Folks, we’ve come full circle!  The Legalweek(year) virtual event is being hosted next week, Tuesday, February 2nd through Thursday, February 4th!  And that’s not all – EDRM is hosting a two-day Expo next Monday, February 1st and Tuesday, February 2nd, with the annual Drinks with Doug and Mary!  Here’s a brief preview of both.

Legalweek(year)

You might be saying “Doug, what’s up with all of the words in today’s post graphic?”  This is the word cloud I generated from the agenda for next week’s event.  I (painstakingly) copied all of the session names and descriptions into an MS Word document (except for the Solutions Showcase sessions), removed a few common words like “will” and “can” and then generated a word cloud (using the free downloaded add-in Pro Word Cloud) of the top 80 words in the agenda titles and descriptions.  It’s a WORD cloud, get it?  😉  Anyway, I’ve done this several years in the past as an unscientific way of seeing the common trends for the educational topics at the conference.  A few observations:

• Talk about “BIG” data, the term “data” occurs 71 times in the agenda.  Only the term “legal” occurs more at 80 times (yes, I know, I think the term “data” looks bigger too – must be because the word cloud separated the capital and lowercase forms of “legal”).
• The term “eDiscovery” (which I standardized to that spelling for consistency purposes) occurs 32 times, so there are plenty of eDiscovery related topics in this year’s event.
• The term “AI” occurs 16 times (“artificial intelligence” occurs another 4 times), so there are certainly several sessions related to AI technology next week.
• The term “contract” occurs 30 times and there are several sessions related to contract review (including using AI to help with that) and contract management.  Evidently, in the year of the pandemic and force majeure, addressing contracts became an even larger issue than ever before.
• Other terms like “review” (24 times), “remote” (9 times), “governance” (9 times), “collaboration” (8 times), “compliance” (6 times), “preservation” (6 times), “security” and “cybersecurity” (11 times total) also figure prominently.

The complete agenda is here and it’s chock full of interesting looking sessions!  I will cover notable sessions next week each day of the event related to eDiscovery, cybersecurity and data privacy.

I’m excited to be a part of the session Privilege Review 2.0: Revamping the Privilege Review Workflow to Work for You hosted by H5 on Thursday, February 4 at 11:30AM – 12:30PM ET.  I’ll be moderating a terrific panel that includes Jeffrey Grobart from H5, Dawson Horn from AIG, Twanda Turner-Hawkins from Dematic Corp and KION Americas and Hon. Andrew Peck (ret.) from DLA Piper.  My second webinar in two weeks with Judge Peck!  Please join us!

I said we’ve come full circle because Legalweek last year was one of the last in-person events before the pandemic hit.  This year, it’s not just one virtual event – it’s five, on February 2-4, March 16, April 13, May 11 and July 13-14.  Hence, the Legalweek(year) descriptor (for this year, at least).

You can register for LIVE Only Access events for FREE.  If you want on-demand content and CLE credit, it’s only $299 for the entire week!  Here’s the link to register – there’s still time!

EDRM Expo

Speaking of “there’s still time”, it’s another virtual “Expo at the Echo”!  EDRM’s terrific virtual reality experience was such a hit last year, it’s back for Legalweek next Monday and Tuesday!

EDRM’s project teams and Global Advisory Council will be meeting on Monday and Tuesday in various meeting spaces.

But, in addition to that, EDRM will be hosting a Tech/Legal Jumpstart Dance Party and Networking on Monday 2/1 from 5pm ET to 7pm ET on the beach, with a DJ playing dance music sponsored by EDRM (and eDiscovery Today) partner HaystackID.  And our signature Drinks with Doug and Mary will happen from 4pm ET to 6pm ET on Tuesday 2/2.  It’s our fifth year, and something tells me that I’ll have a “hankering” for a Ruth’s Chris steak after that!  😉

There are plenty of tables, and private meeting spaces in the Expo Hall, on the Rooftop, at the Lighthouse and on the soccer field.  You will need to download the Event Farm world in advance and set up your avatar.  Then, you can dance, backflip and mingle with other legal tech and eDiscovery professionals!  You can register here for the EDRM Expo – all are welcome and it’s FREE!  Reach out to info@edrm.net for more information.

So, what do you think?  Are you attending Legalweek or the EDRM Expo next week?  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 authors and speakers themselves, 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.