GAINESVILLE, Fla. January 24, 2013 – With electronic discovery increasingly becoming a fact of life for all litigators, the University of Florida Levin College of Law and the Electronic Discovery Reference Model are offering a first-of-its-kind conference on this rapidly growing area of law.\r\n\r\n“Electronic Discovery for the Small and Medium Case” will be held on April 4-5, 2013 at the UF Law campus and will also be available as a live, online stream. A wide array of national experts will discuss how to competently and cost-effectively handle e-discovery in small and medium cases and will shed light on the latest developments in Florida and federal e-discovery rules. The conference also will feature demonstrations of the latest e-discovery software and tools for each phase of the e-discovery process, for matters ranging from the most humble lawsuit to the largest mega-case. The conference is part of the UF Law’s E-Discovery Project, and is underwritten by the International Center for Automated Information Research, a University of Florida Foundation established to promote innovation in information technology.\r\n\r\n“We’re very excited to be hosting this innovative conference,” said William Hamilton, UF Law’s newly appointed executive director of ICAIR and the UF Law E-Discovery Project. “As we live more and more of our lives online, e-discovery is quickly becoming an inevitable part of any litigation practice. Even the most routine cases today involve more digital data than some of the largest and most complex cases of just a few years ago. That is why we feel this conference will offer such great value to its attendees.”\r\n\r\nHamilton, who is also a partner at Quarles and Brady, LLP, an adjunct professor at UF Law, and dean of the Electronic Discovery Project Management Department at Bryan University, said this conference is distinguished from other e-discovery conferences in that it addresses practical applications of e-discovery in the types of cases lawyers deal with on a daily bases.\r\n\r\nRegistration is $199 for in-person participants or $99 for those who wish to attend via live stream. Each in-person participant will receive an e-discovery starter toolkit, giving them the chance to test for themselves tools they saw demonstrated at the conference. For complete registration information, visit www.law.ufl.edu/academics/ediscovery-conference.\r\n\r\n“This conference is a great opportunity for lawyers and their staff to get pragmatic insights from leading e-discovery practitioners, whether they attend in person or online,” said George Socha, co-founder of EDRM. “Add the starter e-discovery starter toolkits and this should be a stellar program.”\r\n\r\nAbout UF Law and the E-Discovery Project\r\n\r\nThe University of Florida Levin College of Law has a longstanding tradition of producing national leaders and is one of the nation’s best values in legal education. U.S. News & World Report ranks UF Law 25th among public law schools and 48th overall. The UF Law E-Discovery Project is a multidisciplinary endeavor to support the civil litigation process through electronic discovery law courses, research, the development of information retrieval method and tools, and skills training to practicing attorneys and litigation support professionals. More information on the UF Law E-Discovery Project is available at www.law.ufl.edu/academics/institutes/icair.\r\n\r\nAbout EDRM\r\n\r\nLaunched in May 2005, the EDRM Project was created to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the e-discovery market – a problem identified in the 2003 and 2004 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery surveys as a major concern for vendors and consumers alike. The completed reference model provides a common, flexible and extensible framework for the development, selection, evaluation and use of e-discovery products and services. Expanding on the base defined with the Reference Model, the EDRM projects now include nine projects including the Information Governance Reference Model project. Over the past eight years, the EDRM project has comprised more than 250 organizations, including 150 service and software providers, 61 law firms, three industry groups and 22 corporations involved with e-discovery. Information about EDRM is available at https://edrm.net.\r\n
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\r\nFor additional information:\r\nMatt Walker, UF Law Communications\r\n352-273-0650, mlwalker@law.ufl.edu
