An interview with Dean Lawrence Center, Nicole Steckman and Bob Eisenberg of the CLE Division of Georgetown University Law Center

This interview is part of our series “Data! Data! Data!” — Cures for a General Counsel’s ESI Nightmares”, thought leaders in e-discovery and ESI management.   For our introduction to the series  click here.

The Georgetown University Law Center Department of Academic Conferences and Continuing Legal Education, aka Georgetown Law CLE, are the folks that bring us the Advanced E-Discovery Institute, the E-Discovery Training Academy and the Corporate Counsel Institute, amongst other relevant programs.  The brain trust behind it all is composed of Dean Lawrence Center (Larry to his friends) and Nicole Steckman – with pride of place going to Bob Eisenberg.   

Larry Center is Assistant Dean for Academic Conferences and Continuing Legal Education at the Law Center. He has overseen this department since 1985. Georgetown operates the largest national CLE program of any law school in the United States, including major annual conferences in corporate, real estate, bankruptcy, civil rights, state and local tax, tax-exempt organizations, international trade, antitrust and intellectual property law. The department also works closely with Georgetown Law professors on the planning and execution of academic symposia on a variety of scholarly subjects.  

Dean Center has been working in the field of continuing legal education since 1980, and is considered to be one of the leaders of the CLE industry. He is a former President of the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) and a founding member and former Chair of the Section on Continuing Legal Education of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He has spoken on many continuing education issues at conferences and seminars throughout the United States and Europe, and has published numerous papers on adult learning topics. He consults on management and leadership issues for law firms, law schools and legal organizations, and teaches “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” course for Georgetown University employees as part of the University’s Management Certificate Program. Dean Center is a 1974 graduate of the Law Center and a former member of the American Criminal Law Review. He received his B.A. from Syracuse University (Phi Beta Kappa) and is a member of the District of Columbia and Maryland Bars. 

Nicole Steckman is the Director of Marketing and Business Development for Georgetown Law CLE, where she oversees all marketing campaigns for programs and publications.  Nicole is also responsible for the creation and negotiation of contracts and joint venture agreements for the department.  Prior to moving to Washington, DC, she worked for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association as the CLE Director and the Kansas Bar Association as a Program Coordinator.   She earned her B.A. from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas and her M.S. from Georgetown University.  

Bob Eisenberg has a special relationship with Georgetown University Law which we will get to shortly.  Bob is Vice President for Consulting Services for Planet Data, and was formerly Vice President of E-Discovery Consulting at Capital Legal Solutions.  He is also a former Principal in the Discovery Services Practice Group of the international consulting firm Navigant Consulting in Washington DC. 

But we won’t stop there.  Bob has over 30 years experience in the practice of law and the rendering of consultative services relating to the discovery of Electronically Stored Information (ESI), computer forensics, ‘proactive” electronic data preservation and retention and traditional paper-based litigation support services.    He frequently conducts seminars, CLE courses and other presentations on the subjects of e-discovery, computer forensics and electronic records management.  Amongst other professional roles, Bob has functioned in the capacity of an expert to Special Masters and professional development lecturer in electronic discovery, computer forensics and data preservation and retention for law firms through-out the United States. He has been a guest seminar leader at such firms as Williams & Connolly, Davis Polk, Holland & Knight, Dewey LeBoeuf, Weil Gotshal, and many others.   

And he is a founding member of  The Sedona Conference Working Group on Best Practices for Electronic Document Retention & Production (SWG), and has contributed in the creation of white papers on best practices for electronic data discovery and electronic record management for SWG.  

We caught up with all three on the campus of Georgetown Law Center. 

TPL:   The Advanced E-Discovery Institute at The Georgetown University Law Center.  What participants call “the intellectual’s e-discovery conference” which we had the good fortune to attend this past fall (for our coverage click here).  Larry, tell us how it started. 

LC:     Much of the good fortune experienced by the Advanced E-Discovery Law is due to Bob.  Bob approached me with the idea for the Institute following his participation in a different Georgetown CLE program in 2002.  At the time, we were the first national provider to host an e-discovery program.  Others have since joined us.  However, we remain the first and only national law school conducting an annual e-discovery conference.   

BE: Larry, thank you.  We know it couldn’t be accomplished without you and the terrific CLE Team implementing my original idea. 

TPL:   And Bob had a large part in its creation, yes? 

LC:     Correct.  Bob got it all started with assistance from the Sedona Conference and their members.  It then evolved in 2003 to have its own national advisory board. 

TPL:   The E-Discovery Training Academy is a separate program established by Georgetown CLE to provide comprehensive practical training in, more or less, the entire spectrum of e-discovery…Legal strategies, technological services, etc.  

LC:     [with a smile] Yes, again Bob’s idea.  The Advanced Institute is geared toward the experienced practitioner.  And we realized that we were leaving an entire demographic out.  With that in mind, we developed the Training Academy to teach the ropes of the practice of e-discovery to lawyers and practice support professionals.  

BE: It is important to note that the Academy is an offshoot of the Institute. 

TPL:   We’ll get to the Academy a bit later in this interview.  Let’s hear more about how the Institute was started. 

LC: Sure, what would you like to know?    

TPL:   The involvement/relationships of the university, e-discovery vendors, law firms, e-discovery luminaries.  I imagine Georgetown needs to be careful with relationships, presenters, etc.  What are the criteria to participate? 

LC: That’s correct.  The Institute has an Advisory Board comprised of the leading experts in the field of e-discovery and most of them have a strong relationship with Georgetown.  The Board has the authority to determine the agenda and the faculty members.  They are charged with selecting not only the most knowledgeable speakers, but those with outstanding public speaking skills as well. 

NS: Considering we are part of a major law school, the politics are a little different than with a private business or other entity.  We believe one of the features that sets us apart, in addition to being the only national law school providing such a course, is we do not participate in “pay to play”.  As Larry mentioned, our goal is to provide the best and the brightest as faculty members at the Institute. 

TPL:   Well, I can say that it was one of the best conferences we’ve attended on e-discovery and that is based on the content covered, the experts/luminaries in the e-discovery field that spoke on the panels, and the interaction between the audience and the panels plus the informal sessions.  And that all-star U.S. judicial panel you had was great.  The judges participated on multiple panels, and even sat in on many of the sessions and provided input — both from the panels and from the audience in sessions they weren’t speaking at — and they made themselves available during the breaks and informal sessions.  It was a great “hands on learning” e-discovery experience. 

NS:  Thank you, Greg!  The kudos are greatly appreciated.  I’m thinking you might just be quoted in our next brochure as calling the Institute “a great hands on learning e-discovery experience.” 

TPL:   And frankly any conference that has Jonathan Redgrave running up and down the aisles with a microphone for questions from the audience is pretty classy. 

BE: Well, we are a working board.  We need to be certain that we earn our keep. 

TPL:   There were 18 sessions/panels and we could not cover them all.  We tried to focus on those most relevant to our readership, as diverse as it is.  But the program was incredibly thorough.  We had panels that provided an e-discovery case law update, a thorough discussion of unified communications (a bit of game changer in e-discovery), advanced search and retrieval technology panels, how e-discovery is handled in Federal Investigations, cross-border e-discovery and international data issues, to name just a few.

LC: We make a concentrated effort to stay on the cutting edge.  The Advisory Board meets annually to review the previous Institute and determine the hot topics of the moment.  Speaking of that, we just returned from that meeting at the end of last month, where the board brainstormed a list of potential topics for the 2010 Institute.  The planning committee, composed of the board members, will then cull it down to what you see as the final agenda.  

TPL:   But whereas early case assessment (ECA) was the mantra in 2009 —winnowing relevant data down to reduce the number of documents to review —  it looks like the “new new think” or emphasis in 2010 is predictive coding and the cloud, areas that were touched upon at last year’s session.  And recent developments in computer assisted review as evidenced by the study by Patrick Oot and Anne Kershaw (both participants at AEI last year) “Document Categorization in Legal Electronic Discovery: Computer Classification vs. Manual Review”.  Will there me a focus in 2010 on these areas? 

LC: [As he flips through the lists mentioned] It looks like cloud computing was a recurring topic as well as international or cross border e-discovery and criminal issues such as the FCPA. 

TPL:   Where else might you expand the program? 

BE: I’d like to see a separate track focused on litigation support professionals, as they are a critical and often over-looked player in the e-discovery processes. 

TPL:   Any thoughts about an Advanced E-Discovery Institute in Europe? 

LC: Perhaps; we definitely have some board members with a strong involvement in Europe and cross border issues.  Georgetown Law has placed a strong emphasis on transnational issues, and this is something I think our Dean would be interested in. We definitely have not ruled out the possibility. 

NS:  Good thing I made certain my passport was just renewed.  Sounds like travels may be in my future. 

TPL:   And what do you think is at the forefront of the e-discovery education process, the most important thing, the biggest challenge? 

LC: Bob, I’ll need to defer to you on this one. 

BE: Right now – I see the biggest challenge as balancing cost effective services with the need to “get it right.”

TPL:   Let’s chat about the E-Discovery Training Academy.  Don’t tell me: Bob again. 

LC:     [laughing]  Well, sort of.  Bob is quite the idea man.  We consulted with the Advisory Board as well as a focus group of litigation support managers at firms from across the country to see if there was a need for training and if we could help fill it.  The answer was a resounding yes and then we proceeded with the planning of the first Academy, held last year. 

TPL:   Can you detail the program for us? 

LC: Nicole brought this up earlier, but one of our goals is to remain as neutral as possible.  There are not service providers near the coffee or sponsors of materials or meals.  The program is focused on providing participants with an unbiased training explaining the nexus of technology and the law.  

NS:  I think it’s also important to mention that we follow the NITA model of “learning by doing” at the Academy.  It’s a hands-on process that keeps all the participants engaged.  There are some moments of lecture, but it’s not a week of  lecture eight hours a day.  Instead, it’s broken up with group exercises, demos and whatever else our creative faculty members develop to assist in achieving their learning objectives.

TPL:   Now, Nicole.  The Georgetown E-Discovery Law blog.  Well-designed, excellent content.  This is your creation? 

NS:     Well, thank you for the compliment.  It’s one of the projects I value most.  As part of a law school we’re in a unique position to further the knowledge base available on e-discovery.  And having the Georgetown Law name helps greatly in doing so. 

TPL:   Ah, so its primary function is to serve as an educational resource. 

NS:     Exactly. 

TPL:   Any expansion plans? 

NS:  As long as Bob and Larry are working together, I’m sure there will always be expansion plans in the background to keep me busy.  At one point, we have talked about establishing an E-Discovery Institute.  This would be a separate entity at the Law Center offering multiple training initiatives and a library of resources, including a journal.   

TPL:   Lastly, I’d like to ask about the Corporate Counsel Institute and your push into London this year. I understand this is new. 

LC: That’s right.  We’d like to build on the success of the Annual Corporate Counsel Institute, which has been held at the Law Center every March for the past 15 years.   The first Corporate Counsel Institute-Europe agenda will follow in the footsteps of the US iteration by including key government officials, leading attorneys and corporate counsel from major and international corporations as both speakers and participants.  Hope you can join us, Greg, on April 15 and 16 in London! 

TPL:   Nicole, Bob, Larry:  we greatly appreciate your time. 

LC:     Well, it was a pleasure, Greg.  We appreciate the opportunity to work you in the future.  And thank you for the great summaries of the Institute.             

Postscript:  You can find the latest program schedule including information about the next E-Discovery Training Academy and Corporate Counsel-Europe by clicking here.

The Posse List will be in London April 15th and 16th to cover Corporate Counsel Institute-Europe.

 

Reported by:  Gregory P. Bufithis, Esq, Founder and Chairman,  The Posse List