Electronic Discovery LAW 612A

Course Number: LAW 612A

Course Credits: 2

During the past decade e-Discovery, or the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI), has radically transformed litigation practice. The days of merely searching through file cabinets to comply with discovery obligations have come to an end. For today’s litigants, extensive efforts to identify, preserve, collect, review and produce ESI are often required. Failure to take proper steps may result in crippling sanctions and incur tremendous unnecessary costs. Pace Law School’s Electronic Discovery Course is designed to provide students with the wide range of litigation skills needed to navigate today’s discovery-centric litigation environment.

This course will address the following:

  • The legal obligation of litigants to preserve potentially relevant ESI.
  • Recent e-Discovery case law and applicable rules of civil procedure.
  • The basics of document retention policies and IT practices.
  • Approaches to navigating evolving European privacy laws and related cross-border discovery obstacles.
  • Methods for efficiently searching and reviewing millions of emails and other electronic documents and for managing document review projects.
  • Approaches to propounding and responding to document requests.
  • The use and impact of social media in litigation.
  • Ethical concerns and the growing push for cooperation in discovery.
  • Structuring a defensible and cost-effective discovery plan.

The opportunity to gain practical experience is a substantial element of this course. Students will engage in mock exercises such as Rule 26 meet-and-confer conferences, IT personnel and document custodian interviews, depositions of corporate representatives, and oral arguments on discovery disputes. In addition, the course will feature guest lecturers on topics including e-Discovery vendor tools, computer forensics, and corporate in-house discovery perspectives.

In today’s digital world, “Every case is an e-Discovery case.” A solid understanding of e-Discovery is therefore a must for today’s litigators. Consequently, it is no surprise that e-Discovery has become a highly valued skill set by law firms, corporations and legal service providers.