The Case for E-Discovery Education in Law School

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The lament that law schools do not adequately prepare new lawyers for the actual practice of law is not a new one.  The refrain, however, seems more pronounced as the day-to-day practice of law becomes increasingly intertwined with technological concepts that have little place in most law school curricula.  This problem is particularly paramount in the field of e-discovery.  Although saddled with its own (dubious) moniker, e-discovery is really nothing more than discovery for the modern age.  When the world worked through paper, it made sense that discovery involved the exchange of hard copies.  Today, in a world governed through bits and bytes, it stands to reason that the information necessary to resolve disputes resides electronically.   Indeed, every lawsuit, big or small, is likely to involve electronically stored information (“ESI”) in one way or another.  Whether it is an antitrust matter involving data collections from hundreds of custodians or a divorce matter involving the social media accounts of two individuals, e-discovery has become the rule, not the exception.  Despite this, the vast majority of law schools do not teach e-discovery.  And those that do tend to offer it as a one off elective, rather than a component of their civil procedure or evidence courses. E-discovery is here to stay and new lawyers should be armed with the basic tools to issue spot, lest they run afoul of developing ethics opinions and state rules of professional conduct regarding technological competence.

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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