A couple of months ago, we found out that the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) has shifted this year’s ILTACON 2020 meeting to a fully-virtual conference called ILTA>ON.  Well, believe it or not, that starts in less than 3 weeks (less than 2 1/2 even)!  Here’s what we know so far.

This year’s ILTA>ON virtual conference will be five full days of “inspiring and informative legal technology and professional education. Attendees will qualify for self-reported accreditations, partake in unique networking and social opportunities, and end with actionable takeaways and impactful connections”.

So, why didn’t ILTA consider just moving the in-person conference to a different time of year?  As they note in their FAQ, “[m]oving the date of ILTACON in 2020 was not an available option. ILTACON 2021 – 2025 already have venue contracts and producing two ILTACON events in a single year is not operationally viable. Additionally, our focus groups and surveys revealed travel bans throughout 2020 for the majority of our member entities.”

There you have it.  Other than the fact that the conference is virtual this year, there will still be a lot of educational opportunities.  ILTA has published their session grid for the five day conference here and it looks like there will be lots of good sessions.  I’m excited to be participating in one of those – Clawbacks, Redactions, and Formats…Oh My! on Wednesday, August 26th at 12:45pm CT.  I’ll be participating with Rachel McAdams (no, not that one), eDiscovery Technical Specialist with A&L Goodbody; Cristin Traylor, Discovery Counsel with McGuire Woods LLP and Cindy MacBean, Litigation Support Manager with Honigman LLP (who will be moderating).  We’ll be discussing latest trends and best practices with regard to “clawbacks” of ESI and redactions of privileged and sensitive information.

In the next few days, I’ll also be writing a full preview about litigation support/eDiscovery/cybersecurity/data privacy sessions that you might be interested in checking out.  So, stay tuned!

Also, on Tuesday, ILTA issued a press release announcing the finalists for the 2020 Distinguished Peer Awards program, which recognizes ILTA peers who have delivered great business value and transformational impact through their innovations and implementations or have been champions in specific areas of focus for their organizations.  As always, there are some very deserving individual and firm nominees for these awards – including a few I’ve worked with in the past, such as Ray Zwiefelhofer, President of Worldox, Julie Brown, Director of Practice Technology at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP and David Greetham, Vice President of eDiscovery, Ricoh USA, Inc. – but I digress.  😉  Regardless, take note of the nominees as they are the people and organizations who help make the ILTA conference (regardless of format) possible every year.

Member day passes are just $99 with full-week passes for only $350! ($199 and $599 for non-members.)  So, that’s one good thing – a lot less expensive than an in-person conference for plenty of activities and education!  Click here to get tickets.  They even plan fun virtual social opportunities like wine tastings, walking tours, cooking classes, and games!

It will be interesting to see what happens with our first major conference of the year converted to a virtual conference (at least that I know of).  Get used to it – at least for a while.

So, what do you think?  Are you planning to attend this year’s virtual ILTA>ON?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*Apparently, WordPress doesn’t like “>” characters in blog post titles; hence the substitution to “-“.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.