You might think there’s nothing funny about eDiscovery, but Gates Dogfish manages to find the humor in our crazy eDiscovery world!

Having enjoyed several of his memes (including the one above), I reached out to him on LinkedIn before the holidays to see if he would be interested in a story about him. You may have guessed that his real name isn’t “Gates Dogfish”. As “Gates” put it:

“Gates is my alter ego and creative outlet in a pressure cooker industry that feels like it doesn’t have many avenues to say the things I want to say. As a result, I do this wearing a mask.”

As for his general background, he says: “I’ve been in the law and discovery for 20+ years, and my roles have included just about everything in the eDiscovery space: from contract document review to litigation associate, from eDiscovery project manager to sales engineer/’demo guy.’”

So, he has considerable direct eDiscovery experience behind his memes. Where did the idea of “Gates Dogfish” come from? Here’s what he said about that:

“In August of 2022, @LitigationGod memes exploded into my LinkedIn feed and I was hooked. ‘I could do this for eDiscovery!’

So Gates Dogfish was born on August 12, 2022, and I guess I struck a nerve because my posts crossed 100,000 impressions on December 1, 2022 – which also happens to be eDiscovery Day.”

Dang! 100K impressions in less than 4 months?!? That’s impressive!

He added: “The name Gates Dogfish comes from an Apple “Hide my Email” suggestion. Those email address suggestions are gold! Runners-up were Heckle Giddier, Lambkin Suede, and Tootsie Oaths.

Instead of long-form writing, I was attracted to memes because they are these perfect little barbs to poke at a crazy process, pull at its many threads, and expose the daily absurdity of eDiscovery life.”

You can check out his LinkedIn page (and connect, of course) here. Here are a few examples of his hilarious memes!

Some times it be like that.

They say, “Sink or swim,” but it’s all sinking around here…

Happens so often I should have a canned email response…

ME: 100%. Production is FINAL FINAL. They promised.

HOSTING: Ok. Here goes version 5.

ME: *1 Hour Later* You’re not going to believe this…

Had this meeting way too many times…

Kudos, “Gates” for finding humor in the eDiscovery challenges we all deal with! Hope you get 1 million impressions in 2023!

P.S.: I don’t know his real name either. 🙂

So, what do you think? Were you familiar with the memes of Gates Dogfish? You are now! 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.