In the immortal words of Frank Costanza (played by the late Jerry Stiller), this year, it’s truly a “Festivus for the rest of us”!  Relativity Fest starts today, and, like any conference these days, it’s a virtual conference this year.  But, not only that – this year, Relativity has decided to provide the conference free to all attendees!

Relativity Fest runs for the next three days and offers over 100 sessions.  Including General sessions such as the Opening Keynote from Mike Gamson, CEO, and Chris Brown, Chief Product Officer of Relativity today at 9am CT, the conference includes tracks for Law Firms, Corporate, Government, Compliance, Product, Dev Ex, CLE/CPD, Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging (ID+B), The Latest from the Relativity Academic Program and the International Update.  There are also various breakout sessions and networking events, including “Cards Against Relativity”, “Top Chef Cooking Class”, trivia, wine tasting and more!

I asked David Horrigan, Discovery Counsel & Legal Education Director of Relativity about what to expect for this year’s first virtual conference and he said:

“We always strive to have something for everyone at Relativity Fest, and this year we’ve taken it to a new level.  The pandemic required us to go virtual, and it’s been a challenging year for many of our friends and colleagues in the e-discovery community, so we made Fest free to be more inclusive.  The result is the largest Relativity Fest ever with over 6,000 registrants and counting!”

“We’ll have Product Education sessions for you to get under the hood of Relativity, in-depth information on our new Aero UI, exciting news on giving back to the community, and—something useful for readers of eDiscovery Today—a selection of continuing legal education sessions, including our 7th Annual Judicial Panel and our Legal and Industry Education Track.”

“We’ve tried to think outside the box on CLEs, too. We have our traditional programs such as the International Panel and Mobile and Social Media Law, and we’re bringing back our General Counsel Survey with FTI Technology, but we have new sessions such as Wellness 101 for Legal Teams, which will include a mindfulness meditation by Ruth Hauswirth of Cooley LLP. We’ve also teamed up with our Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging team to bring you a CLE session, Legal Landmarks Affecting Social Movements and Marginalized Communities, featuring Justice Tanya R. Kennedy, Dean Wendy Collins Perdue of the University of Richmond School of Law, and James Sandman of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who is also president emeritus of the Legal Service Corporation.”

Over 6,000 registrants – and counting!  It truly is a “Festivus for the rest of us”!  Certainly, since it’s free, there’s still time to register if you haven’t and you can do so here.  Also, if you want more info about the conference this year, you can check out the FAQ here.

Certainly, in addition to the Opening Keynote, the Annual Judicial Panel at 9am CT on Tuesday will be interesting as always, with the Honorable Joy Flowers Conti, Senior U.S. District Judge (W.D. Pa.); the Honorable Tanya Kennedy, Justice, New York State Supreme Court; the Honorable William Matthewman, U.S. Magistrate Judge (S.D. Fla.); the Honorable Victoria McCloud, Master, High Court of England and Wales and the Honorable Xavier Rodriguez, U.S. District Judge (W.D. Tex.) and moderated (as always) by David Horrigan. 

Also, on Wednesday at 9am CT, Relativity will host its annual Innovation Awards and, this afternoon, I’ll begin publishing my interview with the CEO of one of the nominees – Marc Zamsky at Compliance.

By the way, yesterday was my tenth anniversary as a daily blogger!  Hard to believe it’s been ten years.  I’m very grateful to everybody who has followed my blogging over the years and have helped me get this blog off to a great start!  Not sure how many more years I’ll be able to do this, but, as always, I’ll take it one day at a time and go from there!  :o)

So, what do you think?  Are you attending the virtual Relativity Fest this year?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.