Weekly Letter to Our EDRM Global Community

Letter to the EDRM Global Community, 16 December 2025, EDRM. — Image: Holley Robinson, EDRM.

Dearest EDRM Community,

Word of the week: Preparation

In legal tech last week, we mustered our final strength for the year-end and started looking forward to the holiday season.

Join us on Tuesday, December 16, as we host the ceremony honoring the 2025 Gayle O’Connor Spirit Award recipient and finalists.
Mary Mack, EDRM.

Let’s remain united in our support for each other. For support or to assist a colleague, contact us at info@edrm.net and join our weekly Community Support Call, now in its sixth year.

On the EDRM Blog:

Upcoming Webinars on the EDRM Global Webinar Channel:

16 December 2025, 1 PM ET– Presentation of the 2025 Winner of the GO Spirit Award
17 December 2025, 1 PM ET – Simplify Internal Investigations with Guardian Collaborate for Enterprise
18 December 2025, 1 PM ET – Most Important eDiscovery Case Law Rulings of 2025
26 January 2026, 1 PM ET – Microsoft 365 Copilot | Key eDiscovery and Information Governance Considerations for In-House Legal Teams

Updates from Around the Globe:

Global Legal Tech Developments: Disney signed an agreement with OpenAI and sent a cease and desist to Google. Apple left an industry group because of its lax approach to privacy. The US signed an executive order to prevent states from regulating AI and proposed asking foreign tourists about their social media history. Reddit sued Australia over its social media age limit. An Arizona city rejected an AI datacenter. ChatGPT was sued for wrongful death in a murder-suicide. Doxers posing as police social engineered private data out of large firms. Courts are determining how to punish lawyers for hallucinations. Firms are merging, in-house teams are tightening their standard operating procedures to reduce risk, and Harvey’s co-founders answered an AMA (Ask Me Anything).
International eDiscovery Trends: Chris Boehning and Daniel Toal of Paul Weiss analyzed a Third Circuit decision on taxing eDiscovery costs for Law.com. The Epstein files are being released. Hardware prices are rising again. TVs are getting smarter about tracking, so we need to be smarter about how they work and how to turn tracking off.

Thank you to eDiscovery Today’s* Doug Austin for filling his Kitchen Sink with EDRM bloggers: Mike Berman on What Connects “Popcorned Planet” and Ms. Blake Lively? and ComplexDiscovery’s* Rob Robinson on From Lab Errors to Data Lakes: The One-Percent-Per-Hop Problem in eDiscovery and The New Currency of Expertise: How ‘Prompt Marketing’ Is Redefining the White Paper. Doug always includes Aaron Patton’s Gates Dogfish hysterical memes.

*EDRM Trusted Partner
World Events Impacting Legal Tech: A mass shooting in Australia at the beginning of Hanukkah killed 15 people. NATO announced its preparation for war with Russia. Bulgaria’s government resigned after anti-corruption protests. Thailand also dissolved its government during its border crisis. Germany summoned the Russian Ambassador over hybrid attacks. Japan survived another major earthquake. A Nobel Prize-winning women’s rights advocate was arrested in Iran. Venezuela’s Nobel Prize winner dedicated her award to President Trump.

Catch our latest syndicated EDRM Global Podcast Network episodes on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, and more.

**Recent Illumination Zone Podcasts:**

Recent guests include Nate Latessa, Greg Moreman, Justin Tolman, Capri Miller, and Alex Walstad.

Recent Echoes of AI Podcast:

EDRM Announcements:

EDRM will be hosting the Gayle O’Connor SPIRIT Award ceremony on December 16, 2025, at 1 PM ET.
Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell hosted EDRM’s Mary Mack on the Kennedy-Mighell report, the longest-running legal tech podcast.
EDRM will be celebrating the holidays from December 19 through January 6, 2026. As always, we will hold our Tuesday support call.

Weekly Community Support Call: Join us every Tuesday at 6PM Eastern on Zoom for support and camaraderie. Email info@edrm.net for an invitation to our 304th call. For mental health care, consider these professional resources.

All are welcome,
Mary and Holley

Email*

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P.S. This update was assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies as per EDRM GAI and LLM Policy.

Authors

Mary Mack

Mary Mack is the CEO and Chief Legal Technologist for EDRM. Mary was the co-editor of the Thomson Reuters West Treatise, eDiscovery for Corporate Counsel for 10 years and the co-author of A Process of Illumination: the Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery. She holds the CISSP among her certifications.

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Holley Robinson

Holley Robinson is the Senior Marketing Operations Manager for EDRM and ComplexDiscovery OÜ. She supports social media strategy, podcast and webinar production, and content management for EDRM while also overseeing updates to ComplexDiscovery’s industry-recognized eDisclosure Buyers Guide and assisting with their social media and content efforts. A recent graduate of Texas Tech University with a background in marketing, Holley began her journey in eDiscovery as an intern with EDRM and now contributes to amplifying valuable resources for the eDiscovery community.

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