small number who ask “what problem?”  And then the rest of us in the middle.

2.  What followed was a presentation by Hartwig Laute, Director European Operations for Recommind, who did a briliant demonstration of their Axcelerate eDiscovery software.   For our “Focus” feature on Recommind click here.

3.   There were some overlapping programs so we had to make a choice on what to see.  We chose a presentation by Steve Watson of Intel Information Risk & Security who presented Addressing the Disconnect Between IT and Legal: How to Build a Trusted Partnership and everything he said rang true.    The lack of collaboration between enterprise IT and legal departments is hindering e-discovery efforts, resulting in massive regulatory compliance and e-discovery risks.  There is a general lack of coordination of e-discovery efforts between IT and legal departments much of it based on the roles that each department plays in setting corporate policies and making technology buying decisions.  In recent years, IT and legal departments have operated largely independently of one another; however, with the complexity and costs of e-discovery increasing exponentially, the responsibilities and needs of each department are quickly becoming inextricably linked.

Steve emphasized that in order to effectively meet information management, litigation, investigatory and regulatory challenges, legal and IT departments must foster open communication and collaboration with their confluent needs in order to properly identify, scope and implement projects and policies.

He focused his presentation on the idea of building trust.  Among the many suggestions he offered, his primary suggestions were to “walk the flow” and “work shadow” by which he means both IT and legal walk through each other’s respective processes, and that an IT employee “shadows” a member of the legal department, and visa versa, so each department knows what each other does.  Funniest line in the whole conference: “The legal world is not binary.  ‘It depends’ is a valid legal response.” 

Note:  Steve will be at Masters Conference next week as part of a panel titled Bridging the Gap Between Forensics and Native Review.