edisclosure myth or reality?

Finished my dissertation on 27th January! Then off I went to NY. Met up with old friends and also found new friends at the Juris Conference: Electronic Disclosure in International Arbitration. Now back in London and went for a job interview today?! Any other offers?

Had the famous ‘juniors’ cheese cakes at the Grand Central Station .Went to a great Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown with my old friend. Did some shopping and took pics at the WTC site. NY is not NY without the sushi restaurants. I had sushi & more sushi and also had an authentic sushi experience with a new friend from Tokyo who was also at the Juris Conference.

Mmm… The Conference was pretty low key for me I guess I was looking for ‘answers’ to the items listed in the working sessions (4 sessions). The panelists are on the whole, subject matter experts in their own fields and like all great debates, answers are never obvious or directly discernible. In a nutshell, my own observation;

Session 1:

Good summary of ediscovery issues from the litigation camp. The ‘reality’ of international arbitration procedures and the lack of discovery don’t ‘quite’ translate or make sense to the litigation camp. The listed items for consideration was lost in ‘translation’ as the two camps just don’t see eye to eye on discovery let alone ediscovery/edisclosure.

I was rather disappointed (as I was hoping to get ‘answers’ to the item on ‘steps in e-disclosure’) but not disheartened. In fact I was rather bemused with the divergent views between the panelists and the Discussion Leader.

Coffee break:

I sat at the end of the 3rd Row on the right hand side of the room and the gentleman who sat at the front of the 3rd Row was Mr Chuck Ragan. I was indeed surprised to ‘bump’ into Mr Ragan during break as his name was mentioned to me by another Sedona member. I introduced myself and we had a brief chat.

Session 2:

Interesting remarks from the panelists. Not sure whether the items for consideration were ‘considered’ during the discussion as I decided not to follow the items listed under the agenda (so as not to get disappointed!). Jail & toothbrush were mentioned (that bad!) and ‘driving the train’ metaphor was used to describe the ‘control’, ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’ approaches between in-house and external counsel (& also IT department). Rather confusing for me! I detected the tension between ‘disclosure’ & ‘non-disclosure’ like between the in-house & external counsel. Who to trust? Can the in-house counsel ‘trust’ the external counsel to not derail the train? Somehow the panelists (litigation focused) probably didn’t take into consideration that in international arbitration, the parties in dispute are the ‘drivers of the train’.

One message which I picked up was the issue with ‘collection of ESI’ especially in an international setting. This was reassuring as my dissertation actually stated this message too.

Lunch break:

Great food & company too. I mentioned Queen Mary College & Prof. Mistelis to a lawyer at my table & he said he knew QM & have heard about Prof. Mistelis. Great stuff! Had interesting chat and exchanges with more lawyers.

Session 3:

Session was too boring and nothing worth remembering & my mind simply dozed away.

Coffee break:

Had several cups of coffee to stay awake!

Session 4:

The only session on international arbitration?! Excellent leading by Mr Ragan and interesting questions posed by the panelists. Lots of questions and no clear answers. The outcome – ‘The future seems full of opportunities rather than issues or challenges’.