See what I did there?  😉  Necessity is the mother of invention is a famous proverb (attributed to Plato by some), but perhaps necessity is also the father of progress.  In his latest blog post on his excellent Ball in Your Court blog, Craig Ball discusses lawyers and legal professionals zooming into technical proficiency with Zoom and other collaboration tools once the pandemic began!

In his post The Great Pandemic Leap, Craig discusses how “Zoom and other collaboration tools have been around a long time”.  As of last Wednesday, April 21st, ten years in fact for Zoom itself.  However, many lawyers and legal professionals (one notable cat lawyer aside) were forced to get up to speed quickly on Zoom and other web conference platforms when the pandemic hit and many of us were forced to full time remote work.  The pandemic stopped meetings in the office conference room and stopped (or at least slowed for a while) in-person court appearances.  As Craig puts it, “[t]he ‘Ten Years in Ten Weeks’ great leap was enabled by compulsion, adoption and support.

‘Compulsion’ because we couldn’t meet face-to-face, and seeing faces (and slides and white boards) is important.

‘Adoption’ because so many embraced Zoom and its ilk that we suddenly enjoyed a common meeting place.

‘Support’ because getting firms and families up and running on Zoom et al. became a transcendent priority.”

If that last one was “Technical Support”, then the acronym would be “CAT” and you could say that all lawyers are “CAT” lawyers.  😉

One of the things that Craig points out in his article that many people don’t realize is that not only did Zoom fill the gap for legal professionals needing to continue their meetings and court appearances, it also filled the gap for eDiscovery identification, preservation and collection.  When forensic technicians couldn’t be there in person, they could hop on a Zoom meeting with the custodian and work with them to acquire remote control of the custodian’s workstation.  No need to be there in person!  And Zoom supports the ability for an iPhone, iPad or Android device to jump onto a Zoom meeting (either directly through a downloaded app or via a plugin that links to an existing Zoom meeting).   As Craig says: “I can confidently say I’m never going back to the old normal when I can do the work as well via Zoom.”

You can check out Craig’s post here. “Ten Years in Ten Weeks” for zooming into technical proficiency, huh?  Now, if we can only figure out how to move the eDiscovery technology proficiency forward.  Heck, I’d even settle for Twenty Years in Twenty Weeks!  You could argue that we need that much time to catch up on eDiscovery competence. All we need to do is to convince lawyers of the necessity, which (in my opinion and others) is already there.

So, what do you think?  What do you think it will take to get lawyers zooming into technical proficiency for eDiscovery?  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.